The Mayne family are rather taken aback when eccentric Uncle Jim asks them to look after his chimpanzee Suzie while he recovers from an illness. They are even more so when they find Suzie has been brought up like a human child – and a very spoiled one!
Published: Debbie Picture Story Library #85
Artist: David Matysiak
Plot
Jill Watson has always wanted a pony but her farmer father can’t afford one. Jill’s solution: ride a cow named Jack instead. This draws the scorn of two riders, neighbour Eunice Bowman and her snobby friend Amanda Price. They scare Jack into a gallop, which makes him jump a hedge and Jill to fall off. Realising things have gotten out of hand there, they manage to catch the bolting cow, but Jill is furious with them.
When Dad discovers Jill had an accident with Jack he is adamant that Jack has to go, and he will be sold at market. He won’t listen to Jill’s protests that it wasn’t Jack’s fault.
Jill takes Jack out for one last ride and discovers Eunice and Amanda have set up jumps on Long Meadow. She tells the cheeky things to stop trespassing and clear off her father’s property, but Eunice and Amanda say not to be so sure about that.
It’s not long before Jill finds out what they mean: Mr Bowman has found a document that enables him to challenge the Watsons’ ownership of Long Meadow at the Little Chiddington Point-to-Point Race. This arrangement was set up generations ago when the same thing caused a neighbour dispute with their ancestors. Dad consults his lawyer, but finds he’s stuck with it. It’s legal: if the Watsons lose Long Meadow at the point-to-point, they will go bankrupt and lose their home. So they have to find a horse for the point-to-point. Eunice will represent the Bowmans at the point-to-point.
Meanwhile, Jack escaped when Dad tried to take him to market and he has not been found. He did a lot of jumping over hedges while getting away. So when Jill eventually finds him, it hits her – use Jack as her mount to win the point-to-point. That way, Dad will change his mind and not get rid of Jack. In the meantime, she keeps Jack hidden in an old shed. She also checks out the point-to-point rules, in case there is a rule against non-horses. Colonel Dempster, who is organising the point-to-point, is quite surprised at Jill’s query, but can find no rule saying outright that the mount has to be a horse: “As far as I can see you can enter the family goat if you like!”
Dad, who knows nothing of what Jill is planning with Jack, has borrowed a horse, Scimitar, for the race, but is not fit enough to ride him. He has to take to his bed after trying, but won’t listen to reason. He continues to train, regardless of his condition. In the end it takes doctor’s orders to put an end to that. Scimitar is too big for Jill to use.
Meanwhile, Jill and Jack begin training in earnest, using the jumps Eunice and Amanda have so kindly set up in Long Meadow. When the two bullies tease her about it, Jack really sends them off. But then they discover where she is hiding Jack and hide her saddle. Jill is forced to ride Jack bareback and the bullies are shocked when she gets badly hurt trying to do so. They send for help anonymously and then guilt has them quietly return the saddle.
But Dad’s view of Jack has not changed and he locks him in the cowshed, ready for sale. Jill, now recovered from her fall, resumes her training with Jack regardless. Jill hauls Dad out of bed to show him what she can do with Jack – tackle the most difficult jump of the point-to-point, Foster’s Dike. Once Dad sees Jack clear the jump that so many horses have shied at, he finally relents, and gives Jack and Jill his blessing for entering the point-to-point. So Jill sends in her entry form. The Colonel is a bit surprised at Jill entering a cow, but hey, it isn’t against the rules, remember?
At first Eunice and Amanda are laughing at Jill entering Jack in the point-to-point. But when they see what serious competition Jack and Jill have become, they decide to pull a dirty trick instead. They leave Jack in Benning’s Pond overnight to make him too ill to enter the event. By the time Jill finds him he has indeed become ill from a bug he caught in the pond, and his condition worsens so much they fear for his life.
The vet isn’t able to do much, but Dad recalls Mr Darbury knows a lot of old-fashioned animal remedies. Fortunately, Mr Darbury has experience with cows catching the same bug in that pond and makes up the remedy he used for them. Jack responds to this treatment. Mr Darbury is confident Jack will recover in time for the point-to-point, and he does.
