IPC Magazines Ltd | 3 1/2p | Edited by Wilf Prigmore
Not one I read back in the day — I was only three! But chances are my sister had a few copies of Tammy or Sandie scattered around, and maybe I flicked through one between climbing furniture and watching Rainbow.
Reading it now, more than fifty years later, it’s a fascinating time capsule — emotional, moral, and utterly British in that early-70s way where every story carried both a lesson and a lump in the throat.
Two-Faced Teesha
A double-life tale with a twist — Teesha’s all smiles at school but sly as a fox behind the scenes. These strips were Tammy’s bread and butter: duplicity, guilt and poetic justice, all in five pages. It’s basically EastEnders for the pre-teens and drawn with real drama.
Jeannie and Her Uncle Meanie
A broad Scots comedy about a penny-pinching relative who’d make Scrooge look generous. The sort of thing you could imagine on children’s telly with a studio audience groaning at every punchline. Silly fun — and proof Tammy wasn’t all tears and trauma.
The Chain Gang Champions
A rare sports story — girls in athletics, pushing through class snobbery and self-doubt. Grit and competition done the Tammy way, with just enough realism to give it heart. It’s the Billy’s Boots of the girls’ comic world — no magic, just perseverance and friendship.
A New Leaf for Nancy
Part superstition, part melodrama. Nancy believes her luck depends on a particular tree, and when it’s cut down, her whole life collapses. Typical Tammy: ordinary girl, extraordinary symbolism. It’s overwrought in places, but the art and pacing sell the mood.
Back-Stab Ballerina
Tammy loved a good betrayal, and this one’s pure theatre — ambition, jealousy and tutus at dawn. Every frame oozes mid-70s girls’-school energy, with dialogue like “I’ll dance her off the stage if it’s the last thing I do!” Dramatic? Absolutely. Predictable? Maybe. But still gripping.
School for Snobs
The ultimate class-war strip: posh Hermione Snoot versus down-to-earth Sandra, both vying for supremacy in the classroom. It’s social satire disguised as slapstick — Britain’s class divide explained in four panels and a hair ribbon.
Wee Sue
The comic relief. Sue’s tiny, fierce and endlessly likeable. Her strip always felt more Beano than Tammy — cheerful chaos rather than emotional carnage. A perfect breather between all the sob stories and moral reckonings.
Granny’s Town
A little eerie, a little sad. A girl sent to live with her grandmother finds the village stuck in time — part ghost story, part morality play. Tammy excelled at this kind of slow-burn drama, where the fear was emotional rather than supernatural.
No Tears for Molly
A classic closer — an orphaned girl, hard luck, hard lessons, and just enough hope to keep you turning the page. Tammy built an empire on stories like this, giving readers heroines who suffered but never gave up.
Adverts & Features
The ads alone are worth the price of admission.
Jacoskates, Miss Matchbox Disco Girls, Rotadraw, Bubbly ’n Snips — and competitions for badges, mirrors and sweets you could win by post. It’s a scrapbook of 1973 childhood: roller boots, bubblegum, and a Britain still half black-and-white, half glam rock.
Verdict
Reading Tammy & Sandie now is like opening a window into a world we’ve forgotten existed.
It’s sentimental, moralistic, and occasionally absurd — but also progressive in its own way. These weren’t stories about superpowers or soldiers; they were about girls finding strength through friendship, compassion and stubbornness.
It might not have been one of my comics, but it’s impossible not to respect what it meant to a generation. In its own quiet way, Tammy showed that courage isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s just keeping your chin up when the world’s gone wrong.