Tammy 3 November 1979

Cover artist: John Richardson

Bella (artist John Armstrong)

My Terrible Twin (artist Juliana Buch)

Sarita in Uniform (artist Diane Gabbot(t))

Temper, Temper, Tina! (artist Giorgio Giorgetti)

Bessie Bunter (artist Arthur Martin)

Molly Mills and the Gipsy’s Curse – final episode (artist Douglas Perry, Maureen Spurgeon)

The Sea Dragon – Strange Story (artist Julio Bosch)

Wee Sue (artist Robert MacGillivray)

Edie the Ed’s Niece (artist Joe Collins)

Guitar Girl (artist Angeles Felices)

Tuck-In with Tammy – feature 

For Halloween, we profile the Tammy Halloween issue for 1979 (though it is dated Novemer and not October). It is the last time the Cover Girls celebrate Halloween on the cover. This time the following year, they were gone. 

Inside, Wee Sue and Bessie Bunter are going to Halloween parties. Things don’t exactly go without a hitch for either of them, but everything works out in the end. Less so for Edie, who goes to a Halloween party in a cat costume but finds herself being chased by dogs! Molly’s tale, “The Gipsy’s Curse”, has a spooky theme to it, which adds to the Halloween theme. Gipsies have put a spell on Pickering to make him do what they want, but now it’s making him too nice for his own good. Molly decides Pickering has to be returned to normal, bullying and all. 

The Storyteller could have gone with a Halloween theme, but instead he gives a cautionary tale about not meddling with things you don’t understand. Two sisters on the island of Cumba resurrect the costume of the Sea Dragon of Cumba, ignoring warnings that they don’t understand its power or what it is supposed to be used for – which is not exactly for attracting the tourism their father wants.

Guitar Girl Jacey Jones also has a party theme. She has been hired to entertain at a posh girl’s birthday party but soon discovers it’s no party for her. The snobbish mother disapproves of her presence and – horrors! – has hired her nasty arch-rival Sabrina to entertain as well! If that weren’t bad enough, Sabrina pulls a dirty trick on Jacey to make her look a thief and snobby mum’s screaming for the police. How can Jacey prove her innocence? 

Bella has been fostered by a rich couple, but they have a real thing about gymnastics for some reason, which is the mystery of the story. Their disapproval has driven her to go to a gymnastics club behind their backs, under a false name, but this week Bella’s jealous rivals at the club have found her out. Uh-oh, looks like blackmail is about to be added to Bella’s problems.

“Temper, Temper, Tina!”, now on its penultimate episode, and “Sarita in Uniform” also have girls driven to do things in secret. Sarita, a gypsy girl, is going to school behind her gypsy guardians’ backs. They don’t approve of education or even gypsy traditions. Tina, a brilliant athlete with a short fuse, has been dodging school for ages. But why is she doing it, and where has she been in all that time? Everyone’s about to find out in the final episode next week, as things are clearly coming to a head now. 

“My Terrible Twin” is the sequel to an earlier serial by the same name. Moira and Lindy are fraternal twins. In the first story (reprinted by popular demand in 1984), Lindy was the terrible twin. She had served time for shoplifting but had still not reformed or learned responsibility, with the long-suffering Moira trying to keep her on the straight and narrow. But this time the terrible twin is Moira, who accidentally winds up on the ship where Lindy has a job and is playing tricks Lindy because she mistakenly thinks Lindy has developed a snobby attitude over her job. And, as the story carries on, this proves to be only the beginning of a long line of misunderstandings that have Moira making Lindy’s life a misery.

Tammy 29 October 1977

Cover artist: John Richardson

Bella (artist John Armstrong)

Down to Earth Blairs (artist José Casanovas)

No Place for Children (artist Eduardo Feito)

Melanie’s Mob (artist Edmond Ripoll) – final episode

Bessie Bunter

The Bird of Wisdom – the Strange Story

Selena Sitting Pretty (artist Diane Gabbot(t))

Say Hallo to Hallowe’en! – feature 

Wee Sue (artist John Richardson)

Rowena and the Realms of Night (artist Peter Wilkes)

We continue our Halloween theme with the Tammy Halloween issue from 1977. One of our Cover Girls is enjoying a Halloween party while something else appears to be enjoying her Tammy as much as she does. The Cover Girls years were very enjoyable for celebrating Halloween, Easter, Guy Fawkes and other occasions in light-hearted and often amusing ways. Inside, there is also a feature on Halloween customs.  

