• “I Must Find My Mum” – Bunty Picture Story Library #237  (1983)
• Reprinted as “I’ll Find My Mum” –   Bunty Picture Story Library #402  (1995)
• Partial reworking of text story Cinderella of the Orphanage
• Artist:  J. Badesa

Plot

In the text story “Cinderella of the Orphanage”  Cindy Winters (renamed Waters in the psl) has grown up in the Oldbank orphanage, she is a kind-hearted and helpful girl and has a close relationship with Mrs Blake the house mother and Harry Winters the handyman who found her on the orphanage doorstep. Cindy Winters is shown to be a problem solver and helper, it is the last episodes of the text series that revolve around Cindy looking for her mother which is the focus of the picture story library book.

Cindy Waters is upset to hear that Mrs Blake is retiring, but then Mrs Blake tells her she would like to legally adopt her. She says it is Cindy’s choice, but first she must be aware of new information has come to light, that may influence her decision.  The matron has a letter that was left with her as a baby, usually such things would be given  to the child they lave the home but they feel she should have all the information now. Back at the home Cindy is given the letter, Cindy’s mother writes that she can’t look after her now but Mary Blake was kind to her once and she knows she will look after her. She also says she will come back one day to claim her. She also enclosed a photo of four girls but they are in costumes with their faces mostly hidden.

Cindy goes back to Mrs Blake to ask her what she remembers. Mrs Blake worked at a hostel The Footlight Club in London where young actresses would try and make a name for themselves. Unfortunately it was so long ago and so many girls came and went that she can’t remember any names. Cindy is not deterred though, she will be 16 in a month’s time when the summer holidays start and she wants to use that time to try and find her mother. Although Mrs Blake tells Cindy not to get her hopes up too much as the authorities had no luck in finding her mother. But knowing how determined Cindy is, Blake and Matron arrange for her to stay in Mrs Blake’s cousins guesthouse. At the guesthouse Cindy has a roommate Janet Draper, an art student, whom she soon makes friends with.

Cindy starts her investigation the next morning, first she goes to the photographers where the photo was taken, but finds it is now a coffee shop. Next she tries the Footlight Club, she has more luck there, as she is directed to Old Nellie who used to be the wardrobe mistress. Cindy shows Nellie the photo and is surprised to find Nellie has a copy of the photo herself. She was given it by one of the girls’,  Nancy Stevens, although she doesn’t remember the other three girls. Nancy went on to become quite famous and changed her name to Felicity Oldbank. Cindy thinks it can’t be a coincidence that the stage name she chose is the same as the Children’s home. Felicity is appearing in a musical nearby so Cindy has a chance to meet her. Felicity is moved by Cindy’s story but she is not her mother, she was in fact raised in the Oldbank home too, which is why she chose the name. Looking at the photo, she remembers it was taken after an audition. Two girls didn’t get the part but herself and another girl Connie did. Connie settled down and married soon after the play, so Cindy is disappointed that she is unlikely to be her mother. But Felicity tells her not to lose hope as Connie may remember the other two girls in the photo.

When Cindy meets Connie she is able to give her the names of  the other girls, Clarice Hastings, and Diana Thorpe who sadly died in an aircrash years ago. She has not been in contact with Clarice but she remembers, the photographer was a family friend of Clarice. Before going back to London  Cindy promises to call into Janet’s father who lives close by. Connie knows the Drapers and tells Cindy, about how Janet’s mother was killed in a car crash that also left her father paralyzed. Janet was mostly raised by Miss Barnes, Mr Draper’s nurse. When she visits Mr Draper, Cindy is surprised that a sunny girl like Janet could come from such a miserable place. Mr Draper sounds like a spoilt child and Miss Barnes seems cold and clearly had been crying before she arrived. Just as she is leaving she is surprised as Miss Barnes kisses her on the cheek and says to pass it to Janet.

The next day in London, Cindy goes to the coffee shop where the photographer studio once was. The owner contacts the lawyer who handled the sale and they are able to track down the Martins. This leads Cindy to Clarice where she explains her story again. She is disappointed that she is not her mother, which only leaves the deceased Diana, but then Clarice tells her that she had seen Diana a couple of years back, very much alive. Cindy tries to go back to Felicity in case Diana is still an actress and she might know her but Felicity has moved on. She seems to be momentarily at a dead end, then Janet receives a letter from Miss Barnes about her father undergoing an operation to help him walk again. Cindy is shocked that the writing is the same as her mother’s letter!

She goes to visit Miss Barnes who embraces Cindy and confesses that she is her mother but she was too afraid and ashamed to say anything last time in case Cindy rejected her. She tells her story; that she had not been on the ill fated flight because she had an accident on the way to the airport. Hurting her leg, she knew she wouldn’t be able to dance again so she decided to train as a nurse. It was then she met Cindy’s father, a medical student and married him. Tragedy struck, as just before Cindy was born he was killed in a car crash. In shock and with little money, Diana had decided to give up Cindy, just while she finished her nursing training, she planned to come back for her when she had more money. Miss Barnes took the job with Mr Draper because of the good money but she did not reckon on how demanding an possessive he was. She felt sorry for him and that she couldn’t leave him.

Now things have changed with Mr Draper having a successful operation and Janet moving to an art studio back home she finally she feels she can leave. She gets a job at the Oldbank home and her and Cindy move in with Mrs Blake at her insistence.

Thoughts

Stories were often reprinted or updated, text stories turned to picture stories, and in a case like this sometimes they were shortened into one complete picture story library book.  Another time I can think of this happening is Bunty story Captain Shirley. In Cinderella of the Orphanage,  like I mentioned it starts with stories about Cindy’s time helping out in the orphanage, the plot of Cindy looking for her mother takes  place in Bunty #167-173 (this is only a small part of the story as Cinderella of the Orphanage started in #157). They do well taking the core mystery as the story  and the picture story library does not feel incomplete for missing out on the rest of the text story.

“I’ll Find My Mum” has an interesting mystery with only a photo as a clue to where her mother might be. Of course typically she ends up tracking the three other women before the final woman being revealed as her mother. It wouldn’t be quite so tense if the first woman she fond was her mother.  Also introducing the plot that Diana is supposedly dead means the readers put their hope on Clarice being the mother if Cindy is going to have a happy ending to her search. It’s a good way of keeping things more emotional and readers invested. Of course the reveal that Miss Barnes is actually Diana is a surprise and quite an unbelievable coincidence that Cindy would find her through room-mating with Janet! Also it’s hard to make Mr Draper sympathetic when he has been so demanding of Miss Barnes.

While most of story makes it in tact from the text, even little things such as Cindy being a nickname, she was actually baptized Angela Mary, there are some changes. A subplot was dropped about Cindy’s money going missing and she suspects Janet. Also when we are first introduced to Janet they have a longer conversation and a description of her includes: “Cindy felt rather as if a charming tornado had swept through the room“. After this Cindy makes a comment about it not going to dull with Janet around, this line is kept in the psl but it fails to fully represent the frenzied nature of the meeting, so that line now seems a bit out of place.

Cindy is also a little younger in the text story but the major change comes from time period it is set in. The text story was published in 1961, while it doesn’t make a difference to the majority of the story, it does change the details of Diana Thorpe’s past. The ill-fated air-crash that she managed to avoid was actually a for a troupe going to entertain the soldiers. Seeing air raid victims is what influenced her to be a nurse and Cindy’s father actually died just after the war after catching typhus in the East. While it doesn’t change the core of the story it would give more insight to why Diana would have struggled more with a baby and how she could be more vulnerable after such events. Reading the text story adds this nice details but are not necessary to enjoy the picture story library.