Amy Beckwith-Chilton is a divvy antique shop owner and a lead character in both Bobbins and Scary Go Round, as well as a recurring character in Bad Machinery. In the Scary Go Round and the first incarnation of Bobbins, she is known as Amy Chilton, however in the time between the end of Scary Go Round and the start of Bad Machinery, she marries Ryan Beckwith.
Amy
She has since had a baby, Walt.
First introduced as the receptionist at City Limits magazine, she was ultimately shown to be the daughter of its editor, Len Pickering. Some more information about her early days at the magazine were filled in later in ret-conned "New Bobbins" strips taking place concurrently with the early strips.She arrived as a troublemaking, rebellious teenager, who had formerly lived with her mother (who she seems to have gotten her original surname from; her parents apparently separated early, perhaps while her mother was pregnant with her) until, after Amy was kicked out of several schools, her mum packed her up and sent her off to Tackleford to live with her father. She attended art school until dropping out, which prompted her father to cut her off financially, and she had to find a job. Thereafter, she went through a number of attempted careers before finding her calling in antiques and collectibles; it turned out she had an intuitive sense for what cheaply-obtainable items at thrift stores and flea markets were actually valuable objects if brought to the right market. With some funding from Hugo Rodriguez, she opened a store, "Bric-A-Brac", which was a great success, though she had to endure a smear campaign from rival thrift-store ladies who led an enraged mob to burn down her original store as an alleged brothel; she got the last laugh when she convinced the charity which actually owned the rival store to take it away from the ladies and give it to Amy, where it became the new "Bric-A-Brac" location. (In "The Case of the Forked Road", we see that in that story's alternate timeline, Amy gives up at storekeeping and the ladies run what used to be her store.)
For many years, Amy has usually been dyeing her hair in a two-toned manner, mostly blonde (perhaps her natural colour, though it's occasionally been more brunette) but with highlights in front (or sometimes to the sides) of some shade of red, pink, purple, or sometimes green (as it now is). She also has a number of tattoos, which she added at various points of her life history (to the disapproval of her father).
In her younger years, Amy was not very financially responsible; she splurged any windfalls she might get (such as the million pound court judgement she received against TV producer Aaron Spelling for corrupting the youth, which the judge awarded her despite lack of a coherent case due to being lodge friends with Amy's father, and Spelling inexplicably paid up right away instead of appealing), and tended to be broke most of the time unless she could sponge on others such as her father; however, since she obtained business success with her store, she seems to be more responsible at money management.
Amy and Shelley Winters are good friends, and were housemates for a long time.