Jinty and Penny 1 November 1980

Cover artist: Mario Capaldi

Contents in this issue:

• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• Girl the World Forgot (artist and writer Veronica Weir)
• Tears of a Clown (artist Phil Gascoine) – final episode
• Tansy of Jubilee Street (artist Ken Houghton)
• Behind the Screen: Robin’s Nest
• The Secret of Covent House (artist Peter Wilkes) – Gypsy Rose story
• Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Sue’s Daily Dozen (artist José Casanovas)
• Winning Ways #31: The Lob (writer Benita Brown)
• Child of the Rain (artist Phil Townsend)

“Winning Ways” is running a lot of tennis tips. This must be because of Jinty’s tennis story, “Child of the Rain”. Next week a netball story, “Life’s a Ball for Nadine” starts, so it will not be surprising if we start seeing some netball tips in “Winning Ways”.

Nadine will replace “Tears of a Clown”, which ends this week. Last week Jinty promised an emotional ending, which she delivers with Kathy coming home from her time on the run and allowed to keep her new dog. She is astonished to find all the new-improved attitudes from the girls who bullied her and her parents and teachers who failed her. From then on, Kathy progresses so well at school, including becoming the star of the school cross country team with her running talent, that her parents let her throw her first-ever party and treat her to a trendy makeover. At the party Kathy celebrates her new look by ripping up a photo of the old gawky one.

One reader wrote in to say that the ending had her in tears; she thought “Tears of a Clown” was one of Jinty’s best ever and hoped all her future serials would be just as good. Indeed, this story would still stand up today because the bullying issues it commented on still prevail. (How about a reprint, Rebellion?)

Tansy of Jubilee Street and Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost deal with this being Jinty’s Guy Fawkes issue. Spoilsport Dad won’t let Tansy have fireworks or a bonfire; he can be a bit mean at times. Then Tansy finds the school could be the answer. They are willing to provide the bonfire, but the class has to raise the money for the fireworks because the school can’t. So it’s the penny-for-the-guy routine, and with Jubilee Street you can only expect hijinks along the way. The story has been uploaded onto the Ken Houghton page in the panel gallery. Meanwhile, Gaye’s father is willing to have the bonfire, but he can’t afford the fireworks either. So Gaye is using Sir Roger for the penny-for-the-guy routine to raise the money, which he finds a bit undignified. Of course this also leads to hijinks.

It’s Shona’s birthday, which she is trying to celebrate as best she can while marooned on the island. But given her circumstances, it can’t be anything but bittersweet. Meanwhile, Shona’s parents honour her birthday, even though they think she’s dead. If only they knew.

For once, the Gypsy Rose story is an original instead of a recycled Strange Story. New owners move into Covent House, next door to Mary Jones, but there is something strange about them. And they are reacting very oddly to Mary’s cat, Rye. Then Rye mysteriously disappears, yet Mary gets an odd calling from him to come…where she finds him in the centre of some…witches’ coven?

Witchcraft features on a more savoury basis in “Sue’s Daily Dozen”, though Sue is still not convinced of that. And the Daily Dozen does look a bit angry with her for doubting it.

Jemma is banned from the tennis club when a jealous rival frames her for stealing. She needs to find another way to train, and luckily, she finds a disused tennis court next door. But who can she use for a training partner?

The Pond Hill French camping trip is not doing too well, and then it takes a mysterious turn when a strange boy steals Fred’s shirt. We get the feeling the boy is a runaway, and whatever trouble he’s in will drag the Pond Hill campers down with him – but to what?

Jinty and Penny 18 October 1980

• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• Girl the World Forgot (artist and writer Veronica Weir)
• Tears of a Clown (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Tansy of Jubilee Street (artist Ken Houghton)
• Snoopa (artist Joe Collins)
• Behind the Screen: It’s a Knockout (feature)
• The House of Hate and Happiness (artist Giorgio Giorgetti) – Gypsy Rose story
• Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Sue’s Daily Dozen (artist José Casanovas)
• Winning Ways #29: The Forehand Volley (writer Benita Brown)
• Child of the Rain (artist Phil Townsend)

This week we’ve got a very nice go-kart cover from Mario Capaldi. Jinty sure didn’t hesitate from showing girls in sports and activities that are considered venturesome and daring, which is a nice touch of feminism.

