• Sandra and the Runaway Ballet – Judy: #86 (02 Sep. 1961) – #106 (20 Jan. 1962)
• Reprinted – Judy: #387 (10 June 1967) – #408 (4 November 1967)
• Reprinted as Sandra of the Castle Ballet – Lucky Charm: #2 (1979)
• Art: Paddy Brennan

Plot

Picking up from the Sandra of the Castle Ballet story, Sandra Wilson and the rest of the class are still at the island castle, with the holiday season at a close, Madame Sierra collapses from exhaustion. Her doctor advises her she needs complete rest for six months, so she heads for Switzerland, leaving the school in the care of an old friend, Sarah Lester. She has placed the school in the wrong hands, as Sarah, a good dancer but never a star, is jealous of Madame Sierra’s success and wants to ruin the school. She acts lazy not showing up to practices, she doesn’t teach the girls anything, cancels practices as punishment and they find their dancing getting worse. Knowing that this can’t continue, Sandra comes up with the plan for the class to runaway to London to get jobs on stage for experience and use their earnings for ballet lessons.

Needing money for their trip, one of the girls Marion convinces her father Mr Pickford, who runs the holiday camp, to give them the money to go. As they had been entertaining the holidaymakers he actually had money set aside for them, so he tells them they earned it. There good start doesn’t last long as a policeman sees them board the train and is suspicious and alerts Sarah Lester. When they get of train in London there are more police waiting for them. They split up and most of them manage to evade the police, but 2 girls are caught until Sandra manages to cause a distraction and they get away. They end up at a rough boarding house and while practicing ballet, and disaster strikes when Rose takes a fall when a banister breaks. Rose is badly injured and has to lie in plaster for several weeks, Lois volunteers to stay back and look after her while the other girls go look for work. The girls have no luck the first day, and when they get back seems they missed a caller description matching Sarah. It seems their luck is turning when the caller returns and it is Marion’s aunt with news of an audition, but their luck doesn’t last long as Sarah is on the hunt and tracks them down to the audition. She is determined none of them will be ballerinas. Sandra, Pearl, Alicia and Marion all pass the first part of the audition but when they have to audition with a male partner, Sarah has gotten to him first. Ramon an old friend of Sarah’s makes the girls look clumsy,and they lose out on the part. Knowing where they are now, Sarah will continue to make trouble for them.

Sandra is not giving up so easily, she comes up with an act the girls can tryout for variety theatre. Sarah meanwhile has manipulated their landlady to get them thrown out. They get new lodgings but Rose can no longer stay with them and goes to hospital. The girls have no luck at auditions, but after performing at hospital Sandra realises that they have been too tense at the auditions. They succeed at their next audition when Sandra helps them relax, making them believe they are not being watched. But Sarah is ready to stop them again, she gets the chorus girls that the Castle Ballet girls might replace, to confront the girls. They manage to call police and get to the theatre with a little delay and have a successful performance resulting in a month’s contract.

After nights of being booed on stage, they finally find out that Sarah has been the one making trouble for them, including hiring the roughs to boo them. Undeterred they have now earned enough  money to get lessons from reputable teacher, Madame Bartok. At the dance school they see an old class picture with Madame Sierra and Sarah. Sandra wants to investigate further and tracks down the old teacher, Madame Markus. Nina Sierra and Sandra had been good friends until after an audition for a touring company that they both wanted, Nina got picked and Sarah vowed revenge. Sandra figures out Sarah is ruining their career chances as part of her revenge. Meanwhile, the girls get a letter from Madame Sierra demanding they return to school with Sarah. Not wanting to anger Madame Sierra most of the girls agree to go back with Sarah until Sandra returns and tells them the truth of Sarah’s past.

Taking more drastic measures, Sarah hires some people to kidnap Sandra. They lock her in a boat but Sandra does risky thing of setting fire on oil on the water next to boat and escapes back to theatre when the coastguard come to rescue her. Rose is still in hospital during all this and while she should be walking,she won’t even try as she is disheartened believing she’ll never dance again. Sandra comes up with the idea to spend their money on pavlova ballet slippers to encourage her and Rose does start to recover. With their time in the Victory theatre finishing, Sarah  is up to her tricks again to get them to spend last of their money. Things are looking bad for the girls and then Madame Sierra shows up with Sarah, not listening to their protest, she demands they go back to school. But she slips Sandra a note to trust her, she pretends to leave the girls with Sarah,but sneaks back and hears all her revenge plan. She banishes Sarah and having recovered enough she stays on to teach the girls again. A few weeks later Rose returns, then Madame brings Edmund Lawrence of a prestigious ballet company for the girls to audition for. He chooses Sandra, so her time at the Castle Ballet ends, but she is off on new adventures.

Notes

This would be last time Sandra’s story involved Madame Sierra’s Castle school. Of course they don’t spend a lot of time actually at the castle in this story, but the girls are together throughout and show their closeness, when all are genuinely happy for Sandra’s success in the end, which contrasts to Sarah and Nina’s friendship. Sandra being the main character is driving force for moving the plot forward and coming up with solutions, getting them to go to London, helping them succeed at audition, tracking down Sarah’s old teacher. When Sandra is unknowingly kidnapped and the girls may have to dance with her, they concede that no one can dance the part as well, while they don’t give up and make do with a substitute, there is relief when Sandra reappears in time for the performance. Sandra certainly is the star of everything! It is good to see some of the other girls have some character as well though, Pearl and Alicia don’t go along with the rest of the girls who are going to go back with Sarah and we see Rose struggle through her own crisis after her injury.

There are some questionable actions by some of the adults in the story. Mr Pickford is in support of his daughter Marion and the girls scheme, but never tells Madame Sierra the problems that Sarah is causing. Initially they plan to say at Rose’s aunts boarding house but as its full they have to make do with the rougher one, Rose’s aunt never inquires after them. Although we never see Rose’s aunt so its unclear if she was expecting or interested in helping the girls in the first place. Sandra does some risky things such as setting fire near boat, she was locked in, lucky it works out in her favor! The story does keep things exciting and quick-paced. Sarah is a sneaky antagonist, she manages to cause a lot of trouble for the girls in London, before they find out she in the city. Luckily she is exposed for what she has done. While readers probably would have expected that the girls would win in the end, it is more surprising that Sandra leaves the school,ending an important chapter of her life.

I mentioned in the previous Sandra post it was odd that the change of title to “Sandra of the Castle Ballet” was for just a short period. In the Lucky Charm reprint it is called “Sandra of the Castle Ballet” and does have that story arc but the majority of reprint is the Runaway Ballet story. It is interesting that the Secret Ballet/Castle Ballet title was dropped after her first return, and the story titles then changed per story arc, after the Runaway Ballet, the next issue starts with Sandra and the Frightened Teacher. No matter what the title Sandra remained a popular character appearing in different sequels, reprinted stories as well as annuals and picture libraries throughout the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

List of  Sandra stories