It's not unusual that two people would remember the same story but it is slightly unusual that they apparently remembered it, wrongly, in the same way i.e. it being set in Victorian times. Mind you memory is a funny thing. I've been trying to track down a British B movie I saw over fifty years ago with my mum for a long time. All I can safely say about it is that it involved a woman poisoning her husband with mushrooms, beyond that I fear that, over the years, my attempt to bring it more clearly into focus has resulted in my cloaking it with other details that might well be of my own imagining.

I'll ask my mate Steve who's a film buff and loves old British films.

It could be the first person remembered wrongly, then the second person recognised the basic story and then influenced by that, falsely remembered it was set in Victorian times too. Like you said, memory is a funny thing. It's like the story of the man who had heard his wife's story about an incident while she was waving Jackie Onassis and became convinced he was there too when he wasn't. He even would repeat the story to his friends, from his point of view!

If you think you've found the possibility, even if you aren't sure, why not give the details? Or ask for more as there must be plenty of panels where Dennis was punished by his father and always wore a red and black jumper?

I don't need to give details Tammyfan, as Steve wasn't really asking a serious question. He was simply responding in a facetious way to my point about the need for as much information as possible to be provided by any enquirer to make sure any search for an answer is as simple as possible. At least I hope he wasn't expecting an answer....

It was a joke that I couldn't resist. Apologies for resorting to sarcasm.

To come back to topic, has anyone come up with further possibilities as to what the story may be? Or is Goof’s suggestion still the only one we have?

If the original enquirer is happy that the story from the Mandy Annual for 1971 is indeed the one they were thinking of and that they just misremembered it having a Victorian setting I don't really see where else we can go with this. Unless of course the second enquirer, if and when they get in touch again, is adamant that the Victorian setting was a fundamental part of the story that they remember. This would then leave the field open for the original enquirer to do the same and then we'd be wandering back towards square one again.

I did come across another possible story at the end of the search, and would have posted about it if Peace hadn’t meanwhile let us know that her original enquirer recognised the Mandy story as the one she was looking for.

This is a picture story in Girls’ World Annual 1969 called “The Gypsy Princess”. A girl abandoned as a baby has been raised by a gypsy family. She meets and befriends a girl from a wealthy family, who invites her to her birthday party. At the party a necklace goes missing, and she is accused of stealing it. In the furore that follows, the wealthy girl’s father recognises the gypsy girl as his long lost daughter, and twin of the wealthy girl, by virtue of a bracelet she wears.

The story is set in Victorian times and is therefore closer to the terms of original enquiry, but to be honest I would be surprised if it was the right one. It’s quite short (4 page) and not particularly original, and I would be surprised if anybody remembered it after all these years, unless it had stuck in the mind because of some very beautiful artwork by Gwen Tourret. However, if the second enquirer does come back looking for a Victorian story, I’d be happy to post a scan of part of it for her to check.

Goof, I would not object to seeing any of that story and I doubt few of us on here would object either so print and be damned!

I have not heard back from the second enquirer, so I guess she must be satisfied with that answer. Although if she ever does get back in contact, I can make that second suggestion. Thank you!

Me neither. I would love to see what the artwork of Gwen Tourret looks like.

Why not post this suggestion on your forum anyway? She may not have been back in touch because she assumed the first suggestion was all you could find?

All the Tourret sisters produced nice artwork for the Girl, Girls' World and Daily Mirror annuals. What's more it surprises me how different their styles are, compared to the Embleton, Blasco, and Buscema brothers for example.

Here's the first page of the story: