When orphan Dixie Marston inherited a manor in England in Victorian times, she found life very different from the ranch in America where she had been brought up. Dixie’s Uncle Cecil, Aunt Rachel and cousin Lydia deeply resented her coming to take up her inheritance, which they believed should have been theirs. They were determined to get rid of Dixie as soon as possible.
During the French Revolution in 1792 many French aristocrats owed their lives to the daring rescues carried out by Sir Roger Blackie, known as the Purple Pimpernel, aided by his young niece, Polly Perkin.
Other Appearances
Life had been very pleasant for Gwen Parsons. Employed as a young scullery maid in the grand household of Greystone Grange, she had been almost like a member of the family, and was even allowed to play with Master Timmy, the baby son of her employers, Lord and Lady Felton. One night there was a terrible fire and Gwen found herself fleeing from unknown enemies with the baby.
Orphaned Linda Dean was delighted to be fostered by kindly, well off Mr and Mrs Mount, and looked forward to a bright future as their adopted daughter. However, her happiness was overshadowed by the presence in the house of Nanny, an old lady who had looked after the Mounts’ daughter, Rachel, who had died three years earlier. Nanny made it clear to Linda that she would never allow her to take Rachel’s place. Meanwhile Linda had found out a few things about Rachel and had begun to discover why Rachel had been so unpopular at school.
A series of short stories, each had an individual title. It would start each story asking the question “Ever suffered from a broken heart? It can happen in a lot of ways.” Some of the stories included: a girl’s jealousy of her sister causes an accident, a girl gets the part in a play stolen from her, a girl’s dog dies after she has to move away and a girl is tricked into thinking a boy she likes wants to go on a date with her.
Other Appearances:
Julie Jones had found on unusual medallion which had a mysterious and evil power. Whoever took possession of the medallion became extremely cruel and powerful and able to control people’s minds. Julie believed that it was really an ingenious computer sent down from another planet to pave the way for an invasion. The medallion had transmitted a formula for a powder which evaporated water. Unfortunately, Julie had been caught in the medallion’s force beams and was now, unwittingly, about to take part in the evil plot she had fought so desperately against.
When Susie Sullivan (Solomons in some series) is badly injured in a road accident, the scientist responsible for her accident rebuilds her as a bionic girl, with bionic legs, one bionic arm and one bionic eye. Susie goes into Secret Service for the government, with her cover being that she has remained crippled from the accident. Her crutch is a disguised radio transmitter for contacting HQ.
Other Appearances:
Annual Appearances
Picture Story Library
Ginny Jones, enjoys sports, but she has yet to find the one that fits her best, she gets a bit too enthusiastic for team sports! After a hockey match she gets into a fight with some girls from the competing school. She escapes them by running away through a building site. Unknown to her, while she is maneuvering around the site, she is being watched. The older woman sees potential on her and invites her into her house. Ginny keeps a safe distance as the woman seems strange and her house derelict. She leads her to a gym and tells her she has been looking for a promising student for quite a while and wants to train her to be a gymnast. Ginny agrees to be trained despite some oddness from her new coach, like her habit of calling her Gina and wanting to keep the lessons secret.
Coach is a hard taskmaster and in keeping up with her training she gets in trouble in other parts of her life. Ginny does feels she’s already learnt a lot and thinks maybe she doesn’t need the coach or the hassle. But after doing badly, in a school competition, she realises she does still need Coach. She tries to follow Coach’s directions, so even when her dad treats the family to McDonalds she sticks to her diet. She is tempted by a doughnut but then she hears Coach’s voice telling her to remember her training, which causes her to drop the doughnut. Ginny thinks it must have been her guilty conscience, that made her hear the voice. Later when they pass the derelict houses, where Coach lives, her father mentions that they will all be torn down soon and only few squatters live there. So Ginny concludes that’s why Coach is always in a rush, because she isn’t supposed to be there.
After she has to letdown her school P.E. teacher by turning down a rematch competition, Ginny is happy that Coach wants to enter her in a local competition. There is a fee to be submitted with the entry form but when she brings it up with coach, she goes strange and looks tired. Ginny says she’ll get the money somehow, she thinks if Coach is a squatter she musn’t have much money either. Ginny manages to scrape money together but it leaves nothing for her mom’s upcoming birthday. She decides to cook her a birthday tea instead, but then she loses track of time at practice and is home late. Her younger sister, Kylie, is upset that she spoiled mom’s birthday.
