scale effect not working using keyframes

[PollyPuss]

Hi
When I scale (on the z axis) without keyframes to 1% (as an extreme example), the particle squishes to almost nothing, as expected, but when I do the same thing with keyframes active, to 1%, the particle re scales almost un-noticeably, to say maybe 97-98-99% of the original scaling.

Mesh operator missing, excuse my neewbie-ness.

Thanks
John