Pam of Pond Hill and nine other classmates are gearing up for the school trip to France. But Diana’s younger sister Alison is so jealous that she’s throwing tantrums and pulling dirty tricks to stop them getting there. It looks like she might actually succeed when she locks one of the chaperones in a storeroom and throws the key down the drain. What a horrible kid, but it’s the parents’ fault for spoiling her and being overprotective of her instead of disciplinary.

Shona risks life and limb to rescue her dog Scuffer when he gets bowled over a cliff and lands on a ledge. Next, she and Scuffer sail off on a makeshift raft to hopefully get rescued and see if her parents did survive, which she does not know one way or other.

Kathy the clown is on the run after the relentless bullying drove her away. If only she could see the effects it’s having on her tormentors. It has shocked them all into guilt and shame, and they’ve turned against Sandra, the ringleader of all it all. Sandra, once she’s had a taste of being the class outcast herself, is also remorseful and her redeeming qualities are coming out after being nothing but spiteful.

Meanwhile, Kathy has made a friend, a mutt she has named Mutt. Then Sandra spots them from the train and will set out in search of them next week. But how will that work out? After all, Sandra cruelly tricked Kathy once before with a false show of friendship and remorse.

“Child of the Rain” tries to run away too, in order to get to a place in Britain where rain is forecast. Luckily for her, the drought breaks at home and she’s got rain again.

Tansy tries out a conjuring book. Unfortunately she ends up doing a disappearing trick (not one from the book) after one of her tricks backfires, and she doesn’t have a trick to make her wrathful father disappear.

In “Sue’s Daily Dozen”, real magic creates a house cleaner that makes every speck of dirt fall off in one big black curtain that goes right down the walls and disappear. Now that can be called a disappearing trick!

The Gypsy Rose story is another recycled Strange Story, drawn by Giorgio Giorgetti. Ruth Newton moves into a new house, but there seems to be some sort of weird time travel thing going on when she finds a boy who keeps crying because his parents are always squabbling over painting: Dad wants to pursue art while Mum nags at him that it won’t pay the bills, so go out and get a real job. It turns out the boy is none other than the real estate agent who sold them the house, but now he’s a grown man!

Gaye needs help with improving her gymnastics because of an upcoming school display. Sir Roger helps out, but he thinks that what Gaye really needs is confidence. It looks like he’s right there, but then things go a bit wrong…

Jinty and Penny 20 September 1980

Cover artist: Mario Capaldi

Contents in this issue:

• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• Girl the World Forgot (artist and writer Veronica Weir)
• Tears of a Clown (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Tansy of Jubilee Street (artist Ken Houghton)
• Behind the Screen: Charlie’s Angels
• Wheels of Fate (artist John Armstrong) Gypsy Rose story
• Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• A Spell of Trouble (artist Trini Tinturé) – final episode
• Child of the Rain (artist Phil Townsend)

Looks like Betty, the sports mistress from the future serial “Life’s a Ball for Nadine”, is supervising the javelin on the cover. Well, it does look rather like Betty.

The trouble in “A Spell of Trouble” solves itself in a four-page finale, which looks like it has bumped “Winning Ways” this week. The witches, who have been pressing Angela to become a witch, find out – the hard way – that making Angela White a witch is only a recipe for disaster because she’s such a bungling menace. So they restore the Blacks’ powers, but please, please, keep Angela as a non-witch from now on! And now that’s all been sorted out, Angela and Carrie can become friends. In two weeks’ time Jinty will start another witchcraft story, “Sue’s Daily Dozen”, which will be the last witch serial she will ever run.

Everyone in Pam’s class is vying for the ten places on the French trip. Even the class larrikins Fred and Terry are, but only once they find out it will mean missing the last week of term. Those two will do anything to get out of some lessons – even swotting up French and crawling to the French teacher. But then Pam notices that something seems to be bothering her friend Tracy…

Shona finds out she is now the girl the world forgot: a radio broadcast announces that she has been presumed dead and the search for her has been called off. Tantalisingly, it does not inform her whether her parents survived or not. At least Shona finds the island is kitted out for survival, with a source of fresh water and an abandoned croft, and she’s got other company on the island – a talking crow.