Wee Sue and her family have a day at the races. Sue takes a punt on a horse called Autumn Springer, which prompts Miss Bigger to do the same. Then Miss Bigger unwittingly causes Autumn Springer to bolt. They have to do something fast or lose their punts and the things they want to buy with them. 

In the Strange Story, Jean Regan is a brain, and there always seems to be a bird hanging around her when she does academic wonders. But her brains make her a know-all and show-off, and she becomes unpopular. She chases the bird off and finds she is reduced to middling scholar, but now she’s more popular and happy.

It’s the final episode of the popular “Melanie’s Mob”. Its replacement next week is a Giorgio Giorgetti story, “C.L.A.R.A.”, about a computer utilised to improve the declining sporting and academic achievements of Glumthorpe Comprehensive. But is it really the answer? In girls’ comics, computers have a track record of bringing their own problems. Anyway, we begin to find out in the Guy Fawkes issue.

Bessie has to prove her strength for a bet, with a treat at the tuck shop if she wins. Bessie tries to win the bet by cheating (naughty, naughty) but in the end wins (accidentally) by using her bulk as strength.

Betsy Blair’s father is opting for “The Good Life”, living off the land and bartering, after being made redundant. Betsy is finding the change very hard and demeaning when she has been used to such a posh, comfortable life. Plus a snobby neighbour is taking the mick out of her over it and a lot of classmates are laughing. Betsy invites them over for homemade scones, but it’s another big humiliation for her when Mum puts chicken feed in the scones by mistake. At this, Betsy cracks up and screams at her parents.

Bella’s at a Russian gymnastics college, which is going much better for her than in 1975, when a jealous pupil got her expelled before she’d hardly begun. But it looks like jealousy is rearing its ugly head again at a competition: Bella’s doing her floor routine and feels something sharp and painful in her shoe. 

“No Place for Children” – no, not a place where children are banned or is not appropriate for them. It’s a place where all the children are missing. Terri Jennings keeps hearing strange whispers from the adults that it’s somehow connected with wealth they expect to receive, the old quarry that has been sealed off, and kids gossiping.  

Selena Sitting Pretty, our girl pretending to be in a wheelchair at school, has struck another problem – some toughs have thrown her wheelchair into the river and she can’t get it out. She has to continue pretending being crippled to her schoolmates while thinking of a way to retrieve the wheelchair. She succeeds both ways and is sitting pretty again after this close shave. 

In “Rowena and the Realms of Night”, the sequel to “Rowena and the Doves”, Rowena has to rescue her brother Asser, who is in the power of the Nightqueen and her daughter Princess Ygerna. He doesn’t even realise what’s happening to him, and there are only three days left to rescue him. This week Rowena and her companions get trapped in the Caverns of Endless Night. The Caverns are so dark nobody can find their way out unless they are guided by a human voice. 

Tammy 30 October 1976

Cover artist: John Richardson

Bella at the Bar (artist John Armstrong)

Towne in the Country (artist Mario Capaldi)

Sally in a Shell (artist unknown, writer Terence Magee)

Wee Sue (artist John Richardson)

Edie the Ed’s Niece (artist Joe Collins)

Bessie Bunter

Molly Mills and the Music Hall (artist Tony Thewenetti, writer Maureen Spurgeon) – final episode

The Final Fly-Past – Strange Story

Babe at St. Woods (artist José Casanovas)

Olympia Jones (artist Eduardo Feito, writer Anne Digby)

It’s now October. So it’s time to bring out some Halloween covers and spooky stories in commemoration of Halloween. The cover for this Tammy Halloween issue is one of my favourite covers.

Looking inside the issue, one feels Tammy could have done much more with the Halloween theme. For example, Wee Sue, Bessie Bunter and the Storyteller could all been given Halloween stories (Halloween parties, ghosts, witches, etc). Instead, Sue tries her hand at being a tour guide; Miss Stackpole orders music lessons for Bessie but in the end decides a cats chorus is preferable to Bessie’s piano playing; and a WWII flying ace comes back from the grave in search of his good luck charm. 

