Why the silence?

Douglas Keen was a remarkable man who lived a remarkable life. He was:

• visionary; arguably the main reason for the transformation of Ladybird from jobbing printers to publishing phenomenon
  
• the man who led Ladybird to enter the market of non-fiction and educational publishing
  
• the force behind the Peter and Jane reading scheme
  
• the only person to see Ladybird through from the early post-war days of the Bunnikins books through to the sale of the company to the Longman group in the 1970s
  
• an influence on the childhood of several generations of British children
  
• socially aware all his life and an advocate for women's rights
  
• a much loved family man and loyal friend
  

Yes, of course I'm an anorak when it comes to Ladybird Books but the achievments of this man transcend niche interest. Why hasn't the press picked up on any of this yet? Does anyone out there have any ideas about what can be done to get a little due tribute to be paid?

I attended his funeral on Thursday. Apparently Douglas Keen did not like funerals but this was a lovely, warm, friendly tribute to his life and his family had set up a corner of his house just as it would have been in the early 1950s with a letter on Wills & Hepworth headed notepaper in the old-fashioned typewriter and his hat on the desk - as you can see in the picture above. I was also shown an amazing prototype book; early on Keen could see a gap in the publishing market for well-produced children's non-fiction aimed at older children and which could be enjoyed by adults. Unable initially to convince the board of W&H to back his vision, he got his mother-in-law (herself trained as an artist) to produce some illustrations and himself wrote the text to create a mock up of the sort of book he had in mind.




The strategy worked; this was the prototype of 'British Birds and their Nests' and the beginning of a new and extraordinarily successful direction for Ladybird.

I hope to write a fuller account of this man and his life as soon as I can. In the meantime, you can read about Keen and 'The Ladybird Years' - part of the tribute spoken by his family at his funeral.

Douglas Keen 1913 - 2008

I learnt today from a family friend that Douglas Keen has died. Douglas Keen was Editorial Director of Ladybird over the period of the 1960s and 70s - the publisher's 'golden age' - and was in no small part responsible for this tremendous success.

It was Keen who pushed for Ladybird to extend into the educational market with factual books, convincing the Board of Wills and Hepworth that this was the right direction to pursue. He was also responsible for promoting the most successful Ladybird series of all time - the Peter and Jane Key Word reading scheme - which is still in print today, over 40 years later.

I never met Douglas Keen, but I wish I had. I would like to pass on my commiserations to his daughters and the rest of his family and friends.

My brand new 'Gallery' of rather old Ladybird Books

For quite a while now I've been working on a new Ladybird Book gallery, featuring lots of pictures and some commentry, slideshows etc. The old gallery is looking extremely dated and isn't interactive. But this all takes time and so far only the Early Animal Fiction pages on the new bit are worth looking at.

Here's the direct link. Please do take a look; feedback welcome.

Martin Aitchison on 'See Hear'

If you missed the feature on Martin Aitchison on BBC2's "See Hear" yesterday, you've got a week to catch it on the BBC iPlayer.

A great mini-feature on a wonderful man and a very interesting life.

BBC iPlayer: See Hear

The BBC 2 programme 'See Hear' is planning to make a Ladybird feature "along the lines of a montage of illustrations, photos of children through the ages reading Ladybird books". 'See Hear' is a deaf magazine programme presented entirely in British Sign Language and will include an interview with the wonderful Ladybird artist of the 1960s, 70s and 80s Martin Aitchison, who is himself deaf.

All being well, the programme will be broadcast on Wednesday 15th October, BBC2 at 1pm. If the day job gets in the way of day-time tv, remember the BBC iPlayer and catch up with the show later.

The FT-reading collector

Do you collect Ladybird Books? Do you read the Financial Times? I have been contacted by a journalist who is considering writing a feature on Ladybird Book collecting.

If you have the sort of job typically associated with an FT reader (?) (I think that means business executive, someone who works in finance, a senior professional etc) then please email me via my website. This journlist is interested in profiling one or more LB-collecting FT-style readers. Please note the word 'style' here. Even if you rarely read the paper, the point is that you have the sort of job that means you might!

Some oddities

Well, what a washout this car-boot season has proved to be! No interesting finds at any of the few that weren't rained off.


I have come across a couple of other oddities in the last couple of months, though.


The first was a roll of paper discovered by someone walking down a Leicestershire street. He fished it out of a skip and realised that it was an uncut page used to produce an old Ladybird Book. In fact there were 3 rolls - from 3 different books. I've always been fascinated by the way the pages were laid out to maximise efficiency in printing - the reason for Ladybird Books success in the early days of paper shortage - so it's great to have an actual uncut page to see for myself. It's an added bonus that one of the pages is from an early Well Loved Tales book, one of my favourites.


The other oddity is from the Key Word Reader series. It's called 'An Outline Picture Pad' and is basically a colouring-in book with line drawings from the original Peter and Jane books but where every picture in the whole pad is the same drawing. Presumably it was to be used in schools and from the teacher's perspective I can imagine it might be of use for those tricky moments at primary school - wet play, last-minute cover for absent staff - but in terms of a contribution to the skills and literacy of our nation in the 1960s it possibly wasn't the work of Ladybird's finest hour - and I doubt if the pads were re-issued with the revision of the books in the 1970s. Unless anyone out there knows different ...