Ginny’s secret training causes more problems as she falls out with a friend, after she doesn’t help with a paper round as she promised. She does think that at least Coach will be pleased that she placed third, at the local competition, but Coach informs her she expected more. Ginny doesn’t know if she should continue, saying that perhaps she is wasting Coach’s time. Coach backtracks, but Ginny is still feeling fed up. Coach says if she doesn’t see her the next day then she’ll take it that the training is over. But the next day Ginny has to look after her brother and sister while her mom is at the dentist, she doesn’t want to let them down again, but it causes her to be late to practice. As soon as she can, she rushes to practice, Coach is still there but she looks ill. Concerned, Ginny says she’s ready to dedicate herself to practice. Coach informs her they are running out of time she must practice before and after school.
At school she feels obliged to play a hockey match but is injured. Coach of course is not pleased with this, Ginny says if she could explain to her teachers about her gymnastics training, she wouldn’t be put in this situation. But Coach insists until she wins the regional championship she must keep it secret, after that it doesn’t matter. She has ointment to help with Ginny’s ankle and after a bit of rest she is able to pick up her training. As the competition nears, Ginny improves and Coach praises her more, but she also seems more forgetful. Meanwhile the houses are to be knocked down soon and Ginny gets cleared away by some Workmen. She goes back later and more of the house is boarded and a sign saying “Danger Demolition” is outside. She does find Coach still there, but she shies away when Ginny goes to physically thank her for her help. The big competition the next day, she bumps into her friends who are there to watch and she explains that she is a contestant and that’s what she’s been up to all this time. Ginny is delighted when she wins and rushes to tell Coach. She has to climb in a window as the door is blocked and there is no sign of Coach. She is going to leave Coach a note, but when she picks up a piece of paper to write on, she finds it’s and old newspaper article that says Coach Vera Ramsey along with her student Gina were killed two years ago (how this paper got there in the first place is a mystery in itself!). Ginny yells out her thanks to the Coach and promises to keep up the hard work, a year later she has kept her promise and remembers to thank both Vera and her current coach when she is presented with her medals.
With the release of Tammy’s Bella at the Bar, it seems an ideal time to look at other John Armstrong work featuring a gymnast. A possible prototype to Bella, A Leap for Lindy, was already discussed on the Jinty resource site, and here in Secret Gymnast we get to see a post-Bella work. Bella is probably Armstrong’s most famous work and we can see here that Ginny bears a close resemblance to Bella. Armstrong has said he enjoyed drawing gymnastic stories (he certainly had a talent for it), so it is bit surprising that other than Bella there are so few of his stories that feature a gymnast. He did a lot of work for IPC and DCT but this is the only gymnastic story that I know of that he did for DCT (if I’m wrong and he did others, please let me know!). Perhaps gymnastic stories just weren’t as popular as they were in the 70s/early 80s or Bella’s fame was too much and they didn’t want her to overshadow other stories, as one can’t help but draw comparisons.
A lot of the stories Armstrong drew, featured a working class protagonist, Ginny is no exception, but perhaps being set in the 90s, the world has improved somewhat since the Thatcher era. Money is still tight, Ginny struggles to get money together for entry form, there are people without work, the school can’t afford proper gymnastic equipment, there are derelict houses…. but Ginny’s father has a job, they can send her younger sister to ballet lessons (even if they couldn’t afford to also send Ginny), and have treats like a trip to McDonalds. Also it’s noted the houses being knocked down and new development built up, which will offer more jobs, so Britain doesn’t seem to be as desolate a place as it is portrayed in some of the 70s stories (although it’s still far from perfect!). It is interesting looking at the social commentary in these stories as an adult, as I probably didn’t read much into it as a child.
Unlike Bella, at least Ginny does not have to deal with cruel guardians, her family are generous with what they have and seem supportive, I’m sure they would have supported her gymnastics if they knew about it (although they probably wouldn’t approve of her being trained in a rundown house with a strange woman!). The main conflict of the story comes from Ginny keeping her training secret, it leads her to let down her family and friends with no explanation. Ginny does feel guilty about this and there are times she sacrifices her gymnastics in order to make up for previous events, such as competing in the hockey match and babysitting for her mom. As we see her struggle to balance these things, we also root for her to succeed and are pleased to see her training pays off.
The other driving plot of the story is the mystery surrounding Coach. Why she lives in a run down house, what her name and background is, and why she seems confused and abrupt at times. There are hints of something ghostly about her from early on, but not enough to make it too obvious. One of the more blatant instances of supernatural Ginny hearing her voice stopping her from breaking her diet, but even that can be explained away. There is real sense of urgency in Coach, Ginny must win as she hasn’t the time to start again, she knows time is running out. We see her strength fading, presumably her spirit is tied to her house and gym and the closer it gets to it’s destruction the weaker she becomes. We can hope she finds some sense of peace, when she achieves what she set out to do – train a champion and that is why she lets go and is not there when Ginny comes to tell her the news. It is nice that the last panel shows that Ginny acknowledges her first Coach and honours her.
