Tammy 20 August 1977

Cover artist: John Richardson

Bella (artist John Armstrong)

Sharon’s Shadow (artist Hugo D’Adderio) – Strange Story serial – first episode

Melanie’s Mob (artist Edmond Ripoll)

Molly Mills – the final episode (artist Tony Thewenetti)

Bessie Bunter (artist Arthur Martin)

Maisie of Mo Town (artist Giorgio Giorgetti)

Shadow of the Fire God (artist Manuel Benet) – Strange Story

Edie the Ed’s Niece (artist Joe Collins)

Wee Sue (artist Mike White)

Daughter of the Regiment (artist Mario Capaldi)

Now we come to 1977 in our August Tammy month round. And there’s another reason to bring out this August issue – it is the issue with the final episode (below) of Molly Mills. Yes, the great Molly Mills debate has finally come to a head. On the letters page (below), ye Editor makes an open call for letters – with monetary incentives of course – on whether or not to bring her back. But really, this would have been a whole lot more fair and representative of readers’ wants if the final episode had ended with a definitive conclusion (Molly sailing off to India with the others). Indeed, if this really was to be Molly’s final bow, they should have done that. Instead, it’s a tantalising cliffhanger (Pickering’s infamous frame-up of Molly at the docks, which makes her a fugitive, on the run from the law). This would surely have skewed the response from readers in favour of Molly’s return, to see how she sorts out her predicament. Indeed, ye Editor later informs us that the response was overwhelmingly in favour of Molly’s return, and return she did, on 31 December 1977. Would the response have been the same if Molly had been given a proper send-off? Incidentally, seeing as Molly returned with a different artist (Douglas Perry), I suspect the clincher for this sudden end of Molly was not the Molly Mills debate – it was Tony Thewenetti no longer able to continue with Molly for some reason. 

Meanwhile, Bella is at a Russian gymnastics school on a scholarship, and it’s good to see she’s getting a lot out of it this time (last time she was at a Russian gymnastics school, she was wrongly expelled before she’d hardly begun). Of course the school not without problems, and boy, does her strict Russian coach have a face to remember! John Armstrong must have had a great time drawing inspiration from gargoyles or something. This week, Bella loses her memory after an accident in the gym and strays from the school. 

Tammy takes us into the world of politics with the new Strange Story serial, “Sharon’s Shadow”. Joe Brown, outraged by the rundown housing conditions in Leechester, which led to the death of his grandfather, is running for MP so he can turn things around. But his chances of election could come under threat when his sister Sharon challenges a witch’s curse at her grave and then has a strange accident there. Never, ever, challenge the supernatural, Sharon. Meanwhile, in the regular Strange Story, the horrors of human sacrifice in pre-Christian days threaten to resurface with an erupting volcano, and superstition and hysteria get the better of people.

In “Maisie in Mo Town”, it’s been a barrel of laughs (though maybe a bit un-PC today) with Maisie pretending to increasingly exasperated kidnappers that she’s a dumb wild girl from Africa who doesn’t know the first thing about civilisation and can only speak pidgin English. But now things take a very serious turn as the kidnappers make plans to smuggle her out of the country. To this end, they lock her in the attic, ready for someone to collect at midnight!

“Daughter of the Regiment” Tessa Mason has recruited a gang of mudlarks to help clear her father, who was shot for cowardice at the Charge of the Light Brigade. But one, Dick, has been bribed to help lead her into a trap! And Melanie has recruited her own gang, “Melanie’s Mob”, to train as athletes. Dad would have a fit if he knew they were the Canal Mob, and now someone has reported something to the police about it.

At a regatta, Stackers is finding a mermaid costume problematic, and it leads to hijinks. In the final panel, Bessie doesn’t think much of mermaid costumes either, as she can’t raid the grub in the one she’s forced to wear.  

Nobody in class believes Miss Bigger when she shoots a big line about how her big WAAF days in World War II helped to win the Battle of Britain. So nobody’s surprised when she comes unstuck at a Battle of Britain exhibition at a flying club: “Bigger? We had a waitress of that name in the mess. Butter-fingers Bigger we used to call her…she was always dropping the crockery.” Miss Bigger’s looking very red, and then she’s green, as she can’t take a flight in a WWII plane without feeling airsick. The real heroics belong to Sue, who scares off robbers at the club with a phoney WWII bomb.

