Princess II, #26, 17 March 1984

• The Secret Swimmer (artist Phil Gascoine)
• The Dream House (artist Mike White)
• Rusty, Remember Me (artist Eduardo Feito)
• Stefa’s Heart of Stone (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• Day and Knight (artist Juliana Buch)
• Are You a Teacher’s Pet? (quiz)
• Flight from the Romanys (artist Maria Dembilio)
• Fun Fair – puzzles
• Horse from the Sea (artist Rodrigo Comos)
• The Haunted Station (artist Julio Bosch)
• Sadie in Waiting (artist Joe Collins)

 

The merge into Tammy is in three weeks, so how does this issue contribute towards the merger? “The Dream House” has a double episode, it looks like “Flight from the Romanys” is getting close to finishing, but “The Secret Swimmer”, “The Haunted Station”, “Rusty, Remember Me” and “Day and Knight” are on their second episodes. And anyone familiar with the original run of “Stefa’s Heart of Stone” knows it still has a long way to go.

Liza now becomes “The Secret Swimmer” and secretly training for the event Nikki is now out of, because she feels it is the only way to get the girls to talk to her again after wrongly blaming her for Nikki’s accident. But getting up at early hours for training and pushing herself too much are beginning to take their toll.

Mr Day is pushing headlong into his new marriage with Carrie Knight’s mother, despite protests from his daughter Sharon that Carrie is bullying her. Dad is not listening and Carrie is very good at pulling the wool over his eyes. And now Carrie is causing another heartbreak for Sharon – she has to rehome her beloved cat Monk because of Carrie’s asthma.

In “Stefa’s Heart of Stone”, Dad’s job is on the line because of Stefa’s tricks to dodge Ruth, Joy’s look-alike at school. Stefa gets no sleep because her heart of stone is struggling against her guilty conscience. But conscience does not win, and neither does common sense. By the final panel it looks like Stefa will indeed get Dad sacked because of her wanting to avoid Ruth.

Donna Jones needs a vet for the injured fox cub, now named Rusty, but money is a problem. And there is another problem – animals aren’t allowed in their flat, and the caretaker is not the sort who would understand the situation.

Jan Dale is becoming more convinced that the doll’s house is evil and taking away the elder members of the family she is working for. Now Diana, the eldest daughter, has disappeared like the parents, but the two youngest kids seem to be helping it.

Lydia Parks, who has only just escaped from the gypsies who kidnapped her, now has to escape from a workhouse. She finally does, but it’s now more urgent than ever to get home, because her sick friend at the workhouse badly needs help.

In “Horse from the Sea”, Janice and Tracey Penrose discover a rift in the Penrose family, which stems from when Charles Penrose blamed his father for a mining accident because the old miser was cutting corners at the expense of safety. It would not be surprising if Janice’s stepfather was descended from the old meanie, because it looks like he’s deliberately keeping Janice an invalid so she won’t inherit, and committing other fraud too.

“The Haunted Station” is more like a time travel device. It has already sent Linda Brent and Wendy Smith to the 1930s, where they get entangled with a frightened girl who is being chased by someone. Now it looks like it’s about to send them back to the 1930s again.

Princess Bee wants to go riding – and so does Grovel. He ends up regretting it because Princess Bee uses him for her mount after he messes things up (below).

Horse hijinks, “Sadie in Waiting”, Princess II, 17 March 1984

Princess II, #28 – final issue – 31 March 1984

• The Secret Swimmer (artist Phil Gascoine) – final episode
• The Haunted Station (artist Julio Bosch (Martin Puigagut?)) – final episode
• The Dream House (artist Mike White) – final episode
• Day and Knight (artist Juliana Buch)
• Horse from the Sea… (artist Rodrigo Comos) – final episode
• Stefa’s Heart of Stone (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• Rusty, Remember Me (artist Eduardo Feito)
• Sadie in Waiting (artist Joe Collins)

This is the very last issue of Princess. She came to an end after 28 issues and a disturbing change of format from Girl II style to Tammy style with #19, and an equally disturbing fallback on reprints of older material.

The Princess stories that do not carry on into the merger are “The Secret Swimmer”, “The Dream House” (Tammy reprint), “Horse from the Sea” (Jinty reprint) and “The Haunted Station”. The last two are given six page spreads to help finish them off.

The ending of “The Secret Swimmer” is a good one that avoids clichés, and is worthy of Jinty. Liza wonders if there is any point in winning the race because all the girls are against her as they wrongly blame her for Nikki’s accident. But when Nikki herself starts cheering for Liza, the girls turn around and start cheering as well. It gives Liza all the encouragement she needs to really compete – yet she still does not win. She is narrowly beaten, but she’s still a winner because she has friends again.

In “The Haunted Station” the Grices think pushing Helen off the cliff means her inheritance is now in their pocket. They don’t realise a tree root has broken her fall, and Wendy and Linda pull her up. Helen goes on to get help from an old housekeeper, Mrs Burke, but Linda and Wendy are whisked back to their own time before they find out how things turned out. Then, at the next stop on the school trip they are surprised to meet Helen Mills, now an old lady who runs a Tudor Tea Gardens attraction. Yes, everything worked out happily for Helen and justice was done. The elderly Helen is very surprised at how Wendy and Linda look so much like her two helpers.

The two schemers in “Horse from the Sea” come to an even stickier end than the Grices – they get drowned during a flood, and the rightful heir is free from their power.

