Another serial I would like to have details on

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Tammyfan
Posts: 1981
Joined: 23 Aug 2012, 10:41

Another serial I would like to have details on

Post by Tammyfan »

There is another serial I would like to have details on. I don't recall its title, but I think it might have been in Tracy. It was about a girl in a children's home whose life turns sour when she is wrongly accused of a crime. She is fostered out, but her foster-sister Gwen wants to get rid of her. Gwen finds out about her foster-sister's record and tries to frame her for stealing. Fortunately, Gwen is not as clever she is spiteful, so the police are led straight to her. But our heroine decides to go back to the home anyway as she cannot live with Gwen. There she finds she has been cleared of the earlier crime, and everything is happy again.

Does anyone know anything about what it might be?
Last edited by Tammyfan on 31 Jan 2014, 05:00, edited 1 time in total.

Phoenix
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Re: Another serial I would like to have details on

Post by Phoenix »

The serial you are searching for, Tammyfan, is called I'll Get Rid Of Rona!, which starts in Tracy 43 (Jul. 26 1980). I'm afraid I don't know where it finishes, but it is still running in 51 (Sep. 20 1980), and looks good for a further three or four weeks at least.

Tammyfan
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Re: Another serial I would like to have details on

Post by Tammyfan »

Thanks, Phoenix!

Phoenix
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Re: Another serial I would like to have details on

Post by Phoenix »

You may think this a silly question, Tammyfan, but I'm genuinely puzzled as to why you felt the need to amend your original post over four hours after you thanked me for giving you the information that you requested within it.

Tammyfan
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Re: Another serial I would like to have details on

Post by Tammyfan »

My first episode of this story is now on its way from 30th Century comics. :D

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RuthB
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Re: Another serial I would like to have details on

Post by RuthB »

I think I do have this story completed but in Spanish, reprinted in some Lily Special or similar. Will have a look this evening

Tammyfan
Posts: 1981
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Re: Another serial I would like to have details on

Post by Tammyfan »

RuthB wrote:I think I do have this story completed but in Spanish, reprinted in some Lily Special or similar. Will have a look this evening
Thanks! I caught just the final episode (but don't have it). I need to refresh a bit on it. Gwen did not think through her final move carefully enough. Something about hiding the stolen things in her possessions instead of planting them on Rona, I think. Her undoing. She did get rid of Rona, but was disgraced.

Tammyfan
Posts: 1981
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Re: Another serial I would like to have details on

Post by Tammyfan »

The issue has just arrived, so I can now see how it all started between Rona and Gwen. Funny how they don't give any details on how Rona came to be wrongly convicted of theft, or even what she was accused of stealing. It was the same with another wrongly accused girl, Merry at Misery House in Jinty. Rona is eventually cleared by a confession from the true thief (two years after it happened?!?). But there are no details given on how Merry came to be cleared in the final episode of her story (presumably, the true thief confessed there as well). I guess it's because the main thrust is on the conflict and enemies the girls face and not on the injustices done to them.

Hmm, this story was still running strong at #51? Gwen must have found it harder to get rid of Rona than she thought. Maybe some of her schemes went wrong? That has been the case in other serials, such as That Bad Bettina! in Mandy.

Tammyfan
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Re: Another serial I would like to have details on

Post by Tammyfan »

Does anyone have the final episode of this story?

Tammyfan
Posts: 1981
Joined: 23 Aug 2012, 10:41

Re: Another serial I would like to have details on

Post by Tammyfan »

30th Century Comics tells me that this story ended in #53. Trouble is, they have just reserved the issue for someone else. Does anyone by any chance have the final episode?

Phoenix
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Re: Another serial I would like to have details on

Post by Phoenix »

Tammyfan wrote:Does anyone by any chance have the final episode?
I do now.

