Karen Kemp’s grandmothers live on either side of her. The grans have very different ideas about things and this causes a lot of arguing, with the Kemps caught in the middle.
Other Appearances
Dawn Fenton finds a magic shell that can whisper strange messages in rhyme to her.
In Victorian times, Sally is an orphan with no memory of her past and unable to speak. She is taken in by Mrs Crabstick, a beggar woman. But Mrs Crabstick runs a den of thieves and exploits Sally’s inability to speak for begging purposes.
When selfish Pauline Grey gets her portrait done by a street artist, she is told that it will show the true nature of the sitter. Pauline does not believe it, but changes her mind when the portrait begins to change for the worse. Realising she must change her ways if the portrait is to improve, Pauline makes genuine efforts to do so, but things tend to go wrong and the portrait ends up looking bad again.
It is the end of World War II. All the other evacuees have left the Larches, home to Misses Daphne and Edith Burntree. Vi (Violet) Lambeth has stayed on because the housekeeper, Mrs Porter, is kind to her. But then the Misses Burntree sack Mrs Porter and start using Vi as an unpaid servant. They also get rid of the piano Mrs Porter left Vi as a gift, so Vi has to find other ways of playing the piano. And Vi has to contend with bullies at school as well.
Janice Gower learns that she was accidentally switched at birth. She is really the daughter of Mr and Mrs Welch, who are now deceased. Sharon, who had been brought up by the Welches, now comes to live with her real parents, the Gowers. But things are not going well between Janice and Sharon because Janice is convinced that Sharon is trying to take her place in the family and getting more attention from the parents than she is. It gets to the point where Janice decides to run away – but then she is very surprised to find Sharon is doing the same thing!
Diane Dawson and her family move into Parfitt Court. Diane begins to have disturbing dreams in which she relives the hard life of Meg Hardy, who had once worked as a kitchen maid at Parfitt Court. Worse, Diana finds that she seems to experience parallels to her dreams in real life, such as falling ill of a fever while she dreams that Meg does and is in danger of death.
Sandi Peters lives with her Aunt Madge, Uncle George, and cousins Bridget and Clara. She is an unpaid servant who is expected to wait on her lazy uncle and spoiled cousins, and slave as a seamstress for her aunt’s clothes business, which the aunt does not run honestly. Sandi discovers a passion for table tennis, but has to find ways to get away from the work her guardians lumber her with in order to practise and compete in secret. This is not always easy.
Sally Randall wants to be a show-jumper, but her father has banned ponies. Crippled show-jumper Ruth Hanbury has secretly trained Sally on her own pony, Storm. Sally is entering events under the name of “McAndrew” and competing in the Junior Championships. Then jealous Joyce Heath discovers that Sally is competing under a false name, which is grounds for disqualification. Sally has realised Joyce knows the truth but wonders why Joyce isn’t letting on. She does not realise that Joyce is trying to figure out her motive for competing under a false name, which must be a serious one, before reporting her.
Vicky Page and Pam Reid have always hated each other, but now they are both looking for a new friend as theirs have gone to another town. This leads to more animosity between them as each tries to outdo the other in finding a friend and even playing tricks to sabotage each other’s efforts. As a result, neither of them is succeeding in finding a friend.
