'"Boys and Girls" - Ladybird Event in London

Last Monday (16th October) I headed down to Foyles bookshop on Charing Cross Road to the event organised by Ladybird to publicise their new book "Boys and Girls" - a look at Childhood in the 'golden years' of Ladybird.

I hadn't been inside Foyles for many years - not since it was a rather charmless, rambling book warehouse staffed by those handpicked for their cumugeonly qualities - when its biggest rival of the time "Dillons" used the slogan "Foyled again? Try Dillons"

Time passes and now Foyles is smart and bright. The Ladybird Book event took place on the second floor. After a glass of wine and a little mingle (there were about 30 people present) Stephanie Barton (Publishing Director) and Ronnie Fairweather(Creative Director) gave a very entertaining talk about Ladybird Books, their own associations with Ladybird and some anecdotes about the history and snippets from some books.

Behind them on the wall were some examples of mouth-watering original Ladybird artwork - including pieces from Eric Winter's 606d Rapunzel and Kenney's Tootles the Taxi. How many people have asked me why they have never been able to track down any original Eric Winter artwork! Well now we know. Recently Ladybird have uncovered a large quantity of the artwork, tucked away and long-forgotten - until now. Magical! I suppose I should think of 'Sleeping Beauty' at this point - but instead I think of Howard Carter holding up a lamp and peering for the first time into the Tomb of Tutankhamun - "Beautiful things!"

They also displayed two new publications which will be on sale soon - a collection of facsimilie reproduction Ladybird Classics in a presentation slip-case - one 'For Boys' and one 'For Girls'.

I really hadn't been sure what to expect out of the evening - but after a glass of wine, some home cakes (the recipes for which I'm sure were taken from a Ladybird cookbook) and some chats with a range of interesting people - it was all very pleasant and all very 'Ladybird'.

Libby and Ladybirds

First of all I should say that I like Libby Purves. I think she is always witty and usually wise and often find myself in agreement with her.

In the article she wrote recently in The Times recently, she makes some pretty fair points about Ladybird world and rosy-tinted nostalgia. But she overstates the case, tends to equate Ladybird Books too far (although not exclusively) with Peter and Jane and, for me, misses an important point.

She says: "But what killed Ladybirds for me 50 years ago, and still does today, is the denial – almost a violent denial – of imagination and mystery. Everything is clean-edged, tidy, nicely drawn, drenched with optimism. And any child knows that the world is not like that, not really: there are pictures in the clouds, omens in the pebbles, splendour in the grass, unaccountable nightmares in the neat white bed. Peter and Jane rebel and quarrel and try out rude words, and fear that one day they’ll look behind the newspaper at breakfast and Daddy will have gone."

Now I don't know exactly how old Libby Purves is but I do know that she wasn't a child when Peter and Jane books were used to teach the nation to read. She was an adult.

Probably many children hated learning to read with Peter and Jane and thought them dull and prim and irrelevant. But judging by the people who contact me via my website, most children had no problem with the 'clean-edged, tidy' world they inhabited. Perhaps they found the lack of storyline a bit tedious, or perhaps they were reluctant readers and were bashed over the head with the books (figuratively?) by over zealous teachers. But lots of people grew up with P&J, enjoyed the pictures, thought of them as acquaintances and felt a bit envious of their tidy, ordered world.

I was a child of the 1960s and grew up with the first version of P&J. I recognised that their world was neater than mine, but liked the books for it. I wanted my brother to be more like Peter. I wanted to look like Jane, with socks that stayed up, a white cotten frock and matching ribbon. Many adults want escapism from their films and literature - why should we assume that children want realism? If I, as a child, had been afraid that Daddy might walk out on me, I am more likely - not less - to embrace a world where that was unthinkable. If children want their own childhood reflected back at them, why have Enid Blyton's Famous Five books endured for so long?

Adults wrote in to Ladybird, complaining (fairly) of the P&J books' racial and gender stereotyping and asking for more realism. Ladybird duely revised the books just a few years after the first version - making Peter and Jane a bit scruffier, a bit more naturalistic.

As a child I hated these changes. Now scruffy, casual Peter and Jane looked like me and my brother. Their world was untidier, less perfect - and I wanted nothing to do with them or it. THIS was "what killed Ladybird" for me

Vintage Ladybird

The Penguin Group are really beginning to revel in the increasing awareness of Ladybird Books as 'national treasures' - the nostalgia and recent social history. Combining this with the growth of social software sites, they've now launched a website called http://www.vintageladybird.com/ - which is less a site for collectors than a sort of hub or portal for a Ladybird prespective on other interactive sites. It has potential; it will be interesting to see how this evolves.