A really obscure ‘help me remember this book’

[TulipTuesday]

I had a dream last night that was about a book or story I definitely read when I was young. I haven’t thought about that story since I read it, but somehow my dream brain brought it back to me.

I’m not sure if it was a book of its own, or maybe a story/cartoon in a bigger reference book or even a bible story. I can only remember a bit of it so going to be near enough impossible. But MNers are great for this kind of thing 😄

All I can remember is a girl who ended up being a slave/imprisoned. It was possibly set in East Asia or maybe Egypt. The bit that I mostly remember is that she had a heavy wooden collar round her neck to stop her escaping. Then at the end she thought she was being executed but the ‘bad guy’ cut through the collar rather than chopping her head off.

Any ideas? It’s so weird that I dreamt about last night.

I had a few Mandy annuals, I remember a comic style story about a girl called Margaret who bullied her classmates for not being as pretty as her, and got a curse put on her that made her wake up with a deformed face one day and nobody believed it was really her. The final picture of her with her messed up face wailing "But I am Margaret!" scared the living daylights out of me.

I remember that one too! Wow. This is bringing up so many memories

I think a lot of us must have had the 1984 Mandy album! I am Margaret was in this too! 😂

I loved That’s Not My Gran.
who remember Rose, Widow Barlow and the Gaurdian tree.
I loved Mandy and all the tales of Victorian woe!
Strangely, I told my daughter a ghost story last night, which was called the Raggedy Anne Doll, about a little girl in hospital visited by a ghost nurse (who bought her her lost Raggedy Anne doll). I’m infecting the next generation!

Gosh the brain is weird. I'm another one who read your post and instantly knew I'd read it, and was almost sure it was a comic/annual.

@nocoolnamesleft but does your brain know where your phone charger is 😂
(See my comment upthread 😂😂)

What a thread!

This is why I have multiple phone chargers!

What amazes me is people get them so quickly.

This is the most satisfying mumsnet thread ever! Better than a parking one!

Can anyone remember the man in black stories? Maybe Diana annual....any pictures anyone?

I remember this story so clearly too. Was it Mandy or Blue Jeans?

There was also one about a group of identical ice skaters recruited from around the world to train in Russia for some nefarious reason.

@Ichangedmynameonce yep...Man in Black was indeed from Diana.
(Cheat confession.... I googled that one because I was thinking he was from Misty)

@Needmorelego that's great thank you! This is dangerous, I just bought a Diana annual on Ebay 😂

I clicked on this thread thinking it would be the usual ‘book I’ve never heard of’ fare. CANNOT BELIEVE MY EYES!!! Mandy 1984 was a staple in our house, we got a job lot of Mandy, Judy, Bunty, Jackie (racy!) and Misty annuals from the charity shop one time and I must’ve read every single one 20 times over.

The moving eyes portrait one was in Judy I think, I still remember the frame where the old woman’s hand shoves the girl down the dark stairs and then she’s trapped behind the portrait without a face yet. Now I’m wondering how all the other portrait prisoners were kept alive, and were they all in a dungeon together, shooting the shit until a visitor came by, where upon they quickly resumed their positions behind the portraits 🤣 I’ve clearly given this too much thought 🤣

Does anyone remember Oh But I Do CLAIRE, everyone had a doppelgänger with shiny alien eyes, and at the end Claire jumps in to her dad’s car and he turns round and has the alien eyes too 😱 god some of these have stayed with me for 35 years 😅

I don’t think I’m feeling trapped, however I did have a bad day at work yesterday so maybe it was that 😆

Also the Guardian Tree, with the family of orphans who lived under its roots in an underground hollow 😂 guessing social services wasn’t a thing when that was set (18th century I would imagine)

@SheWoreYellow was this the story you remembered (Mandy 195!)

@cathyandclare @tothesea here's the story about the girl and the distorted mirror

@ShirleyHolmes missed your post, yy Guardian Tree and oh my god! Raggedy Anne doll story. I can’t quite remember how it went??

girlscomicsofyesterday.com/

That’s all our early nights spoilt then 😂

Does anyone remember a story in Mandy or Judy about a girl who got trapped in a fun fair haunted house thing/other side of the mirror/alternate reality and all the other teenagers in it had a weird look on their face like their lip curled up Elvis style?

Oh my word yes!!! This haunted me and I used to worry that when my parents picked me up from Brownies they would turn around and not be them. Had nightmares about that. Used to try secret words so I could test it was really them.

That and The Portraits story are like yesterday for me!!
Need to dig out my old annuals

I honestly think girls these days are missing a treat not having these

I remember one where a lass went for a walk on the Moor by herself. On the way she passes a group of teens who told her to be careful as the Moor was haunted. As they left she said to the reader that she wasn't worries, as she was the ghost, having died there some years before. Anyone know the one I mean?

OMG this might be my favourite thread ever! So impressed that the story was found so quickly, that must be a record!
im also a manual lover, I have a great collection kept at my parents house. I used to go to charity shops and pick up some really old ones. I have some from the 50s. I’m inspired now to bring them home and have a good read through them again 😍

Wow, was going to ask if anyone remembers the moving eyes in the portraits and the scary old lady, and who could forget the doppelganger with the scary dad at the end? I'd forgotten I'm Margaret but seeing the pictures has brought it all back.
Does anyone remember the girl who haunted her old family's house and there was a mystery. Also something about a girl working in a jewellers as a Saturday job and there being a box with a secret drawer, and she was accused of stealing a ring?