Spot the story

[Marionette]

While looking up some stuff on Tammy, and girls' comics generally, I came across a reference to a very Tammyish story entitled Her Racquet Was Chained To Her Wrist. Can anyone tell me where this is from?

[Tammyfan]

No idea, but I have a reasonable collection of Jinty that rules out Jinty. Tammy 1971-1977 - no. There are gaps in my 1978 collection that could include the possibility, but I wouldn't guarantee it as the dark Tammy stories were fading by then. Tammy 1979-1984 - no. So on balance, I think Tammy can be ruled out as well. So if this story was in an IPC title it would more likely to be June, Pixie or Sally.

Where did you find this reference, anyway?

Update: Oh, was it this one? http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/sep/19/comics

[Tammyfan]

It does remind me of a Lucky Charm I once read. Here a girl is subjected to methods to turn her into a top tennis player that border on sadistic. She is locked in a treadmill to clock up miles every day, is fed on fish heads and forced to sleep in a hard bed among other things. If that is the story, then it would have appeared in a DC Thomson title because Lucky Charm reprinted stories from the DCT flagships.

[philcom55]

Well spotted Tammyfan. Going by Peace 355's useful list of Lucky Charm titles it sounds very much like no.24 - 'Sheena a Slave of the Tennis Racquet'.

http://girlscomicsofyesterday.com/2013/02/lucky-charm/

I'll have to see if I can find where it originally appeared as I don't have a copy of that particular issue.

- Phil R.

[Tammyfan]

Well spotted Tammyfan. Going by Peace 355's useful list of Lucky Charm titles it sounds very much like no.24 - 'Sheena a Slave of the Tennis Racquet'.

http://girlscomicsofyesterday.com/2013/02/lucky-charm/

I'll have to see if I can find where it originally appeared as I don't have a copy of that particular issue.

- Phil R.

Yes, it's possible. Lucky Charm sometimes changed the titles of the reprints eg reprinting Down with St Desmond's! as Out To Ruin St Roslyn's.

[Phoenix]

While looking up some stuff on Tammy, and girls' comics generally, I came across a reference to a very Tammyish story entitled Her Racquet Was Chained To Her Wrist. Can anyone tell me where this is from?

Given that the tennis player and the racket are not attached to each other in Lucky Charm's Sheena - Slave Of The Tennis Racket, to give it its correct title, this would seem to be a dead end. Her Racquet Was Chained To Her Wrist does seem, nevertheless, to be a rip-off of any one of three Thomson serials. The most likely is Chained To Her Racket! from Judy in 1971, which was the female version of Chained To His Bat, which appeared in The Rover in 1956, with a version of it in The Hotspur in 1964. This story clearly influenced the two series of Chained To His Sword from The Wizard in 1974 and 1976. Further details of issue numbers and dates if required. Incidentally Slave Of The Tennis Racquet first appeared in Mandy in 1968.

Perhaps this is an appropriate point to remind newer members that the forum does have a Search facility. Often such a search will reveal that their specific questions have been answered, or partly answered, previously, as in this case.

[helsbels]

This story sounds really familiar, but with the moutains of girl's comics in my house it could take some time to track it down! I don't actually recall the very literal title "Her Racquet Was Chained To Her Wrist", but definitely the concept of the story.

[Phoenix]

Slave Of The Tennis Racquet appeared in Mandy in 1968, not in 1971 as I said earlier. I misread my notes! Apologies to anyone who has been rooting through their 1971 issues looking for it. I will correct my previous post. As compensation, I am posting the first page of the initial instalment of both Slave Of The Tennis Racquet from Mandy 67 (Apr. 27 1968) and Chained To Her Racket! from Judy 603 (Jul. 31 1971).

[Tammyfan]

This story sounds really familiar, but with the moutains of girl's comics in my house it could take some time to track it down! I don't actually recall the very literal title "Her Racquet Was Chained To Her Wrist", but definitely the concept of the story.

It is possible that the reference "Her Racquet Was Chained To Her Wrist" was confused about the title. It was a letter to the Guardian and based on someone's memory. Then again, it might be another story that we haven't found yet.