Eunice and Amanda are surprised and dismayed at Jack and Jill turning up at the point-to-point. Jill has realised they put Jack in the pond, and she tells them it’s revenge time by beating them at the event.
At first Amanda and Eunice get the lead on Jill once the race begins. But Jack soon proves himself a better jumper than their mounts and is catching up. Amanda goes down once Jack catches up with her, much to Jill’s satisfaction. But Jill has to catch up with the others and the only way to do so is tackle Foster’s Dike, the jump that the other point-to-point riders have avoided and gone the long way around. They clear the Dike and get ahead of all the other riders except Eunice. On the final lap Jack and Jill are neck and neck with Eunice, but pull ahead and cross the finishing line first. They have saved their home.
Thoughts
The idea of a show-jumping cow is not as absurd as it might sound. There have in fact been real-life cases of riders training cows as show jumpers. Often this is because, like Jill, their parents can’t or won’t let them have horses. The writer was probably inspired by such cases. Nor was this the first girls’ story to feature a show-jumping cow; Bunty, for example, ran a serial about a show-jumping cow, “Broncho Buttercup”, in 1970.
While Broncho Buttercup was played for laughs, Jill’s Jumping Jack has a more serious mission. He is the only hope the Watsons have of saving their farm. In addition, he has to prove his worth in order to avoid being unjustly put down.
Many of the obstacles Jill and Jack face are pretty routine and have been done before, but they still work and keep up the tension well. Jealous rivals pulling dirty tricks when not heaping scorn on our protagonist. Parents out to get rid of our heroine’s beloved pet after getting angry for the wrong reason. Parent/relative being stubborn about winning for the sake of the family and having a hard time accepting that the spirit is strong, but the flesh is weak. The protagonist having to hide the pet while getting him ready for the big event because she can’t train him openly. The animal falling ill (or disappearing) so close to the event and must recover in the nick of time.
If Jack were a horse the story would be even more routine. It’s him being a cow that makes it more interesting and catches the reader’s eye. In fact, the biggest obstacle and the most novel one of all is Jack proving his show-jumping worth as a cow. Even without the other obstacles thrown at them, Jack would still face ridicule as a show-jumper because he’s a cow and everyone would be laughing at him at the point-to-point. We’re not shown any of that, though, probably because the story can only fit so many panels into its page limit. The only scorn we get to see comes from those two snobs.
The title “Jill’s Jumping Jack” is clearly a play on jumping jacks and Jack and Jill. It may be funny punning, but there is one problem with this. If Jack is a cow, cows are female, and therefore Jack should be a female and have a female name and female pronouns. On the other hand, Jack does not appear to have an udder.
Published: Mandy Picture Story Library #226
Artist: Unknown
Writer: Unknown
We continue commemorating the Halloween season with “The Barn”, as it’s got owls and a haunted barn.
Plot
Beth Braden and her parents move to the countryside when Dad gets a job on an estate with Mr Horden. Beth is soon settling into the country life, though Horden rapidly makes it clear he is not the nicest of bosses to work for. Beth soon discovers that Horden has big plans for developing the estate. Moreover, he does not care how he goes about it, or who or what gets in the way.
Beth comes across an old barn and immediately likes it for its character and historical feel. She also finds a love heart carving that says BB loves LD, and is struck at how she shares the same initials as BB. She is dismayed to hear Horden is planning to develop the area for a luxury villa, which would look awful in that area. It would also demolish Beth’s beloved barn, which looks like it has heritage values too. Unfortunately she can’t do anything to put Dad’s job in jeopardy. Later she learns she has BB’s old room in their new cottage when she stumbles across BB’s box hidden under the floorboards. The box contains a pressed flower and a silver owl brooch.
