The evolution of Tootles

Last month I had a truly Ladybird-Geeky treat.  I met up with Ladybird artist John Kenney's closest surviving relative and, over a very pleasant lunch, enjoyed the pleasure of talking with someone who shares my passion for these pictures and in addition learnt a lot more about the man himself.

John Kenney was one of the best loved of Ladybird artists,.  He illustrated almost all the earlier History books, from the first in the series,  'Alfred the Great' in 1956 up to The Pilgrim Fathers, 1972.  He created the artwork for the early Robin Hood books, The Silver Arrow and The Ambush.  And of course, he created many people's childhood favourite: Tootles the Taxi.

I was also shown this piece of original artwork:

An early version of the artwork, now framed behind glass (hence the reflection); different from the final version, but clearly recognisable as the much-loved character. 

The finished artwork, used to produce the book, is almost certainly now in what's called the 'Ladybird Archive' in the Univeristy of Reading (of which more anon).

At this stage, Kenney's ideas for the image are still evolving: Tootles' expression is different; instead of the two children and dog in the foreground, we see a woman and daughter and the background scene is different.  This, of course, only adds to its appeal to the John Kenney fan.  What a wonderful and unique piece of Ladybird history to have hanging on your wall!

Peter and Jane, Jon Bentley and 'The Lost Episodes'

Last summer, when the programme makers of BBC4's 'The Ladybird Book Story' came to film, I showed the director Jon Bentley's 'Peter and Jane' inspired art: 'The Lost Episodes'.  She liked them as much as I do and took the artist's details, with a view to including an interview with him in the documentary.

I heard later that they team had spent an afternoon filming Jon.

But when the (wonderful) documentary came out - of Jon Bentley there was nothing.
Another 'lost episode'? 
But I found out what happened in this video.

Bear with the start of it; it will get to the 'Ladybird' point after a minute or two:

The fascinating Jon Bentley introduces 'The Lost Episodes' - pieces which I like very much indeed; I would love to see the originals one day.

If you'd like to see online versions, you'll find them here.

Charles Tunnicliffe Ladybird Artwork Exhibition on Anglesey

We're lucky enough to live for part of the year in North Wales.  Earlier this month I went to Anglesey, to the Oriel Ynys Môn Gallery to see the Ladybird Tunnicliffe exhibition that's on till the end of the year.  The gallery website is here:  http://www.kyffinwilliams.info/eng/

I heard about the exhibition here:

The exhibition was petite but lovely - featuring a large number of pieces of original artwork from the What to Look for series of book.  (I don't recall seeing anything from the other book that Tunnicliffe illustrated: The Farm).  There were other bits and pieces too that brought the exhibition to life, such as Tunnicliffe's sketch book and paint-box.  The museum also has a few Tunnicliffe pieces (not Ladybird) in the main gallery, such as the splendied 'Shire Horses', pictured above.  For younger kids there was a 'Nature Trail,' for completion of which they could earn one of the '4 Seasons' badges. (I cheated, and just paid 50p for mine).

As always, when you see the artwork 'in the flesh'  it has so much more impact that when you see it in a book.  The cafe was excellent and the staff couldn't have been more helpful, so I would definitely recommend you pay them a visit if you're anywhere near-ish-by.

Tunnicliffe is a fairly well-known artist and Anglesey is understandably proud of its links with him. But the visit got me thinking about artists and exhibitions and what we value and celebrate...

... But perhaps that's another story.

What To Look For - In Vain

A few weeks ago, I was searching through my Ladybird Books, looking for a suitable picture to use for the commemoration of the D-Day Landings.  It proved very hard to find anything - and reminded me how very few pictures there are in the vast canon of Ladybird artwork representing either of the Great Wars.

Now this seems rather odd. The brand 'Ladybird' first appeared in, I think, 1915.  The small-sized books were first issued in 1940 - their very size being dictated by war-time paper shortages.  Naturally most of the staff at Wills and Hepworth, including Douglas Keen, served in one capacity or another; artist Martin Aitchison (one of the most prolific illustrators for Ladybird) worked with Barnes Wallis, drawing up plans for the Dambusters bouncing bomb.

I was born in the mid-60s.  When I was little, the war was still a shadowy presence behind everything: television programmes, children's games, songs, films...

The 1960s were a golden age for Ladybird, with vast print runs and a presence in every outlet of  learning and entertainment.  And yet, in Ladybird Books there is hardly any mention of the war.  There is only one picture of Winston Churchill that I can think of (Great Men and Women).  There are none of Hitler.  There's no mention of Anne Frank or the persecution of the Jews. There are occasional pictures of tanks or bombing raids in Aircarft or The Story of the Motor Car.  Arms and Armour devotes pages to axes, bows and muskets and just a couple of pages (and some endpapers) to modern warfare.  For all the battle scenes in the History books, there are no specific World-War battles mentioned that I can find, other than a brief mention of The Battle of Britain.