In “Tears of a Clown”, Kathy’s respite from the bullying is over. The bullying is back now, and it’s worse than ever. Then the upcoming sports day gives Kathy new hope to prove her running talent. But considering her luck in proving it so far, she might be wise not to set her hopes too high. And what about spiteful Sandra, the bully who keeps thwarting Kathy’s efforts to prove her talent?

Tansy and the gang from Jubilee Street go off to apprehend some smugglers – only to find they were just actors for a television show. Fortunately their interference makes the scene even better, so it will be retained and they will see themselves on television next week.

Jemma’s strange problem with rain gets her withdrawn from the school tennis team. And now it’s about to land her in big trouble with her teacher!

Sir Roger’s bragging about how brave he is, but just how brave is he really? He apprehends some burglars, but it’s due more to hijinks and dumb luck than courage.

The Gypsy Rose story is yet another recycled John Armstrong Strange Story from Tammy. Gail Hawkins goes on holiday with her uncle and aunt. She is plagued by a constantly passing lorry, but no lorry has been allowed on that road since one caused a fatal accident some years back. And it is a French lorry, just like the one that caused the accident…but there can’t be such things as ghost lorries, surely?

Jinty and Penny 13 September 1980

Cover artist: Mario Capaldi

Contents in this issue:

• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• Girl the World Forgot (artist and writer Veronica Weir)
• Tears of a Clown (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Tansy of Jubilee Street (artist Ken Houghton)
• Back to School! (craft feature)
• Phantom of the Fells (artist John Armstrong) Gypsy Rose story
• Behind the Screen: Grange Hill
• A Spell of Trouble (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Winning Ways #25: Tennis – the Grip (writer Benita Brown)
• Child of the Rain (artist Phil Townsend)

Jinty commemorates it being “back to school” after the summer holidays with a “back to school” craft page and doing a feature on Grange Hill for “Behind the Screen”.

At Pond Hill, school’s much happier because a school camping trip to France is planned. Pam’s so enthused that she’s boning up on her French, much to Miss Peeble’s surprise. But there’s one problem: the school can only take ten pupils because that’s all the room there is in their vehicle. So there is no guarantee Pam will even go.

In “Child of the Rain”, Jemma’s odd reaction to rain is causing a real nuisance at school and she’s running the risk of letting the school tennis team down because of it.

School is now looking up for Kathy the class clown because her classmates decide Sandra has gone too far and start protecting her from Sandra’s bullying. But Kathy loses that protection when her clumsiness turns a classmate’s party into custard and a stereo system is wrecked! Now it’s back to square one for her, and we are warned that the bullying will grow even worse next week.

“A Spell of Trouble” is on its penultimate episode. The witches find out Angela is still not a witch and carry out their threat to strip the Blacks of their powers because of it. But when Angela sees how hard this is on her Black relatives because they’ve never gotten by any other way except witchcraft, she decides to become a witch after all, for their sakes. She doesn’t think it’s going to be that easy, though, and we have a feeling she’s right.

Shona becomes the “Girl the World Forgot” once the searchers find her empty life raft and draw the apparent conclusion that she is dead. Nobody knows that Shona and her dog Scuffer are in fact washed up on a deserted island and waiting for rescue.

Aunt Agnes comes to stay at Stoney Hall, and she’s so house-proud she insists on cleaning everything in sight, while Sir Roger likes it dusty and cobwebby.

Tansy’s holiday gets even weirder when she and June find their way out of the cave they got lost in and find a gang of smugglers – in pirate costumes(?). She runs to the other Jubilee Street residents to get help in rounding them up.

This week’s Gypsy Rose is another recycled John Armstrong Strange Story, which is reprinted from Tammy. An arrogant mountaineer learns that the fells should not be underestimated, even if they are “flea bites” compared to the mountains she’s climbed, and they can be dangerous for those who do not know them. She learns that dogs should not be underestimated either. But we wonder what her opinion on ghosts will be after this episode?

Hip hip hooray! Jinty (would have been) 43 today!

This is a post covering more than one celebration. It is the 600th post on this blog, posted on the 11th May, the day that Jinty was first published 43 years ago. And while we normally don’t make much of the anniversary of the blog itself, it has been a little over three years since it first started, back on 15 April 2014.