At the village disco Beth meets a boy who has the same initials as LD – Luke Daniels. Beth learns that Luke’s father lost his job on the estate when Horden took it over, and for this reason he gets frigid with her once he hears who her father works for. But they soon come together again when they find an injured barn owl. Luke has been taught a few things in how to nurse the owl. They decide to keep her in the old barn where they can continue to nurse her. There is an owl window in the barn too, which suggests it has been used for owl watching before.
Then Beth and Luke overhear a conversation between Horden and Councillor Roberts. They realise Roberts is helping Horden to get council permission for the development plans as part of an illegal deal.
Beth’s father also tells her that Horden is trying to get permission to pull down an oak tree despite it having a protection order because it houses rare bats. Learning that buildings that house rare creatures could get them protected too, Beth realises that if they can get the barn owl to settle in the barn, they could get it protected. But it’s not just because of the owls; it’s also for BB and LD because Beth senses it means a lot to them. Beth also feels there is a presence in the barn that does not want the barn to go.
The owl begins to settle into the barn, and her mate turns up to feed her. But Horden’s application for council consent to convert the barn is now moving, so they have to come up with a way to stop it, and without Horden knowing Beth is part of it. They hit on the idea of entering a photo of the owls in a junior wildlife photo competition in the newspaper, with a note to say where the owls live, in accordance with the rules. But it will be entered under Luke’s name only to protect Beth.
There is something spooky about what happens when Luke takes the photo of the owl feeding its mate. Beth could swear she heard someone gasp as it was being taken. Luke thinks there was something odd about it too – he is not much good at photography, yet he seemed to know when to take the photo. Beth now really begins to suspect something in the barn wants it to be left intact. It’s no surprise that the photograph wins the competition.
The owls have settled into the barn so well that they have started nesting. A reporter who runs the nature column in the newspaper comes to do an article on the owls and hears about Horden’s application for planning approval. He gets the application blocked, much to Horden’s fury and Luke and Beth’s delight.
However, Beth and Luke soon learn that Horden is not going to take it lying down. He poisons the two nesting owls and all that is left are their new chicks. The kids now raise the chicks themselves, and it is not long before the chicks are learning to fly.
Then BB’s diary turns up from under the floorboards. It dates from 1913 and also contains a record of owl watching, which BB used to conduct with a boyfriend called Len. Their chicks are almost ready to fly by the time Len goes into the army. The silver owl brooch was his parting gift to BB, and she says the owls would help to keep them close. Sadly, Len was KIA. The diary ends with BB reporting hearing strange noises in the barn and thinks it is a tramp. Luke and Beth then find evidence that there was a fire in the barn once. BB does not mention this in her diary, which suggests that the fire was after her time.
All of a sudden, fire strikes again in the barn, courtesy of an arsonist. The smoke nearly claims the lives of Beth and the owls, but Mr Daniels puts the fire out in time. He then explains that BB – full name Beth Baxter – perished in the other fire, which was accidentally started by the tramp. Sure enough, she used to live in the cottage and she was owl watching too.
Horden is jailed for attempted bribery of the council. So he has been forced to sell up. The new owner is a much nicer man who is happy to employ both Mr Braden and Mr Daniels. He also agrees to leave the barn and its owls as they are.
Thoughts
This is a story you have to love for the wildlife caring, the dash of the supernatural and the hints of romance. Though there is no sign of romance between Beth and Luke and they seem little more than close friends, we will not be surprised if it goes that way at some point. That was the way it went between the two predecessors who parallel with them so much, right down to the initials. Even before we learn the full story and names of BB and LD, we get the impression that their story ended tragically. After all, how else could the haunting have started? We get the feeling the story is going to go in the direction of a haunting once Beth sees the love heart in the barn, even before the supernatural is introduced. The supernatural touches are very deftly and cleverly done. Instead of apparitions, objects moving and spectral warnings, the haunting is kept indistinct and gives little more than subtle nudges here and there to influence events in saving the owls and the barn.
