This was the first ever Millie strip. Millie was a strip that ran for five years in the Daily Mirror, written my myself and drawn by the incredibly talented Roger Mahoney (now currently sublimating his easy and fluent art style by drawing Andy Capp meticulously in the style of the late Reg Smythe).
It was originally written as a daily strip, but the Mirror gave us a trial run for the first five months or so as a weekly, appearing as a two deck strip on Saturdays. I wasn't complaining, I was a raw and untried writer and this was my big break. I duly ripped up everything I had written up to that point and remixed it into the new format. This is why a lot of these early strips could also work as two separate strips - it wasn't until a few months later that I got used to the new length, and then we were granted a daily spot on the comics page.
I'll have to explain some of the early 90s references. The Hippodrome was at the time owned by Peter Stringfellow, and the sort of place you would find Page 3 models, soap stars and tabloid gossip column hacks, along with a lot of young women in white stilettos. As far as I was concerned it has 'avoid' written all over it, but to a 14 year old teenager like Millie it would be the epitome of glamour.
'...the streets being paved with gold' - the legend of Dick Whittington is the story of a poor boy who travelled to London (with his cat) to find his fortune because he'd heard of the aforementioned metaphorical paving and became Lord Mayor of London three times over. Based on a true story, Richard Whittington did exist and he actually became Mayor four times, a case of the truth actually being better than the legend.
If there is an opposite to the epitome of glamour, Catford is it. A dreary south London suburb, not quite Lewisham, not quite Bromley, one of those places you pass through on the way to somewhere else, I picked it as the epitome of nowhere - and because it had the word 'cat' in it.
I'll be posting Millie strips on Saturdays from now on.
I was quite surprised to find Millie online, I remember reading Millie in the Mirror and it was my favourite newspaper comic strip, although I did stop reading when I left home and didn't read my mothers copy of the Mirror. So was disappointed that I never got to read all the strips and hoped that one day it might end up as a comic collection. However, the power of the interwebs means I will get to read it again.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny that even as a 15 year old I still remember Richard banging his head on the tree shouting no no no. I also used to live in Ladywell and had to walk through Catford (and pass the dog track) to get to work in Honor Oak Park and the description of Catford is spot on.
Going to spend the next week or two reading all the strips again and comment again when I read them all :)
Thanks once again.