Jinty likewise also didn’t make much of its anniversaries. There is a celebration cover for its 200th issue but that mostly consists of an Easter picture and some text stating that it is a celebration issue. And while the cover of its 5th anniversary, above, is at least specially-drawn for the occasion, there is nothing much more inside to remind readers of the exciting times from the previous years. We can do more than that, in this blog post!

Well of course on this blog you can go back and read posts on individual issues, either in the order in which they were originally posted or (rather more conveniently) as an index, in date order. This also shows you how far we’ve got through the list of all 383 issues of Jinty ever published. For much of the run, we have now got long unbroken streaks of consecutive issues. There are gaps here and there of two or three issues together where we still have to fill in issues not-yet-blogged, but these are much fewer than used to be the case. (To give you context of the publishing of the time, there is also a much shorter list of issues of other titles which we have written about. It’s an area we focus on less, of course, but we will continue to add to nevertheless.)

We are still plugging gaps in the list of stories, too, but there again the gaps are narrowing. If you look at the list of Stories by Publication Date you can easily see which stories are yet to be posted about. Most of the key stories have already been covered, but there are still some crackers to come. Mistyfan is promising us “Tears of a Clown”, and on my own list I need to get to “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”, the popular and extremely long wartime tear-jerker from Alison Christie and Phil Townsend.

In terms of other sorts of blog achievements, of course 600 posts is itself a really good number to have got to, in as little as three years. I would have been happy to manage about one post a week, but thanks to Mistyfan’s energy and our combined bright ideas on new things to tackle over that time, we have managed three or four times that rate. (I must give due credit to Mistyfan, who writes about one and half as many posts as I do!) The readers of this blog will be glad to know that even though we are closing the gaps on individual issues to write about, we still have many creators to cover as well as the story gaps mentioned. And although issues of other titles have featured previously as context for Jinty‘s family tree, I can see that we might need to cover more of these so as to continue to trace the path of different creators, story types, and themes throughout the years.

Jinty never had a chance to continue even as far as its 8th birthday issue, alas. I wonder what it would have been like if it had lasted longer? There would certainly have been a lot more great stories and excellent art to read and enjoy, but would it have stayed as inventive and energetic as 2000AD has done in its 40th year? Bunty lasted from 1958 to 2001 and had strong stories even to the end, but I think it would be hard to class the latter-day content of the title as ranking with its heyday. A longer-lasting Jinty would have had to reinvent itself more widely: I’m not sure how that would be possible in the constraints of the British comics market, especially with comics marked out as being more and more ‘for boys’. Esther, the Spanish “Patty’s World”, managed it, with stories being written specifically for the Spanish market and grown-up readers still seeking out the title of their childhood and sharing it with the next generation. Perhaps not a coincidence that it succeeded so well: Esther was always down-to-earth and realistic, compared to stories about boarding schools or ballet, so it stood more of a chance to tap into the mainstream urge for everyday stories that lies behind the popularity of soap operas. Not that soaps are the only way to produce popular entertainment, of course: Jinty and the like could perhaps have tapped into the science fiction or fantastical elements that worked so well in their pages. For sure, something  different would have been needed. Wouldn’t it have been great to have seen the publishers give it a go!

Jinty and Penny 30 August 1980

Cover artist: Mario Capaldi

• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Tears of a Clown (artist Phil Gascoine)
• A Spell of Trouble (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Black Rory’s Curse (artist John Armstrong) – Gypsy Rose story
• Tansy of Jubilee Street (artist Ken Houghton)
• Behind the Screen: Happy Days (feature)
• Minnow (artist Peter Wilkes) – final episode
• Winning Ways #24: A Squat Vault (writer Benita Brown)
• Blind Faith (artist Phil Townsend) – final episode
• Alley Cat (artist Rob Lee)

On the cover we see Betty, the sports mistress from the future serial “Life’s a Ball for Nadine”, supervising the high jump. Oh, just kidding! But the sports mistress does bear a striking resemblance to Betty.

In the letter column there is a letter from one reader saying she cuts out the “Winning Ways” and gives them to her P.E. teacher, who pins them on the gymnasium wall. Benita Brown must have been so chuffed.

Both “Blind Faith” and “Minnow” finish this issue. Clare has to forfeit her win because she entered under false pretences, but she has made her point about Cromwell being able to jump despite his blindness, so he’s safe now. Minna has to do a life-or-death swim to shore to get away from her kidnappers, which is a real test for a girl who’s only recently learned to swim. Her escape can be viewed on the Peter Wilkes page in the panel gallery.

