Sandie 13 May 1972

• Lorna’s Lonely Days
• Slaves of the Sorcerer (artist Desmond Walduck?)
• Wee Sue (artist Vicente Torregrosa Manrique)
• Brenda’s Brownies (artist and writer Mike Brown)
• Odd Mann Out – final episode (artist A E Allen)
• Silver Is a Star (artist Eduardo Feito)
• Not So Lady-like Lucy
• Friends and Neighbours
• The Captives of Madam Karma (artist Jaume Rumeu, writer Pat Mills)
• Wendy the Witch (artist Mike Brown)
• Sandra Must Dance – final episode (artist Douglas Perry)
• Bonnie’s Butler (artist Julio Bosch?)
• Anna’s Forbidden Friend (artist Miguel Quesada)
• A Sandie Pop Portrait – Ryan O’Neil (artist Bob Gifford)

“Lorna’s Lonely Days” are due to her longing to find the mother who disappeared when she was two. The mystery of the mother really deepens when Lorna thinks she has finally found her mother at last, but the woman in the photo just turns out to be a former employee who expresses no surprise at nobody letting Lorna see a picture of her mother. Meanwhile, Dad is worried Lorna is becoming more and more like her mother. Now why can these people be thinking this way?

Mike Brown is drawing a new strip in Sandie, “Wendy the Witch”, in addition to Brenda’s Brownies.

Beth Williams has once again failed to escape the sorcerer, and she’s back in his clutches. Now this is getting really tedious.

Wee Sue is becoming unpopular with her classmates and she seems to be taking deliberate measures to make it so. Now what is she playing at?

It’s the last episode of “Odd Mann Out”. The tyrannical headmistress is brought down when Susie Mann exposes her as an embezzler and falsifying exam marks for girls she favours.

Trudy Parker’s efforts to save Silver have landed her in court. Only the action of the Colonel saves Trudy from an unjust sentence of corrective training school. But then another injustice looms, in the form of Trudy being falsely accused of stealing a necklace.

The neighbour problem finally seems to be sorted in “Friends and Neighbours”. But fresh problems start when Dad begins renovating the house.

“The Captives of Madam Karma” (spelled Madame Karma on the cover) are a slave labour force of abducted girls who slave all day making transistor radios in a sweatshop – which is 200 miles within the Arctic circle. But if you think that’s weird, it’s nothing on the mysterious helper who shows up to help our protagonist – a glowing woman floating on air!

In the final episode of “Sandra Must Dance”, the twins have fallen out because Joan has wrongly assumed Sandra pulled the dirty trick a jealous girl was responsible for. To put things right, Sandra compels Joan to dance again, and in doing so the twins discover they no longer need the psychic bond and both are brilliant dancers.

In “Bonnie’s Butler” there is a disagreement over home decorating and Dad taking exception to Bonnie’s pop posters adorning the walls. But of course the butler’s got a scheme to help Bonnie there.

Anna gets a clue to help her find her forbidden friend Julia, who has been kidnapped as part of her father’s machinations to drive everyone out of Madeley Buildings. The dirty rotten schemer has even put the blame for the kidnapping on Anna!

Sandie 29 April 1972

• No-one Cheers for Norah– final episode (artist John Armstrong)
• Slaves of the Sorcerer (artist Desmond Walduck?)
• Wee Sue (artist Vicente Torregrosa Manrique)
• Odd Mann Out (artist A E Allen)
• Silver Is a Star (artist Eduardo Feito)
• Not So Lady-like Lucy
• Friends and Neighbours
• The School of No Escape – final episode (artist “B. Jackson”, writer Terence Magee)
• Brenda’s Brownies (artist and writer Mike Brown)
• Sandra Must Dance (artist Douglas Perry)
• Bonnie’s Butler (artist Julio Bosch?)
• Anna’s Forbidden Friend (artist Miguel Quesada)
• A Sandie Pop Portrait – Mark Lester (artist Bob Gifford)

In this issue of Sandie we say goodbye to two of her first stories: “No-One Cheers for Norah” and “The School of No Escape”. The former finishes with a needle race to beat the relatives who have not only made Norah’s life a misery ever since they met but also ruined her father’s life. The latter ends with the pretty typical deus ex machina of the aliens just vanishing away just as they are about to triumph because time’s up, and everyone but the heroine loses all memory of them for no apparent reason.