Summer has arrived so I thought it would be fun to look at something appropriately themed – a Summer Special! This isn’t something that I’ve looked at before on this site, in part because Summer Specials seem to be more rarer to come by then other issues. There 
may be a few reasons for this, firstly just looking at the DCT girls comics, despite having many popular long running titles, it seems Bunty was the only comic to get Summer/Holiday Specials. For a few years it did combine with Judy (from 1974 to 1980) to share a special between them, but it means there just aren’t as many specials out there in the first place. To the best of my knowledge Bunty Summer Specials ran from 1963 to 2004, so there are only 42 issues in total. I wonder if they didn’t sell as well as the weekly issues, and weren’t deemed cost efficient to produce issues for multiple publications. Like the Annual, these were filled with favourite characters and one-off complete stories, so there was less of need to collect in case of missing an episode of an ongoing serial. Unlike the Annuals these were just a thicker weekly issue, so not as durable as the hardback books. They could have also been a bit more disposable, as they would be bought to entertain on holidays, long car journeys, read on the beach etc. , maybe not all of them made it back home again.
The comic I am looking at in this post is the Bunty Summer Special 1996 (issue 34). Also Special thanks to Jim Eldridge (The Four Marys artist) for sending me a copy. At 48 pages (including front and back cover) it is an extra 16 pages than the weekly comic. Inside there are 9 stories, 4 of them being regular characters, The Four Marys, Luv Lisa, Bunty -a girl like you and The Comp. The 5 others are complete stories and filling out the rest of the comic is a number of features, including Puzzles , Pin Ups, Star Chart , Cut-Out Wardrobe and a fun highlight for me, is a Four Mary’s Game.
Of course the features and stories stick with the holiday theme. First up in The Four Marys, (art: Jim Eldridge) the girls are in Venice with the rest of their class. Mabel and Veronica are flashing their money around, while the Marys enjoy exploring. It turns out all their walking around helps them stop a thief as they have learned the back routes to places and they get rewarded for returning the stolen purse. So while the Marys can enjoy treating themselves, Mabel and Veronica run out of money and the boys they were hanging around with are suddenly not interested any more!
Lisa Codd meanwhile is having trouble with her brother Martin in Luv, Lisa. For the Summer, they are meant to be sharing the job of looking after the dogs, but Lisa ends up doing all the work, alongside her summer job. She complains about the dogs taking up all her spare time, but when the family are to go away on holiday she doesn’t want them to just go in the kennels, and persuades her Mom to take them with her.
In Mystery Maid, while Becky is staying in a hotel her room keeps getting messed up and she sees a maid in a black uniform, but can never catch up with her. When her parents point out all the cleaning staff just wear jeans and t-shirts, she wonders who the girl is. Then coincidentally her friend arrives with the History Society group she is holidaying with. It seems they are doing tours of haunted buildings and they are at this hotel because it is meant to be haunted by a maid from when it was a private house…
In Bunty – a Girl Like You Bunty enjoys a day out at the beach, but she doesn’t enjoy the wet dog smell on the way home!
Holly’s Hero with art by Eduardo Feito is set in America, where A girl Holly is a big fan of Beach Watch (obviously a Baywatch reference) and in particular it’s star Chad Chadwick. When Beach Watch starts filming nearby, she is starstruck, but when her dog gets in trouble in the water and Chad wont help because it will mess up his hair and makeup, she sees him as the vain, selfish person he is. Luckily a friend, (a boy who has had a crush on Holly) saves the dog and Holly sees how he is much better than her “hero”.
The only other photo story besides Luv, Lisa, Dee’s Day Out is about a girl who just moved to a town. As it’s Summer holidays she hasn’t made any friends yet so she is quite fed up. She decides to make a trip to her old home town but misses the train. She does end up meeting a local girl, Tanya, who offers to show her around. By the end of the day she is pleased with what the new town has to offer, she has made friends and has a date.
In Rags to the Rescue, Yvonne is spending her Summer holidays at home in the remote farm, she is happy to have her dog, Rags for company but she wouldn’t mind some human companionship too. There is potential when a neighbouring farm has their nephew, Lee, visiting, but Yvonne seems to keep missing him. But when he gets lost in a cave it is Rags that tracks him down and it is a start of a friendship for Yvonne.
