Robert Lumley and Well Loved Tales - 606d

Robert Lumley and Eric Winter are the two artists I am most often asked about.  This reflects the enduring popularity of the 27 Well Loved Tales titles issued between 1964 (starting with Cinderella) until The Musicians of Bremen (1974).

(For a quick 'walk-through' of all the titles see this quick video:)


Between them, Winter and Lumley illustrated them all (except for one title, The Princess and the Frog) by 'Capaldi'.  That their powerful, evocative illustrations were the reason for the huge success of this series is evidenced by the fact that the revised version of these books initially kept Vera Southgate's original text, but were re-illustrated.  These later books have never achieved the same popularity of the earlier.

I've just posted a new artist biography, supplied to me by Robert Lumley's son (and winner of this year's poor excuse for a Christmas quiz!).

It's full of great Ladybird anecdotes and details.

Robert Lumley

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

B H Robinson - Ladybird artist

I've just made a new page about the life and work of the Ladybird artist B H Robinson.

He illustrated a large number of books for Ladybird in the late 70s and 80s, including 'Horses' 'Dogs' and many of the 'How it Works' and 'Leaders' series.












You'll find it here:

http://www.ladybirdflyawayhome.com/pages/robinson.htm

Batty Ladybird Woman

A rather cringe-worthy Daily Mirror feature today

And they've made the 3 years older than I am!  The indignity!

My brother isn't too pleased about being accused of vandalism by the Daily Mirror (Ok, by his sister).

Look out in the Sunday Mirror for another Ladybird feature - I think they're hoping to interview Martin Aitchison, who always has good Ladybird stories to tell.

Easy on the Eye

I thought I'd lost it - the first Ladybird website I found online, all those years ago when I first started collecting LBs and was first getting to know how this thing everyone kept talking about, this 'internet' worked.

Although NR hasn't updated his site for a while (I know, I'm a fine one to talk) I was delighted to find the link again.  My previous link had stopped working and, despite searching around, thought it had been taken down.  But here it ism, full of useful info and LB stuff:

Old Ladybird Books on TV

If you live in the Midlands, you may have seen a lovely feature on Ladybird Books on BBC 1 yesterday.

If features Martin Aitchison, Jenny Pearce lots of my books and artwork and me!

If you live in another region, you can see it here for 1 week only:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01pwrs9/Inside_Out_East_Midlands_14_01_2013/

Enjoy!

Christmas Quiz 2012

... Doesn't really exist. But it seems a shame to break a tradition of 10 years, so here's a random a ladybird question.

What Ladybird Book ends with the words:

'She died a few days later'

A cheerful quote for the festive season.

I have had to leave Ladybird land for a few months for personal reasons hence so few updates recently but will be back in a few months.

Happy Christmas to all

Martin Aitchison - See Hear

At 2.00 today the BBC programme See Hear will feature an updated interview with one of the best loved Ladybird illustrators (and one of my favourite people) Martin Aitchison.  It will be screened today, 5th September 2012 on BBC 2 at 1pm.

If you don't get a chance to catch it, I'll put the link to the iPlayer programme as soon as it's available.

OK - here is the link.  It's wonderful!  Highly recommended viewing.  If you want to skip to the Martin Aitchison piece, fast forward about 18 minutes.