Rona's explanation that Peggy had told her that her aunt, Mrs Malone, had asked Rona to sell the jewels is not believed by the police as she admits that she was at Miss Bradley's house that day on a community project, as was Peggy. Rona's immediate reaction is one of disbelief that Peggy must have stolen them from Miss Bradley. Meanwhile Gwen is looking in her Secrets Box at all the items that Rona is supposed to have stolen, and is exulting in the anticipation that she will soon be rid of her foster sister, when her mother tells her that she has been asked to go down to the police station as the police have Rona in custody. Gwen goes to give this news to Peggy and tells her that there won't be any money as the jeweller had called the police rather than her mother and father, which Gwen had assumed would happen. Peggy is furious so Gwen hands over her Post Office savings on the understanding that Peggy scarpers straightaway without splitting on her.

Rona tells the police and the social worker that she was working in the garden all day and that only Gwen was in the house, but is worried when the police tell her that Peggy has run away, and therefore can't be questioned. The police are given permission to search the Marchants' house. While they are searching the girls' bedroom, Rona is thinking that they will not find any stolen property there, and Gwen is wishing that she'd made sure they found something. However, when a policeman picks up the locked Secrets Box and asks for the key, Gwen says that Rona couldn't have put any stolen items in it because she has the only key. The policeman insists that she open it. When Gwen throws the key out of the window her father gets some tools from his toolbox and opens it up. He not only finds all the stolen items but a diary that explains the entire plot.

Although the Marchants ask Rona to stay with them, she feels that it would be better if she made a new start elsewhere as she would never be able to forget Gwen's deceit. By chance a letter arrives for Rona from Sunnyhills, the children's home she had had to leave, containing the news that another girl has confessed to the theft Rona had been convicted of, so she can go back there now. There is nothing that she would like more, and she gets a huge welcome home from all the boys and girls still living there.

Tammyfan
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Re: Another serial I would like to have details on

Post by Tammyfan »

Thanks, Phoenix. A bit annoying that we never find out what happens to Gwen or Peggy (er, who was Peggy exactly?) after they were found out. But I guess the parents won't be fostering any more children.

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Re: Another serial I would like to have details on

Post by Phoenix »

Tammyfan wrote:er, who was Peggy exactly?
Peggy Malone was a bad lot, a thief that Rona had met when the pair of them were in the remand home awaiting trial. They meet again when Peggy joins the school that Gwen and Rona attend, at which, thanks to Gwen, quite a few items have been going missing before she arrives. The upshot is that the Head has to tell the girls not to leave anything of value in the cloakroom. Rona is hoping Peggy doesn't recognise her, but no such luck. Peggy takes more sweets than she is entitled to accept when offered some, she copies during a test, she refuses to take part in school sporting activities on the grounds that nobody can make her do anything she doesn't want to, and blackmails Rona to keep her mouth shut about the remand home. Rona has to do Peggy's history homework, forces her to bring her maths homework round to her aunt's house as soon as she's finished it, where she is kept late doing the cleaning and dusting that Peggy had been told to do. Gwen's parents are troubled when they realise that Rona never has any money and wonder what she spends it on. Her father looks in Rona's blazer pocket and finds a packet of cigarettes that Rona is being forced to look after for Peggy. When Gwen realises that Peggy has a hold over Rona, it isn't long before she decides to use Peggy for her own ends. Quite how this happens I don't know because I don't yet have issue 52.
Tammyfan wrote:A bit annoying that we never find out what happens to Gwen or Peggy...../.....after they were found out.
I think we are intended to assume that Peggy will be back in custody as soon as the police catch up with her, probably at the beginning of a lifetime of petty crime, and Gwen will never fully get over the shame of knowing that her parents will never forget what a devious and unpleasant child they have brought into the world, even if they never mention the matter again.

Tammyfan
Posts: 1981
Joined: 23 Aug 2012, 10:41

Re: Another serial I would like to have details on

Post by Tammyfan »

Thank you, Phoenix. I think we can safely assume Gwen was expelled, and Peggy once the police caught up.
Hmm, most unusual for the spiteful girl to get an accomplice. Usually they act on their own to get rid of their cousin/foster girl. And Rona was up against a blackmailer as well as a spiteful girl? She sure had an even harder time than usual for this type of story.

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