Karen and Jenny are best friends, but after a holiday together will they be Forever Friends? (art by Julio Bosch)At first they are excited that Karen’s parent’s are bringing them to a holiday camp but Karen is not pleased to see how much stuff Jenny is bringing with her. By the end of the car journey they are not talking to each other and neither one of them wants to make up first. After getting stuck on a chair lift together they realise how silly they’ve been and enjoy the rest of the holiday together. Although it looks like there will be more arguments on the way home!
The pupils at The Comp set off for a school trip to Scotland, Grim Gertie expects them to wear their uniform but luckily she is not actually on the trip and Carlton says they can change once they’re away from the school. Freddy and Hodge mess around at one of the Lochs causing Freddy to fall in and later the class participate in some highland games. When the boys get kilts on, Laura threatens to pin the photo on school notice board when they return.
While the regular characters all get at least 5 pages, but the other stories only get 3 pages. This can leave things a bit cramped plot wise, for example in Forever Friends? the girls having a fall out in the car seems a bit soon or in Mystery Maid, we don’t get much of a reason why the ghost maid would be messing things up, other than because she’s a ghost! Still it is a fun issue, that would certainly get readers in the holiday spirit, it has lots of colour and fun features, such as puzzles and it would be good entertainment, whether you were stuck on a long journey or just at home.
When Tracey Brown started at a new school, she was immediately befriended by Jane Niven and her friends, Katy and Lorna. At first Tracey thinks they are the only friendly people in her class, but she soon finds out the opposite is true! Jane & Co. are nasty bullies and nobody wants to be friendly with Tracey, as they think she is just one of the gang. When she realizes what kind of people they are, she tries to get away from them but they threaten her and her cat, so she has to do what they say. Not only do they bully and threaten her, they also get her to do some nasty stuff to other people like trip a boy up and poor ink on a girl’s jacket . Tracy tries to get help from some classmates but Jane’s gang attacks them and the girls think Tracey set them up.
Even at home she does not get a reprieve, as Jane barges in when her parent’s are out. Tracey is going to confide in her parents about what is happening, but then sees her cat, Daisy, is hurt, and thinking Jane has carried out with her threats she keeps quiet. She does tell Jane off for doing something so low. Unknown to her, Daisy just got in a fight with another cat, it has nothing to do with Jane, but Jane lets Tracey keep her false assumptions, as it’s to her advantage. A small bit of hope for Tracey when she makes a friend with a girl, Lynne who goes to another school, but when the girls attack her, Tracey loses her only friend as she doesn’t want to hear any explanations afterwards.
Tracey is miserable and participating more in bullying acts because she is scared. Other pupils and even teachers think she is just a bully. Tracey takes a sick day and then tries playing truant, but Jane spots her and her peaceful day away turns into a disaster. When some family visit, she has fun babysitting her little cousin but the bullies then have more leverage to get Tracey to do what they want if she doesn’t want her cousin hurt. Tracey is miserable and trapped, she steals a girl’s notes for a test, when the girl and her friend confront Tracey, the gang “save” her, from a situation they placed her in, in the first place!. During a sport’s match, a visiting team gives Tracey the idea to go to boarding school, and her parents agree to a close one if she can get a scholarship, which she does. Tracey gets great joy in dropping the bomb to Jane and Co. that she won’t be returning to school next term. When she arrives at her new school, there are three friendly girls, but she gets nervous that the same thing is going to happen again. She is reassured when other classmates seem to give approval and she knows she’s in with the right crowd.
This story replaced another Bert Hill story Living a Lie which was also about a girl dealing with bullies, obviously a popular theme! I’m impressed by Tracey standing up to the bullies as soon as she found out their true nature, even if she didn’t get very far! In the beginning she is more proactive about trying to get away from Jane & Co. confiding in classmates and considering talking to her parents, though unfortunately it doesn’t work out. The longer she’s in with the “Wrong Crowd” the harder it is for her to escape and the more isolated she becomes. The reader sees how she gets deeper into co-operating with their schemes. Although she may not be happy with what they are making her do, I wonder if she hadn’t moved school, would she eventually just completely turned into a bully herself.
Surprisingly the bullies don’t get their comeuppance in the end. Clearly they’ve been getting on fine in the school previously and I wonder if the next new girl that comes along will fall into the same trap as Tracey. As for Tracey it is good to see her satisfaction at pulling one over on the bullies, though clearly her experience has made her nervous of new friends. Luckily her new school seems like it will be a lot happier of a place or her.