Their replacements next week are “Girl the World Forgot” and a new Phil Townsend sports story, “Child of the Rain”, which, come to think of it, was Jinty’s one and only tennis story. “Girl the World Forgot” is a castaway story, something that Jinty has not used since her earliest days with “Desert Island Daisy“, but it clearly takes the theme seriously, while Daisy used it for laughs.

Spiteful Sandra is at her worst this week to make sure Kathy stays “the clown”, and it makes this episode a really cruel one. Under cover of pretend kindness, she tricks Kathy into eating too much food to stop her demonstrating her running talent at the sports centre. And just look at the monstrous amounts of food she’s coercing poor Kathy to eat. Talk about gavage!

Pam guesses who has taken her witch ball and resorts to some sneakiness to get it back – while tricking the thief into making a fool of herself and cheer up her depressed gran into the bargain.

This week Tansy discovers just how superstitious the residents of Jubilee Street are. Although she herself remains a sceptic, she eventually decides to bone up on superstitions for luck: “better safe than sorry!”

Sir Roger thinks modern people don’t know how to make others suffer through torture these days. But after a trip to the funfair and trying out its rides, he changes his mind.

This week’s Gypsy Rose story is another recycled Strange Story, which originally appeared in June. It treats Jinty readers to some John Armstrong artwork. The old maxim “you can’t take it with you” is put to the test with Black Rory, a robber baron who was so greedy that not even death would make him part with his ill-gotten loot; he had himself buried in full armour in a stone room with all his riches. It looks like being beyond the grave is not stopping his greed either, because his spirit is taking possession of generous Carly and making her insatiably greedy. And then he disappears from the stone room altogether…to spread even more greed…?

Angela’s off to a boarding school, and Carrie goes along to ensure her bungling cousin stays there. But it all backfires in the end and they’re still stuck with Angela.

Jinty and Penny 23 August 1980

Cover artist: Mario Capaldi

• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Tears of a Clown (artist Phil Gascoine)
• A Spell of Trouble (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Lure of the Lamp (artist Christine Ellingham) – Gypsy Rose story
• Tansy of Jubilee Street (artist Ken Houghton)
• Wonder Woman (feature)
• Minnow (artist Peter Wilkes)
• Winning Ways #23: Forward Roll on a Beam (writer Benita Brown)
• Blind Faith (artist Phil Townsend)

Mario Capaldi brings us a very nice water-skiing cover for this issue of Jinty.

Both “Minnow” and “Blind Faith” are on their penultimate episodes. Minna finds out the hard way that the mystery in her mother’s past is connected to some foreign goons. How hard? These goons have now kidnapped Minna, tied her up, and locked her in the cabin of a ship that is now sailing for an unknown destination. And they aren’t any more cooperative than Mum is when it comes to explaining just what the heck it’s all about.

In “Blind Faith” Clare disguises herself to enter Cromwell in a gymkhana to show he can still jump, even if he is blind. But then the old ghost from the past returns when Cromwell refuses a water jump that is like the one that blinded him in the first place.

In “Pam of Pond Hill” the witch ball helps Pond Hill to win a footy match. But then bad luck strikes when the witch ball gets stolen.

Gaye tries to get Sir Roger to help out with housework. But he can’t seem to put a foot right about it for some reason – like pulling a fast one to get out of it.

Hooray, a policeman catches arch-bully Sandra red-handed when she plays a spiteful trick on poor old Kathy the clown! But then spiteful Sandra twists it to turn the class even more against the poor old clown. Boo! And now Sandra is plotting something even worse – foiling Kathy’s bid to show off her running talent at the local sports centre.

In “A Spell of Trouble”, Mrs Black pulls a body-switching spell so Carrie, in Angela’s body, can fool the Witch Inspector when she calls to see how Angela is getting on at becoming a witch. But Angela, in Carrie’s body, has to dance in the school disco team – and she has two left feet. Afterwards, Angela says she’s moving to a boarding school, away from the Blacks. Carrie thinks this is too good to be true, and it sounds like she’s right.

Tansy of Jubilee Street is still on holiday at a home away from home because everyone else in Jubilee Street is holidaying there too. They might as well have stayed at home.