Many could regard Mr Horden as just a ruthless, greedy man who stops at nothing and nobody to get what he wants. Yet he can also be seen as an allegory of the destructive forces of greed and profit at the expense of the environment and driving our fellow species into extinction (as exemplified in bowling over the rare owls and bats), and not giving a damn about it. Councillor Roberts could be regarded as even more distasteful because he’s corrupt. He’s breaking council rules and the law in order to help Horden because he stands to have his share of money out of Horden’s venture. Just how these two are caught out is not revealed, evidently because there were not enough pages to go into those details. Perhaps the arsonist was caught and made a confession.
The artwork does a brilliant job of bringing the story to life. It has a rugged, even heavy feel at times that blends in perfectly with the rural setting and depicting the owls and the barn, especially when the supernatural elements are introduced.
Published: Debbie Picture Story Library #71
Artist: David Matysiak
Writer: Unknown
Plot
After nearly two years of saving, Jane Bright finally buys her new bike. Then her younger sister Kitty is involved in a road accident, which causes her beloved cat Cleo to disappear. When Kitty comes home, she reacts badly to Cleo’s disappearance and begins to pine, which makes her fragile condition worsen. This makes it all the more urgent to find Cleo.
The family can’t find Cleo anywhere in the neighbourhood. Inspired by an ad about a lost pet and reward for its return, Jane puts up her own ads for Cleo. As Jane has no money for the reward and does not want to bother her parents about it, she decides to sacrifice her new bike as the reward. This creates an additional difficulty as Kitty is looking forward to riding the new bike when she recovers. Now it has looks like Cleo or the bike.
The ad brings some people over with cats, but not one is Cleo. Among them are two kids who will try an even sneakier trick to get the bike later on. Door-to-door inquiries turn up nothing. Jane finds the police search only for lost dogs, not cats, so no luck at the police station.
The family see a cat food ad with a cat that looks like Cleo, and Kitty says they must have stolen her to make the ad. Inquiries reveal the ad was made three months previously (er, doesn’t that rule out Cleo as the cat?). When Jane checks out the ad agency they scare her off with their snake, a handy method they use to get rid of unwanted guests.
They try a newspaper ad. A reporter turns it into a human issue story of Jane having saved so hard for her new bike and then willing to give it up to find Cleo. It goes out in the newspaper and on the radio to tug at people’s heartstrings.
But while searching for Cleo, Jane’s bike gets stolen. Now she has no reward at all. While the bike is missing, the two aforementioned kids try to con Jane out of the bike by giving her a cat they’ve painted up to look like Cleo. Too bad for them they forgot to let the paint dry first!
Then Jane spots a man she spoke to just before her bike was stolen. She follows him to a scrap yard and finds him with a bike that looks like hers, and he’s about to respray it. Jane calls the police, and they find not only the stolen bike but also other stolen items, including stolen pedigree cats (no Cleo, though). The man is taken into custody and Jane gets her bike back.
When Jane gets home, she discovers Cleo had been under her nose – well, in the airing cupboard – the whole time. Cleo had just gone off to have kittens. Kitty is thrilled and is now on the mend.
Thoughts
This is a solid story that a lot of us who have had to look for lost pets (including me) can relate to. The sense of urgency – that a girl’s life depends on finding the pet – has appeared elsewhere in girls’ comics and has created popular animal stories. It’s also got some dashes of humour, such as the ad agent with the snake and Jane landing in the garden pond while calling Cleo. It also has a pathos that tugs at our heart strings as we read that Jane had slogged and saved for nearly two years to buy her bicycle, yet she’s prepared to give it up because she has nothing else to reward the person who finds Cleo with. We sincerely hope that Jane won’t have to give up the bike and Cleo will just walk in the door or something.
Jane’s self-sacrifice is an emotional contrast to the unscrupulous people who turn up in the story, namely the cheating kids and the thief. Although we see many people moved by the radio broadcast nobody comes forward with real help. Eventually we learn that is because Cleo is still at home, keeping herself in a quiet place while she has her kittens. So it all turns out happily, with the added bonus of joy of the kittens.
It is a bit unbelievable that nobody realised Cleo was pregnant, although she must have been about ready to give birth when she disappeared. It might have been better plotting to just have the cat come back.