The Belles of St. Lemons

Beano strip
The Belles of St. Lemons
Current/last artist
First appearance Issue {{{start_issue}}}
(1968)
Last appearance 1972
Regular characters The Belles, Miss Clump, Puddy, The Bash Street Kids

The Belles of St. Lemons was a comic strip in the UK comic The Beano, first appearing in issue #1495, dated March 13, 1971, although the characters themselves had first been introduced in the 1968 edition of The Beano Annual.

The title of the series was both a play on the nursery rhyme "Oranges and Lemons" and Ronald Searle's Belles of St. Trinians cartoons.

Overview

St. Lemons was essentially the girls' boarding-school equivalent of The Bash Street Kids - the "belles" all conforming to comic stereotypes (the fat one, the unintelligent one, the leader etc.). The headmistress of the school was Miss Clump (originally Miss Phit in the annuals). The weekly strip ended around 1972, although further episodes continued to appear in The Beano Annuals.

Characters

The Belles were:

Other characters featured in the strips included the rival St. Sniffles School (similar to Posh Street School, a rival of Bash Street School), and occasional cameos from The Bash Street Kids themselves. Ironically Gordon 'Bell' was the artist..