The Gypsy Rose story is a recycled Strange Story drawn by the unknown Concrete Surfer artist. Sara Warren finds the lights in her street acting in a strange way, and then she sees a lamplighter with a disfigured face – er, hang on, hasn’t electric street lighting made lamp lighters obsolete?

Jinty and Penny 2 August 1980

• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Tears of a Clown (artist Phil Gascoine) – first episode
• The Last Leap (artist Giorgio Giorgetti) – Gypsy Rose story
• Tansy of Jubilee Street (artist Ken Houghton)
• Rinty ‘n’ Jinty
• A Spell of Trouble (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Behind the Screen – Dr Who
• Minnow (artist Peter Wilkes)
• Winning Ways #20: Headstand (writer Benita Brown)
• Blind Faith (artist Phil Townsend)

This week’s issue is one for Doctor Who fans because it has a feature on the show and Tom Baker, the fourth Doctor.

The cover informs us that “a great new story starts today”. That story is “Tears of a Clown”, which, like “Waves of Fear”, is a hard-hitting Phil Gascoine story about the evils of bullying and people in authority handling it badly. Here neither the parents nor the school are picking up that the protagonist, Kathy Clowne, is being bullied, much less step in to help. Instead, they all write her off as a no-hoper who’s no good at anything, not realising that the bullying is responsible for her poor school performance. It sounds all too familiar.

The shoplifting storyline in “Pam of Pond Hill” wraps up this week. It turns out the reason Hazel Bayley resorted to shoplifting was to use the stolen items to make the friends she didn’t have. That sounds all too familiar as well. Poor, foolish girl, who realised too late that it was not the way. She makes friends at Pond Hill in the end once they understand and sympathise, but her foolishness landed her in juvenile court and now she has a criminal record.

Minna finally sorts out her problem with bully Sharon, but now there is a new problem: her secret is in danger when a photographer takes a photograph of her at the swimming club.

Clare makes a new friend in Angie, who helps hide her and Cromwell. But Angie’s Dad has guessed what’s going on and is shadowing her.

This week’s Gypsy Rose is a Strange Story reprint that brings some Giorgio Giorgetti artwork to Jinty. The story is about a window where anyone who approaches it always seems to fall out of it. The doctor says it’s vertigo from the chequered pattern from the path below. However, there is another theory – and more evidence – about an aggrieved spirit of a mistreated servant girl who also fell out of that window. The story has been uploaded into the Gypsy Rose section in the panel gallery.

Tansy is surprised to find everyone in Jubilee Street is turning nice. Ah, so it’s a contest to find the kindest neighbour in the district. Yes, it sounded too good to be true – and so is the contest, which turns out to be as phony as the niceness in Jubilee Street.

Making Angela a witch becomes even more pressing when the Blacks receive a letter to make her one by next Halloween or have their powers removed. Carrie thinks she’s got it in the bag this time when Angela accepts a bet that if she can’t make a friend by the end of the day she’ll agree to be a witch. We shall see…

Sir Roger has sprained his haunting muscles and now he can’t vanish. We have to wait until next week to see if he recovers.

Jinty and Penny 4 October 1980

Cover artist: Mario Capaldi

Stories in this issue:

• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• Girl the World Forgot (artist and writer Veronica Weir)
• Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Tears of a Clown (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Tansy of Jubilee Street (artist Ken Houghton)
• ‘A Call for Help’ – Gypsy Rose story (artist Terry Aspin)
• Behind the Screen: Return of the Saint
• Sue’s Daily Dozen (artist José Casanovas) – first episode
• Winning Ways 27: Tennis – the Forehand Drive (writer Benita Brown)
• Child of the Rain (artist Phil Townsend)

Pam’s friend Tracie is all of a tizzy – she’s terrified of her mum walking out on the family. The obvious question is, why would she do that to them? It’s a serious worry: her mum is increasingly fed up with her home life and actively threatens to leave them. Of course it’s causing Tracie no end of worries on a daily basis but it also means there is no way she wants to come on the class trip to France. Pam’s cheerful mother thinks it’ll never come to that point, but when Tracie gets home after school one day and finds that her mother has packed a bag and got on the 3 o’clock bus it seems like quite a different matter!