[Marionette]

Thanks for the responses. I was sure someone here would have an idea.

I doubt the person who mentioned it had that much of an idea of the title, so much as a general idea of the story, but it was an intriguing reference. The more I find out about girls' comics, the weirder they get.

[Tammyfan]

You know, another possibility is that Chained To Her Racket! was reprinted somewhere, under the revised title Her Racquet Was Chained To Her Wrist!. It wasn't unusual for girls' serials to be reprinted in other comics or annuals under revised titles. For example, Judy's The Truth about Tricia was reprinted in M&J as Eye Spy Trouble.

[Phoenix]

I'm inclined to believe that the 'title' suggested by Marionette never actually existed. The story we are trying to spot is Chained To Her Racket!.

[Tammyfan]

I'm inclined to believe that the 'title' suggested by Marionette never actually existed. The story we are trying to spot is Chained To Her Racket!.

Yes, I did raise the possibility of the reference being confused over the title myself.

[Tammyfan]

Incidentally, how did Chained to her Racket! end? With somebody taking to that chain with a pair of cutters and well and truly sorting out that fanatical father, I hope!

[Phoenix]

Incidentally, how did Chained to her Racket! end? With somebody taking to that chain with a pair of cutters and well and truly sorting out that fanatical father, I hope!

The serial ran in Judy 603 (Jul. 31 1971) - 618 (Nov. 13 1971). I have amended my earlier post where I gave 604 as the starting issue. Sorry.

There is no father. He and his wife, namely Peter and Sheila Taggart, were killed in a car crash fourteen years earlier. Sheila's sister, Rachel Strong, was in a following car. She took Jane, their baby, and promptly disappeared with her. They went to a small island called Rockholm where the child was brought up on a diet of tennis and nothing else by her coach Rachel. At some early point, well before the story starts, the racket is chained to Jane's right wrist. On her fifteenth birthday Rachel writes to Jack and Liz Miller to tell them that she has a girl who will beat the two best players in Jack's professional tennis circus, one after the other. Miller is intrigued enough to fly to the island with his best two players, one male and one female. Jane annihilates them. Miller won't take her on immediately so Rachel takes Jane to London, and instructs her to go to Miller and say that Rachel has abandoned her. (It is worth pointing out that the above broadly matches the opening instalment of the football serial The Strange Story Of A Red-Haired Halfback from The Wizard in 1950.)

Jane is forced to allow the chain to be removed during a tournament match because her opponent complains that it keeps dazzling her. Rachel suggests taping it over but doesn't object when it is pointed out to her that too much time has elapsed so the referee is about to disqualify her. The balance of the racket is now wrong, Jane loses, and then flounces off. Her reaction over the next few days is so negative that Miller puts the chain back on. However, her confidence is so shattered that Miller decides to tell her she's just scared of losing. She reacts well and overcomes her fears.

As the racket does need to be removed for Jane to get dressed, have showers etc, the sly, and appropriately-named, Pauline Fox steals Jane's racket and hides it. With a borrowed racket she loses the first set to French ace Louise Mathieu, but Jane then adapts, proving to herself in the process that she can win without the perfectly-balanced racket that Rachel had had made for her, and without the chain, but with one of the many strategies that Rachel has instilled in her, that of giving her opponent a false sense of security.

Rachel is convinced that her dream of her protege winning Wimbledon is at risk so she takes Jane back to Rockholm for some serious work before the Paris tournament. Jane wins, and then again in America, leading to one newspaper headline Rachel's Robot Does It Again. Before Wimbledon, one paper refers to her as Taggart The Tiger. (This is another reference to a boys' story, this being the ice hockey serial Taggart Of The Tigers in Adventure in 1953.)

Jane wins Wimbledon with racket and chain, and then collapses. When she comes round in the first-aid room she says to Rachel, I've given you what you wanted. What next? Rachel throws the key at her and says, Stupid little fool! A show of affection from me tricked you into giving all you had! Goodbye, fool! and then walks away, slamming the door. Jack and Liz Miller tell Jane they want her to come with them, but as a daughter not a tennis player, as she has a lot of lost childhood to catch up on.