Bella is still determined to make the Montreal Olympics despite her lack of passport (it got left behind when she ran away from the Barlows) and being unable to compete. Following a shipwreck, her cover story will be that she lost her passport at sea. But right now Bella is stranded again (this time in Iceland) after the shipwreck, and she’s got a young kid, Karen, in tow from that shipwreck.

This week’s episode of Olympia Jones is a turning point in the plot: Olympia and Prince the horse break away from their horrible existence at Rotts’ Circus. Olympia’s hand is forced when Mr Rott sacks her for the animal cruelty that he knows jolly well his daughter Linda was responsible for. It’s to get animal welfare off his back when they discover the evidence of Linda’s cruelty. Of course Olympia isn’t leaving the ill-treated Prince to the tender mercies of the Rotts, so she makes off with him, offering her caravan home as payment for him. Readers will eagerly read on to find out where they end up, not to mention how Olympia gets cleared of the animal cruelty charge. If you weren’t hooked on the story before, you should be after this episode.

In “Towne in the Country”, Val and her vet father are on the hunt for a rabid dog, and the police are involved too. To make things even worse, the dog’s owner won’t accept her precious dog has rabies and has to be destroyed, and a crooked pedlar has taken advantage of this to sell her some of his fake animal medicine.

Babe of St. Woods foils a robbery at the school tuck shop. Being a gangster’s daughter may give her an empathy for criminals, but on the other hand she can’t have those thieves stealing her lollipops.

Molly goes to the rescue of a music hall show after its director collapses, and she manages to recruit help from the Stanton Hall staff. Even misery boots Pickering helps out. 

“Sally in a Shell” discovers her father and sister Dora’s plot to destroy Miss Hanning’s business, but they prevent her from alerting Miss Hanning. Miss Hanning collapses, still thinking Sally was responsible for her business failing (actually it was one of Dora’s tricks) and her shop closes down. No prizes for guessing who buys it off her.

Edie the Ed’s Niece is finding it a tough choice, filling out the favourite stories coupon. Many readers must have found it equally difficult at times to pick three faves plus a least fave out of the weekly selection.

Tammy 29 October 1983

• Lucky by Name… (artist Juliana Buch, writer Malcolm Shaw)
• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• The Crayzees (artist Joe Collins)
• Glenda’s Glossy Pages (artist Mario Capaldi, writer Pat Mills)
• The Nightingale’s Song – complete story (artist Douglas Perry, writer Roy Preston)
• The Button Box (artist Mario Capaldi, sub-writer Linda Stephenson)
• Spell of Fog – first episode (artist Tony Coleman, writer Jake Adams)
• Room for Rosie (artist Santiago Hernandez, writer Alison Christie)
• Lonely Ballerina – final episode (artist Maria Barrera, writer Jay Over)
• Make a Mask for Halloween! – feature (writer Chris Lloyd)

Halloween is coming up. So I am bringing out the last Halloween issue Tammy ever published. The cover is very nice, and the girls look like Trick-or-Treaters or organising their Halloween party. Inside, we have instructions for making a Halloween mask and the Crayzees go to a Halloween fancy dress ball. Miss T and Edie are rather chagrined when the human-sized Snoopa wins first prize for dressing up as Miss T!

In last week’s issue, Tammy had a blurb about a spooky story starting this issue in commemoration of Halloween. It is “Spell of Fog”. A film crew arrives at the village of Wolfen to make a film about Alice Compton, a girl who was burned at the stake for witchcraft and rumoured to haunt the spot where her ashes were scattered.  So when the film producer announces his plans to do a historically inaccurate, sensationalised film where Alice is truly evil and an agent of the Devil instead of one of the hapless victims of witch hunts, it really is asking for trouble. Sure enough, a mist is soon arising on the spot where Alice is said to haunt, and it’s clearly blowing in the opposite direction of the wind…

Surprisingly, “Room for Rosie” is celebrating Guy Fawkes one week early and passing over Halloween altogether. Pauline Wheeler is trying to honour her dying gran’s last request to find a good home for her beloved pram, “Rosie”, but so far no luck. Meantime, Rosie is being put to more of the 101 uses that she was so famous for with Gran. This week it’s carrying the Guy for the penny-for-the-routine. Rosie does not do much to sort out the problem of the week, which is where to have the bonfire after the kids lose their regular lot for it.