And despite the inevitable patriotism of many Ladybird series, most of the many opportunities for post-war triumphalism are ignored too.  Why might this be?

The most obvious reason that I can think of is that this reflects an unspoken attitude of the times: look forward to the future or right back to a cosier past.  But let's not dwell on the recent past.

Or was there a deliberate policy to side-step the World Wars?  Was this something Douglas Keen himself dictated?  That this was necessarily unsuitable material for children's publishing seems unlikely if you consider the huge popularity of books such as the Biggles series.

This got me thinking about all the other strange omissions - things I would expect to find recorded in Ladybird Books - but can't.  (I'm talking here about the 'golden-era' - between 1940 - 1980).

So far this list includes:

The Suffragettes - nothing.  Not one mention.
No Amy Johnson (nor Amelia Earhart)
No Einstein
No Jane Seymour nor Catherin Parr
No Margaret Beaufort
No Lady Jane Grey
No Ada Lovelace
No Clive of India

Almost no French Revolution (just Dickens' 'Tale of 2 Cities')

No American Civil War

No picture of Statue of Liberty

No Wordsworth, Keats or Shelley
No Jane Austen
Almost no Bronte sisters (tiny bit in Elizabeth Gaskell)
As mentioned earlier, no Anne Frank or Hitler and only one pic of Churchill
Only a couple of uninspiring pics in 'Story of Science' of Isaac Newton

If anyone can think of a picture of the above that I've overlooked - DO let me know! Any other odd omissions that you've noticed?



 Returning to the World Wars - I did eventually find a picture of the Normandy Landings, but it wasn't easy.  I found a few pictures in the book 'Soldiers' from the Ladybird Leaders series, 1975.  Interestingly, this series of books, one of the last to be produced in the Douglas Keen era, was intended for younger children.  Perhaps a clue to the thinking is summed up on the last page:

"In the past, soldiers fought other soldiers.
In war today, nobody is safe.
Any man, woman or child can be killed, injured or made homeless"

Of course, despite the bright colours and sanitised  Ladybird portrayals of battles in earlier centuries, the reality of is that civilian men, women and children have always suffered in times of warfare.  But the heavy weariness of that  sentence is the closest I can come to an answer.

Things to Make and Do ...

What do you do with a lovely old Ladybird Book that is totally clapped out and unusable?  I mean, scribbles on pages, missing pages ... beyond redemption?

Do you, like me, still find it hard to throw them away?

The charm of old Ladybird Books lies principally in the artwork and if there are still pictures worth saving then save them I try to do.  I'm not the most crafty of folk, but this compulsion is enough to drive me to d... decoupage: cutting out pictures with fine scissors, and making a collage-esque picture with them.

Here are some that I've experimented with:

Looking on the internet, I seem people have toyed with similar ideas.  I love this idea posted on Twitter by @PeterInDevon - something he made for his son's bedroom:

 

But perhaps the cleverest use I've seen so far is this bird box, posted on Twitter by @CraftFinder

Inspiring!

Anybody else have any examples?

Today in Ladybird history ...

Recently I've been having a lot of fun sending daily tweets along the lines of: on this day in history ... I find a historical fact and then illustrate it with a relevant picture from a Ladybird Book.

Here's are a couple of examples:

 

 

The problem is, the sources of historical 'facts' that help me to do this seem rather limited. Given the breadth of depth of the terrain that Ladybird Books covered, there is so much more scope than I can easily produce using this method alone.

The answer then, I thought, is to reverse the process: start with the books and then put together a calendar of events illustrated in Ladybird Books. This approach though, it turns out, also has its problems. Surprisingly, Ladybird Books are rather thin on dates.

Actually, perhaps that's not so surprising. The vim and gusto of writers such as L du Garde Peach always put narrative ahead of objective detail; telling a story way ahead of being objective. And that must be a large part of the reason why the History books were so incredibly successful for so long. They were easy to read and didn't feel like school. Why else would so many of us have chosen to part with our meager pocket money on them when we weren't forced to?

The result? Many an evening is now passed by me in front of the telly with a clutch of old Ladybird Books and access to the internet. I look for interesting events portrayed in Ladybird Books and then try to find a date for them. Last night, for example, I 'battled' my way through the Wars of the Roses, trying to find dates for the most interesting pictures in Warwick the Kingmaker. Little by little I'm trying to build up a calendar - so there's at least one for every day of the year.

 Sad? Perhaps. But I'm learning lots too.

 Frankly, working on this I'm in geeky Ladybird heaven!

Indoor Gardening - June Griffen-King

June Griffen-King only wrote one book for Ladybird, but that one is something of a classic. It was 'Indoor Gardening', published in 1969.

It was one of those books which, in my young eyes, was somehow indicative of how life should be. My half-term holidays should be spent doing elegant arrangements of minature plants within large glass bottles - not watching Scooby Doo and squabbling with my brother.

In a new page in the 'writers and Artists section of my website, I've added an interview with June Griffen-King about her experience working for Ladybird in the late 1960s.