Most frequently seen on the Saturday page, Granny was the owner of a sweet shop packed with tooth-rotting confectionary, but it was her propensity for knitting 'cosies' that fascinated Cheeky. The first cosy which Granny showed Cheeky in the second Cheeky Weekly, was for a telephone, but over the weeks Granny's nimble needles turned out ever more outlandish woolly coverings. These included an octopus cosy, a cosy for her shop and a Mount Everest cosy. Perhaps the most memorable was the Mike Lacey cosy in the issue dated 01 September 1979.
Over the weeks we learned that Granny's Initial was M (despite the note soliciting suggestions, no readers' ideas of what her name might be were ever printed), and she had a cat called Tired Tom.
The comic with the most appearances by Granny was that dated 31 March 1979, in which she appeared on 3 pages. This issue had a knitting theme, as it contained a knitting pattern for Cheeky's jersey, and Granny was frantically turning out jerseys for all of Cheeky's pals (even Calculator Kid's number-crunching electronic sidekick got a jumper). She was knitting at such a furious rate that giant balls of wool were delivered to her by lorry. This issue was the second time that the old girl had knitted a Mystery Comic cosy, the first being 22 April 1978.
That wasn't the only time that Granny produced duplicate woolly coverings - she also knitted two Yikky-Boo cosies, (20 May 1978 and 12 May 1979), and three Granny Gumdrop cosies, on 11 November 1978 (admittedly this was by accident when a knitting experiment went disastrously awry), 07 January 1978 and 25 August 1979.
Granny G appeared on the front cover twice, once on the front of the 08 April 1978 comic having knitted a comic title cosy, and again in the Cheeky's Week strip dated 17 March 1979 when she sat on her pin-cushion (if she'd knitted a cosy for it she might have found the experience less painful).
The back page of 14 October 1978's issue included a puzzle in which readers were challenged to unravel the words on Granny's wool to find the name of one of Cheeky's pals.
In the final issue of Cheeky Weekly, Granny Gumdrop proudly displays her latest purchase, a knitting machine.
| Character | Total Issues | First Appearance | Final Appearance |
| Granny Gumdrop | 91 | 22-Oct-1977 | 02-Feb-1980 |
| Missing From Issues |
| 10-Dec-1977 |
| 21-Jan-1978 |
| 04-Feb-1978 |
| 11-Mar-1978 |
| 29-Apr-1978 |
| 06-May-1978 |
| 27-May-1978 |
| 17-Jun-1978 |
| 08-Jul-1978 |
| 29-Jul-1978 |
| 05-Aug-1978 |
| 19-Aug-1978 |
| 02-Sep-1978 |
| 23-Sep-1978 |
| 07-Oct-1978 |
| 04-Nov-1978 |
| 25-Nov-1978 |
| 03-Mar-1979 |
| 07-Apr-1979 |
| 05-May-1979 |
| 09-Jun-1979 |
| 30-Jun-1979 |
| 11-Aug-1979 |
| 06-Oct-1979 |
| 17-Nov-1979 |
| 15-Dec-1979 |
| Element | Number of Appearances |
| Saturday | 30 |
| Friday | 16 |
| Thursday | 15 |
| Tuesday | 10 |
| Wednesday | 9 |
| Monday | 8 |
| Sunday | 8 |
| Cover Feature | 2 |
| Suddenly | 2 |
| Cheeky's Week | 1 |
| Easter Monday | 1 |
| Page | Number of Appearances |
| 30 | 13 |
| 2 | 8 |
| 31 | 8 |
| 21 | 7 |
| 23 | 7 |
| 19 | 6 |
| 6 | 5 |
| 9 | 5 |
| 10 | 5 |
| 12 | 5 |
| 15 | 4 |
| 22 | 4 |
| 25 | 4 |
| 1 | 3 |
| 24 | 3 |
| 26 | 3 |
| 7 | 2 |
| 8 | 2 |
| 17 | 2 |
| 20 | 2 |
| 32 | 2 |
| 14 | 1 |
| 18 | 1 |
| Character | Artist | Total Elements |
| Granny Gumdrop | Frank McDiarmid | 45 |
| Granny Gumdrop | Mike Lacey | 18 |
| Granny Gumdrop | Frank McDiarmid pencils | 16 |
| Granny Gumdrop | Barrie Appleby | 8 |
| Granny Gumdrop | Unknown Cheeky Artist 1 | 5 |
| Granny Gumdrop | Jim Watson | 5 |
| Granny Gumdrop | Dick Millington | 3 |
| Granny Gumdrop | Bob Hill | 1 |
| Granny Gumdrop | Not known | 1 |
No comments:
Post a Comment