You’d think there would be a Halloween story in the Button Box. Instead, it’s a story to reassure you that a representative will always be on hand to sort out any problems you may have when you are on holiday abroad.

The complete story is about a promising singer, Suzy Nightingale, who loses her power of speech and singing from the shock of her mother’s death. She nurses her namesake back to health when it is injured, and notices that the nightingale has remained silent all the while, just like her. But all of a sudden the nightingale regains its power of song, which prompts Suzy to regain hers.

“Lonely Ballerina” reunites the creative team from ballet story Slave of the Clock. This was the last ballet story Tammy ever published (not counting “I’m Her – She’s Me!”, although it does have ballet in it). Tanya Lane arrives at Mary Devine’s ballet school, only to find it’s nothing but a mess, she’s the only serious pupil there, and there is a mystery to unravel. The reveal (not very credible and does not make the story one of Tammy’s best) is that Mary’s sister Betty has been struggling to keep the ballet school going after an accident rendered Mary catatonic. This was a foolish thing to do, as Betty knows nothing about ballet. Even more unwisely, she tried to conceal Mary’s condition instead of explaining the situation, getting help, and keeping the school closed until her sister recovered. Mary did not do so until the final episode. In the meantime, the school fell apart, efforts to hide the secret from the governors have now failed, the story is all over the newspapers, and the school faces closure. But of course, being a girls’ story, things end happily.

“Lucky by Name” is a foal named Lucky who seems to have powers over other animals. Unfortunately more and more people are beginning to notice. Now Lucky has made two rich and powerful enemies over it, and they look like they are threatening serious trouble.

Glenda gets a really freaky sign that her “glossy pages” have supernatural powers that could be dangerous. Mum lights a fire where Glenda hid her glossy pages and elsewhere, the bike she got from them catches fire! Yet there’s not a trace of damage on the bike or glossy pages. Then there’s even more trouble when the police come around and demand to know where Glenda got that nice stuff that is way beyond her means, and are not going to believe it came from those glossy pages. What can Glenda do? Or, more to the point, what are those glossy pages going to do?

The latest Pam of Pond Hill story ends this week. Dad has been facing down a supermarket rival whose cut-price fruit & veg have been threatening his greengrocer business. But just when that problem looks all sorted out, the supermarket gets vandalised and Pam is suspect because of the recent bad blood between the two businesses and an item, which was given to her, was found at the scene of the crime.

Jinty 31 October 1981

(Cover artist: Mario Capaldi)

• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• The Marble Heart – Gypsy Rose story (artist Carlos Freixas)
• Tansy of Jubilee Street (artist Peter Wilkes)
• Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Winning Ways – badminton (writer Benita Brown)
• Thursday’s Child Has Far to Go… (artist Christine Ellingham)
• Hallowe’en Magic (text story)
• Badgered Belinda (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Snoopa (artist Joe Collins)
• Man’s Best Friend: Mastiffs
• The Bow Street Runner (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)

This was Jinty’s last Halloween issue. As you see, the cover is a lead-in to the digital watch offer inside. The cover and the text story are the only things honouring Halloween. None of the regulars – Tansy, Snoopa, Gypsy Rose or even the resident ghost, Sir Roger, do anything to commemorate. It is business as usual. Perhaps the upcoming merger was the reason for the lack of Halloween spirit in the issue. 

In the stories, Tess comes back to Pond Hill, but her victim Sue is finding it difficult to forgive her for bullying. Meanwhile, Tess is finding it hard to accept her new stepmother. The Bow Street Runner is suspended from her cross country club thanks to a dirty trick from her enemy. Belinda continues to secretly tend the badgers in the face of bullying, the squire seeming to promote hunting vermin at the school, and losing sleep because she’s staying up half the night minding them. Dad promises extra pocket money if Tansy and Simon are helpful to each other, but he should have known better. In “Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost”, a visiting ghost friend drops in on Sir Roger, and the television reception becomes the casualty of their swordplay.

We know Thursday’s Child has far to go – but travelling all the way from England to Poland on cattle boats, on foot, and as an Allied mascot? That’s what Thursday’s Child Lisa does to find her parents, whom she does not believe died in WWII.

Gypsy Rose is still on repeats. This time it’s the story of a Greek girl who was turned into a statue as a punishment for going too far in teasing her lover, which led to his death. The statue sheds tears as a warning to other girls who mistreat their boyfriends.