“The Dream House” turns out to be the result of Miss Royd’s quest for immortality that she had begun centuries before, and she uses the minds of small children to wield her power. Jane manages to turn that power against Miss Royd and re-imprison her in her secret room in the dollhouse. But all it needs to turn Miss Royd loose again is for another small child to find that secret room in the dollhouse…

The stories that continue with the merger are “Day and Knight”, “Stefa’s Heart of Stone” and “Sadie in Waiting”. Sharon Day’s father has married Carrie Knight’s mother despite Sharon’s pleas that Carrie is a bully who makes her life a misery, and has even stolen her beloved guitar. Now the bullying is double the misery because Carrie is now living with Sharon and making her life hell at home as well as school, and Dad just won’t listen when Sharon tries to tell him. Carrie and her gang have trashed Sharon’s belongings and now Carrie’s planning a very nasty surprise for Sharon – a piece of meat in her vegetarian school lunch!

In “Stefa’s Heart of Stone” (Jinty reprint) Stefa tries to get herself expelled in order to get away from Ruth, but Ruth keeps foiling her. Meanwhile, and Stefa and her parents make the move into the council house. Stefa’s stoniness gets her on the wrong foot with the kids in the neighbourhood, who react by throwing stones at the statue Stefa models her stony heart on.

Hiding Rusty the fox from the nasty caretaker Mr Jenkins while his leg is in plaster is proving problematic. Jenkins is already suspicious and now he wants to search the flat – which is precisely where the kids have hidden Rusty.

Princess Bee says Sadie will have to go, and Sadie can’t understand what she did to get sacked when Grovel deserves it more. It turns out to be a misunderstanding – Princess Bee has chosen Sadie to be the one to go the annual servants’ conference. Poor Grovel’s in tears at not being the one, but we all know Princess Bee made the right decision.

Princess II, #27, 24 March 1984

• Flight from the Romanys (artist Maria Dembilio) – final episode
• Day and Knight (artist Juliana Buch)
• The Haunted Station (artist Julio Bosch (Martin Puigagut?))
• The Dream House (artist Mike White)
• The Secret Swimmer (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Horse from the Sea… (artist Rodrigo Comos)
• Sadie in Waiting (artist Joe Collins)
• Stefa’s Heart of Stone (artist Phil Townsend, writer Alison Christie)
• Rusty, Remember Me (artist Eduardo Feito)

This is the second to last issue of Princess II before the merge into Tammy, so it’s an issue where things are beginning to wind down. Finishing this issue is “Flight from the Romanys”, where Lydia, a wealthy lord’s daughter, has been kidnapped by gypsies. She has escaped, but it’s a long way home, and she very nearly gets recaptured as well.

“The Haunted Station”, “The Dream House”, “Horse from the Sea” and “The Secret Swimmer” are on their penultimate episodes.

Liza, “The Secret Swimmer”, has been secretly training for a swimming trophy after she is wrongly blamed of putting her friend Nikki out of it. Her secret is exposed, but she has become so good she is chosen to represent the school at the event. But everyone is so against her because of the wrongful accusation that they are going to cheer for the rival schools. So is there any point in even winning? This story was drawn by Phil Gascoine, and I was surprised to learn it was an original Gascoine and not a repeat from Jinty.

“The Haunted Station” is not so much haunted but a time travel device. Linda Brent and Wendy Smith are finding a converted railway station transporting them to the 1930s (and back again).  Their 1980s clothes are arousing disapproval in the 1930s and making them stick out like sore thumbs: “Girls wearing trousers. It’s disgraceful!” But their real concern is Helen Mills, who is a target for murder because her guardians, the Grices, are after her inheritance. The Grices are getting close to succeeding now; in the final panel Mr Grice pushes Helen over the edge of a quarry.

Evil guardians are also out to steal an inheritance in “Horse from the Sea”, and now they’ve caught our heroine as she tries to phone for help. As with “The Haunted Station” supernatural help is at hand, which comes in the form of a magic horse from the sea.

“The Dream House” (reprinted from Tammy) is more like “The Nightmare House”. Jane Dale is convinced a dollhouse is evil and taking family members away to inhabit it as dolls, and that she is next in line. The weird thing is, the two small children of the family are willing to help it. In this episode Jane discovers that housekeeper Miss Royd is behind it all. In fact, Miss Royd says she came with the dollhouse and lived in it for centuries, and Jane is going to do the same!

“Day and Knight” and “Stefa’s Heart of Stone” are the Princess stories that will carry on in the merger. Stefa’s repeat is now up to the point where she wants to leave her new school because of Joy’s look-alike. She storms into her father’s workplace demanding he remove her from the school, which gets him sacked. He has to take a lower paid job, which means the family has to move to a cheaper council house. But none of this moves Stefa’s stony heart. After efforts to dodge school fail, she plots to get herself expelled as her parents won’t let her change schools.

In “Day and Knight”, Sharon Day’s father now marries Carrie Knight’s mother despite Sharon’s protests that Carrie is a bully who is making her life a misery. He just won’t listen (Gran is the only one who believes Sharon), and that is clearly going to come back to bite him and his new marriage. Meanwhile, the wedding is a day of tears for Sharon that she has to choke down for the sake of Dad’s big day. Even if everything does get sorted out in the end (as we expect), Sharon’s forced smiles will be evident in the wedding photos for years to come and be a painful reminder of what used to be.

“Rusty, Remember Me” is the fox story (every girls’ comic has to have one at some point). Donna Jones has to hide an injured fox because she lives in a flat where pets are against the rules and the caretaker is a nasty piece of work. This week they take the fox to the vet, only to hear that the vet’s advice is put him to sleep.

Sadie in Waiting is the other Princess feature that will carry on in the merger, supplanting the Tammy Joe Collins cartoon, “The Crazyees”. This week they screw down the furniture because of a visit from Lady Edna, who’s the proverbial bull in a china shop because she’s so huge. They are annoyed to find it unnecessary when Lady Edna proves she has slimmed down – but they find they have spoken too soon when her huge friends arrive. And by that time they have removed the screws.