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Some help with a Princess magazine

Posted: 27 Jun 2020, 04:17
by doddyf3
Hello comicsuk!

I'm looking for an edition of Princess Magazine that contains a story about a girl winning Wimbledon. Does anyone have any ideas? I'm guessing it was
published early 1960s or late 1950s.

The reason I'm asking is that I'm writing an article on the Australia tennis player, Evonne Goolagong, and she has publicly stated: "I read this Princess Magazine story. One story was about this girl who trained and was taken to this place called Wimbledon where she won on this magical court."

Any tips, very much appreciated.

Best,

Mark

Re: Some help with a Princess magazine

Posted: 28 Jun 2020, 17:54
by Goof
I'm afraid you may have a problem with this. I've been through the 120-odd Princesses which I have, and haven't found this or any other mention of tennis. Early Princesses followed a fairly simple formula, and the stories and features about sport etc activities were almost entirely confined to ballet and horses. I hope Ms Goolagong was recalling correctly the name of the comic where she read the story.

Hopefully somebody who has more Princesses will have better luck. For what it's worth, I can at least confirm that the story is not in any of the Princess Annuals or Holiday Specials.

Re: Some help with a Princess magazine

Posted: 29 Jun 2020, 09:59
by stevezodiac
My mate Steve checked his copies and sent this reply: I have looked at issues between 1960 and 1964 and there are no tennis stories. I don’t think there is any point looking at later issues given Goolagong’s age. She probably meant Bunty.

Re: Some help with a Princess magazine

Posted: 29 Jun 2020, 17:26
by Phoenix
As far as I can tell, there were only two DCT tennis-themed serials that might possibly have been an influence on Evonne Goolagong (Cawley after she married). The first is 'Wendy The Tennis Wonder', which appeared in BUNTY in 1959/60, but the tennis player, Wendy Woods, is a schoolgirl. The other is 'Topspin Terry', from DIANA in 1963, in which an orphanage girl called Terry Andrews became Wimbledon Junior Champion.

Re: Some help with a Princess magazine

Posted: 29 Jun 2020, 18:39
by Goof
I think your Diana story "Topspin Terry" sounds a definite possible, Phoenix. Diana seems to have been a direct rival to Princess in the early 60's, and it had a similar magazine-like look with a big tabloid format and lots of high-quality colour artwork. It would probably be quite easy to get the two comics mixed up in a fairly distant memory. Also, there can’t have been many tennis stories which took the heroine to an actual Wimbledon title.

Unfortunately, it's a bit hard to see how our correspondent can verify this, unless he's in a position to ask Ms Goolagong.

Re: Some help with a Princess magazine

Posted: 02 Jul 2020, 11:16
by Phoenix
Just as an addendum on this thread, a simple Google search has revealed that Evonne Goolagong Cawley MBE (1972) was born in 1951 and was still alive on 27 June 2020. There is no contact number unfortunately but a bit more in-depth research by doddyf3 might reveal one.