Tammy 10 September 1977

• Bella (artist John Armstrong)
• Rowena of the Doves (artist Peter Wilkes)
• Selena Sitting Pretty (artist Diane Gabbot) – first episode
• Sharon’s Shadow – Strange Story serial (artist Hugo D’Adderio)
• Bessie Bunter
• Melanie’s Mob (artist Edmond Ripoll)
• The Other Side of the Coin – Strange Story (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Edie the Ed’s Niece – cartoon (artist Joe Collins)
• Wee Sue (artist John Armstrong)
• Daughter of the Regiment (artist Mario Capaldi)
• Edie’s Hobbyhorse: Cycling

 

The issue for 10 September 1977 has been chosen for 1977 in the Tammy round robin. By this time Tammy is taking the shape that defines her 1970s look. “Bella at the Bar” is now just plain Bella. We now have “Reader’s Cover Idea!”, where readers send in suggestions for a Tammy cover, and the winner receives money. The regular cartoon is the Joe Collins “Edie the Ed’s Niece”, who also has a feature called “Edie’s Hobbyhorse” where Edie discusses a particular activity for a hobby or sport.

Tammy is running another Strange Story serial. This time it is about Sharon Brown, who unwisely challenged a long-dead witch (never challenge the supernatural!) and gets her shadow cursed. Anything or anyone her shadow crosses meets with disaster, and it’s upsetting her brother Joe’s campaign to win the local election. Sharon learns only love stronger than the curse can break it, but where the heck are they going to find love when the curse has made things go so badly wrong for Joe that the whole town has turned against him?

In the regular Strange Story, Gilly Bentley looks set to lose her horse, Amulet. Amulet, being a proud horse, seems to get his pride deeply hurt at that and strange things start happening, including Gilly having dreams where a centurion is riding Amulet. It climaxes in Amulet finding Roman coins, which show the same centurion riding him. All of a sudden, the question of selling Amulet is dropped.

One of the curious differences between DCT girls’ titles and IPC girls’ titles is the frequency at which they ran stories about protagonists/ antagonists pretending to be disabled. At DCT such stories appeared so often they were almost a feature. At IPC (well, in Tammy and Jinty anyway) they were sporadic. So the new story this week, “Selena Sitting Pretty”, is an exception to the rule; if she had appeared in, say, Mandy, she would be par for the course. In the story, Selena has always been top girl in class. But when her school combines with another, she comes up against serious competition for top of the class and can’t take it. Then, by fluke, they see her in a wheelchair and think she has been in a road accident. All of a sudden the big fuss is pushing out her rivals and Selena thinks she has found the way to be sitting pretty at school again.

Bella is attending a famous Russian gymnastics college (which is thankfully lasting longer for her than the one she was wrongly expelled from in 1975). The school has ordered Bella to attend a ballet because they think it will teach her some valuable lessons. But we don’t think they meant the one Bella learns the hard way: don’t lean too far out of the balcony! Fortunately Bella’s gymnastics has her landing on her feet on the stage when she falls, and it’s such a hit with the audience that she does not get expelled. And the experience does teach her some useful tips for improving her floor exercises, which is what the school wanted after all.

“Rowena of the Doves” is a medieval swords-and-sorcery sort of tale, with a protagonist who looks like a young woman and hints of alleged white magic that have many of her enemies running scared. Rowena must have brought the Tammy readers up short and it’s no wonder Rowena had a sequel. Her original story was also reprinted in Princess II. Rowena’s father, King Guthlac, has dispatched her to fetch her brothers to help him face his old enemy, the Black Earl. Rowena’s companions are her doves and her horse Silvermane. In this episode she rescues a girl who was to be sacrificed, but now the girl is seriously ill. And when Rowena finds her first brother, he refuses to help, saying he’s got problems of his own defending his stronghold. Will the other two brothers be more helpful?

Bessie is chosen to lead a paper chase. Of course her paper chase leads all the way to the kitchen, and then it starts pouring with rain. Some quick scheming has Bessie emerging on top, and she has the sneaky feeling she will not be lumbered with paper chases again.

Melanie Newton hates her new snob school and the snooty girls looking down on her former lower class origins. She turns to secretly training a gang of rough girls as an athletics team but they turn on her, much to the glee of the snooty girls. Then one of the rough girls gets stuck on the lock gates at the canal and Melanie is going to the rescue.

Another high-class girl is having better luck with street urchins in “Daughter of the Regiment”. Tessa Mason’s father has been executed for cowardice in the Charge of the Light Brigade. Tessa is out to clear his name but a Mr Cregan keeps blocking her. Tessa has found helpers in a gang of mudlarks, and this week she turns to the waxworks museum for help in getting into Windsor Castle for an audience with Queen Victoria.

Wee Sue’s Dad is not pleased to spend his day off cooking meals and doing housework because Mum is sick. Sue is not sure he can manage it either. Her mind is running riot over the horrors it must be causing and she eventually runs home in a panic to check up. At home, it looks like she was worrying over nothing and Dad has cooked a lovely dinner for the family. But then Sue opens the kitchen door…and what she finds is best not described.