Replacing them next week are “Lorna’s Lonely Days” and “The Captives of Madam Karma”. The latter is written by Pat Mills.

In “Slaves of the Sorcerer” Beth Williams finally gets the police onto Caspar. But when they arrive at the fairground there’s no sign of him. The lead they have been given is in fact another trap for Beth set by Caspar, and he’s waiting to pounce.

Boys are admitted to Wee Sue’s school. They get quite a shock when the titch they tease turns out to be brilliant at footy. Then Sue finds one of the football boys stuck on a ledge and climbs up to the rescue.

“Odd Mann Out” is now leading a demonstration against the tyrannical way things are run at her school. But why the hell is the headmistress smiling about it instead of looking worried?

Trudy loses Silver – to the rag-and-bone man. And everyone knows how cruel he is to animals. Can Trudy get him back?

Ann Friend and her family in “Friends and Neighbours” have moved into a new house. The neighours haven’t been friendly but now Anne believes they are worse than she thought – they are trying to scare her family out of the house with a ruse that it’s haunted. They deny it angrily and mean to prove it by sitting up with them.

In “Sandra Must Dance”, enemy Robinia Drew discovers the twins’ bizarre secret – Joan can transfer her ballet talent into her twin sister Sandra through a psychic bond. Robinia locks Joan up to prevent her from doing so during a performance. Can the twins pull things off despite this?

This week’s episode of “Bonnie’s Butler” has a row with the Major and Bonnie loses the present she was going to give Angie. Things get even more bizarre when Bonnie wins an unwanted hip bath at an auction, but her butler uses it to put everything right.

In “Anna’s Forbidden Friend”, Julia’s father takes advantage of Anna and Julia to hatch a scheme to get everyone out of Madeley Buildings. He managed to turn everyone against them once before and now plots to do it again. And his scheme includes kidnapping his own daughter!

Sandie 15 April 1972

Stories in this issue:

• No-one Cheers for Norah (artist John Armstrong)
• Slaves of the Sorcerer (artist Desmond Walduck?)
• Wee Sue (artist Vicente Torregrosa Manrique)
• Brenda’s Brownies (artist and writer Mike Brown)
• Odd Mann Out (artist A E Allen)
• Silver Is a Star (artist Eduardo Feito)
• Not So Lady-like Lucy
• Our Big BIG Secret (artist Jim Baikie) – last episode
• The School of No Escape (artist unknown artist ‘Merry’)
• Sandra Must Dance (artist Douglas Perry)
• Bonnie’s Butler (artist Richard Neillands)
• Anna’s Forbidden Friend (artist Miguel Quesada)
• A Sandie Pop Portrait – Dave Cassidy (artist Bob Gifford)

The cover competition offers a chance to win a ‘fabulous electric sewing machine’, though I think that a battery-powered machine probably won’t get you very far through sewing anything other than the dolls clothes mentioned in the competition blurb.

Norah loses her home twice over in this episode – after an emotional visit to see her father, she stays overnight in her old house, but in the morning she is turfed out by a new family who have just rented the place. On returning to her cousin’s house she isn’t allowed back in there either! As is so often the way, though, the horrible relatives have played a mean trick too far – Norah has to stay in her uncle’s clothing factory overnight, and of course she finds a document that shows pretty clearly that the culprit who stole the money that her dad was blamed for – was probably her uncle all along!

Orphan Beth Williams is well and truly in the clutches of the evil sorcerer Caspar, along with three other hard-done-by girls. It seems that Caspar’s act is ‘so dangerous he’d never get anyone to volunteer. That’s why he has to have slaves.’ Beth is a spirited girl who is keen to run away at the first opportunity, but I suspect it won’t be as easy as that.