Shona is the “Girl the World Forgot”, trying to survive on a deserted Scottish island. Some seals give her a pleasant surprise and she forgets her worries in swimming with them. But when the night comes and she is alone in the croft she has found, she seems not to be alone after all…

Kathy is trying hard to prove herself as a runner to her classmates and her teachers, but bad luck and the bullying nature of the horrible Sandra Simkins mean everything is against her. Even the obstacle race is a shameful experience for her – so bad that she vows to run away. At least her speed in running will help here there!

The Gypsy Rose story is clearly drawn specially for Jinty as it’s by Terry Aspin throughout in a matching style. Kay’s little sister Jenny has an imaginary friend called Mary who rings her on the toy phone – but one night the toy phone really does ring and Mary pleads for help because the hospital she is in is burning down! It turns out to be a hospital for toys, very fittingly. Gypsy Rose introduces the story and rounds it off at the end, rather than being one of the characters in the story itself as she sometimes is – but her appearance outside the burned toy factory in the last two panels makes it clear that she inhabits the same world as the stories she tells, that is, they are really real as far as she is concerned.

In the first episode of “Sue’s Daily Dozen” Sue Baker is feeling left-out as the only newcomer to the village. In the house that her dad is busy doing up, she finds a mysterious set of items that help her to integrate into village life – an old cooking pot, a ‘Daily Dozen’ book, and a spoon. Suspiciously witchy-sounding? But the first recipe, of some little cakes, turn out smashingly – but they do seem to be causing people who eat them to act a little… oddly.

Jemma West learns yoga from her serendipitous guest but when the rain comes down again she still can’t control herself enough, and she loses a big chance.

Jinty and Penny 9 August 1980

Cover art by Mario Capaldi

Stories in this issue:

• Pam of Pond Hill (artist Bob Harvey, writer Jay Over)
• Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost (artist Hugh Thornton-Jones)
• Tears of a Clown (artist Phil Gascoine)
• Gypsy Rose, ‘The Magic Carpet’
• Tansy of Jubilee Street (artist Ken Houghton)
• A Spell of Trouble (artist Trini Tinturé)
• Behind the Screen: “Fun Factory”
• Minnow (artist Peter Wilkes)
• Winning Ways 21: The Forward Roll (writer Benita Brown)
• Blind Faith (artist Phil Townsend)

Pam has a stroke of luck: she finds a ‘witch ball’ in a jumble sale and suddenly she feels like things are going her way. Coincidence, or something more?

It is early days in the new story, “Tears of a Clown”. Kathy Clowne has had her name put down for cross-country running, done as a joke by her cruel bully Sandra because everyone expects she will be hopeless at it. And even Kathy’s mum is pretty sceptical. Surprisingly, Kathy turns out to be much faster than anyone thought she’d be, but she has an accident and her glasses land in a pond and no-one stops to help her find them. Of course the officials think she joined the race without permission in order to make the school a laughing stock – but at least Kathy now knows that she enjoys cross-country running, and what’s more is good at it too.

The Gypsy Rose story is a reprint from an earlier title: Gypsy Rose just introduces the story and different artwork is used for that panel and the end panel as for the main story art. I don’t recognize this artist offhand but it is certainly a style I have seen before. The story is about a poor laundry maid in old Baghdad, who buys a carpet that is reputed to be magic. She ends up adopted by a Sultan as a friend to his daughter, so it must have worked!

The form that you send in with your letters is currently also showing the issue number (this is listed as Jinty and Penny 316) which it didn’t always.

Carrie Black has a cunning plan to turn Angela into a witch. First she has to turn her evil, so that she won’t mind being trained as a witch. Er – totally foolproof plan, I don’t think! The ring of Queen Nefratti will do the trick, if Carrie can pinch it from the museum.

Minna has to hide the newspaper article that mentions her – photo and all – from her mother. Of course she can’t do that for long, and her mother resignedly says that ‘I think the damage may already be done’. There are still plenty of mysteries ahead, the writer needn’t drag out the suspense of Minna hiding her swimming from her mother any longer.

The last story is “Blind Faith”. Angie is helping Clare and Cromwell live in hiding; Angie’s father finds them and can’t decide what to do, because he can see that his daughter is happy, for the first time in a very long time. I guess he decides not to give them up to the authorities, just yet – and so the two girls and the horse can continue to practice jumping. But what good will it do in the end?