The First and Second Books of Aesop's Fables

Here is the third instalment of 'The Story of ... Robert Ayton'.

Recollections through Books - Robert Ayton, Part 1

Here is the first part of Rupert Ayton's recollections of his Uncle Robert, the Ladybird Illustrator.

There will be several more 'chapters' to follow. But for now ...

Part 1 - The Story of Flight

Robert Norton Ayton

I've added a new biography page to Below you'll find a biography of Robert Norton Ayton, illustrator of many Ladybird Books from the 'golden age' of the 1960s and 70s.

You'll find it here

Coming soon: Reminiscences of Ayton's life - via his Ladybird Books.

Links for searching

A new 'Search Cloud'.
Click on the words to search and explore some of my Ladybird pages.

Another obituary for John Berry

A very warm piece, written by a journalist who knew John Berry, appeared in the Guardian yesterday.

Here's the link to the online version.

A Quick History of Ladybird books

I've made a new 'History of Ladybird Books' presentation.

To view it you need to click the arrow at the bottom of the presentation - it might take a few seconds to load. Keep clicking that arrow to advance through it:



Hope you enjoy it

RIP John Berry

I have only just heard that John Berry died just before Christmas, aged 89.

When Ladybird was reaching its peak in the 1960s and 70s John Berry was one of the favoured artists. His style is photographic and was the perfect choice to illustrate, and indeed document, the working world of 1960s Britain in the People at Work series, for which he is best known (in Ladybird Land). However, he illustrated books from numerous other series - including a couple of original Peter and Jane books and, one of my favourites, the Hannibal the Hamster series of the early 1970s - a rather underrated series imho.

Colleages of Berry's said: "If you could photograph it, Berry could paint it" - but to paint successful portraits requires more than exceptional mechanical skill; outside Ladybird Land, I heard once that Berry painted a portrait of George Bush (senior) which was on display in the White House. He certainly painted Dina Pricess of Wales on one occasion.

I never met John Berry, although I have acquired a couple of pieces of his artwork. a relative of mine lives in the next village and gave me his phone number which she took out of the phone book, but I was too shy to make contact.

You will find an obituary from The Telgraph here.