It’s the last episode of “Our Big BIG Secret” – a story post will be forthcoming.

At the end of the previous issue’s “The School of No Escape”, Dale was pushed over a cliff. Luckily she falls onto a ledge, which though small is enough to save her. The next morning, Miss Voor thinks that her last obstacle is out of the way and so she summons all her specially-chosen pupils to her side. They are all to write farewell letters to their parents and then to follow Miss Voor to Hangman’s Copse – which is where they meet up with the exhausted Dale, who has crawled up the cliff face to seek help.

This week’s episode of “Bonnie’s Butler” is drawn by Richard Neillands instead of regular artist Julio Bosch.

Sandie 8 April 1972

Stories in this issue:

• No-one Cheers for Norah (artist John Armstrong)
• Slaves of the Sorcerer (artist Desmond Walduck) – first episode
• Wee Sue (artist Vicente Torregrosa Manrique)
• Brenda’s Brownies (artist and writer Mike Brown)
• Odd Mann Out (artist A E Allen)
• Silver Is a Star (artist Eduardo Feito)
• Not So Lady-like Lucy
• Our Big BIG Secret (artist Jim Baikie)
• The School of No Escape (artist unknown artist ‘Merry’)
• Wendy the Witch (artist and writer Mike Brown)
• Sandra Must Dance (artist Douglas Perry)
• Bonnie’s Butler (artist Julio Bosch)
• Anna’s Forbidden Friend (artist Miguel Quesada)
• A Sandie Pop Portrait – Sacha Distel (artist Bob Gifford)

The contents have moved around quite a lot in this issue compared to the previous eight – for instance “Silver Is A Star” has been moved much nearer the middle of the paper than it was, and “Anna’s Forbidden Friend” has moved to the last spot (which I think was probably one of the best spots, as providing the denouement of the issue).

Norah hurries to her father’s hospital bed, as he is in a bad way. She hears his side of the story of his disgrace (he says he didn’t do it) and her visit gives him a new will to live.

Catawiki credits both the new story, “Slaves of the Sorcerer”, and last week’s “Little Lady Nobody”, as both being by artist Desmond Walduck. I disagree and have credited “Little Lady Nobody” as being by Roy Newby. Soon I will post about the story, which was the first Sandie story to finish, and you can decide for yourselves. In this first episode, Beth Williams is accused and then acquitted of stealing, but she soon finds herself entangled in a trap that is much harder to escape from. The story is set in 1930, but the historical elements are not very strongly outlined, at least not yet.

Wee Sue rescues a dog from the roadside – she has recognized that its yellow collar means it belongs to a nearby scientific establishment. Researcher Miss Brog claims only to be kind to the animals she is experimenting on – but if so, why did the dog run away?

Susie Man’s elder sister carries out her threat to expel Susie’s classmate Sarah in revenge for Susie’s trouble-making, but the class rally round Sarah and (at Susie’s  further instigation, of course) hide her in the storeroom while they run round trying to find evidence to condemn the Head as a crook and a liar.

Trudy wins a steeplechase event that brings with it a first prize of one hundred pounds – so she is able to buy back Mr MacReady’s pawned saddle. We are told that next she will have to find money to save the stables…

Eva, one of Miss Voor’s mysterious sidekicks, is remorseful and tries to help Dale – but Miss Voor overpowers her mentally and Dale is soon being pushed over the side of a cliff rather than being helped to rescue her classmates.

Sandra has been accepted to the Southern Ballet Company for a trial period, but rival Robinia Drew has also been invited along. One way or another, the twins’ secret seems likely to be out fairly soon – especially as Joan has to sign the contract herself, with her own signature.

Anna is tied up by the roughs from her estate, with a placard reading “I am a traitor”. Julia unties her and then runs away, saying “I don’t want to have anything to do with you or Madeley Buildings any more!” – to the reader, a transparent ploy, but will it fool the onlookers?