'A' is for ... Ambulance?

'A' isn't always for 'apple'.  The question is, was 'A' ever for 'Armoured Train' ? (Bear with me; this IS leading somewhere).

There were lots of different Alphabet books produced by Ladybird over the years and there's a story that circulates in Ladybird circles that in one early book, presumably a war-time or post-war book,  'A' stood for 'Armoured Train' (or sometimes 'Armoured Car').  Now although I've heard this repeated many times and in many different places, and, although it makes a good story, I've never thought it likely.  I've never seen an actual picture of this book as proof that it ever existed and I own copies of all the Alphabet books  that I know of. 

 But recently I came across a very early Ladybird Series book, (1920s) and in it I discovered that 'A' stood for 'Ambulance Train'.

It might not be 'Armoured Train' but it offers just as much insight: a view of the long shadow cast by The Great War on society, long after 1918.  I didn't even know what an Ambulance Train was, so looked it up.  What I read was moving.

http://www.worldwar1postcards.com/ambulance-trains.php

You'll find more here:

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/features/features/10860699.Trains_that_put_First_World_War_wounded_on_track/

This Ladybird Series book was probably not printed before 1924, so at least 6 years after the end of World War One.  Sometimes it's the tiny details of daily life that can offer a glimpse into the past: a past where the term 'Ambulance Train' was seen as such a familiar piece of vocabulary that it was suitable for a child's alphabet book.

Further Fear in Ladybird Land

In my last post, I talked about the fairy tale characters that frightened us most as children. These characters were all story book 'villains' - designed to be scary.  However, as I said last time, children can often respond to concepts and images in ways that adults don't predict. In the 15 years that I've been documenting Ladybird Books (and readers' responses to them), I've heard from lots of people who tell me they were terrified of things in the books which were NOT intended to alarm.  Some of these alternative fears come up repeatedly.

So I've put together a slideshow of some of these unwitting villains.  Did you feel the same about any of them?

Martin Aitchison and the Bexhill Exhibition

Do you recognise any of the books in this picture?  You probably do.  These are just some of the books illustrated by the wonderful Martin Aitchison - one of the most versatile and prolific of all 'Golden Age' Ladybird artists.

I feel strongly that not enough attention has been paid to Martin.  Although he is, I believe, the only one of the major Golden Age artists still living, and although he is in great shape for his 95 years, it's rare to find an article or feature in the media that features him extensively.  Even in Ladybird's latest offering: the book Ladybird by Design, the page on him comes straight from the biography on his website and involved no direct communication.

If you think this sounds strange, I should mention that Martin suffers from profound hearing problems. If you feel this still doesn't explain things, then you think as I do.

Anyway, the good news is that Martin is going to visit the De La Warr Pavilion Ladybird Book exhibition on Friday (24th April) in Bexhill-on-Sea.  I'm going too so if you're free on Friday and live nearby perhaps you could come and say hello.  We'll be getting to the Pavilion at about 12.30 so if you're there, don't be shy.  Come and say hello to him.

Martin is intelligent and humorous.  He lip-reads well and has friends and family who can support him with communication.  In today's world, hearing loss should be no barrier to telling your story, especially when the story is as interesting as Martin's.

Frightened of a Ladybird - part 1

Children's responses to things can often be surprising.  My son, for example, would sit cheerfully through the most alarming scenes of Doctor Who but then was kept awake for night after night after a particular episode of Thomas the Tank Engine.

Recently on Twitter I ran a 'contest' to establish which Ladybird villain had proved the scariest in childhood.  I ran the contest as a knock-out challenge, presenting people with the villains two by two, eliminating one at a time. Feelings ran high - everyone seemed convinced that the character that scared them most MUST have awakened a similar response in everyone else.  Almost everyone who 'voted' ended their message with something like: 'obviously' 'naturally' or 'no contest'.  There WAS a contest;  almost all these 'knock-out rounds' were extremely close.

Here's a poll so you can register your vote too.  This time it's an open, 8-way choice.  It will be interesting to see if an 'open' vote reaches the same conclusion as did the 'knock-out' vote.

Click here to vote


So what themes emerged from this about the nature of childhood fears (she says, trying to clothe this utterly pointless but pretty enjoyable exercise in a thin layer of psychological analysis)?

1) Fear of the wolf, especially of wolves that lie deep in a dark forest and that disguise themselves as people we love.  I'll leave further analysis of this one to the grown-ups.

2) The pointy, waspiness of Rumpelstiltskin seemed to trouble people.  His skinny little legs and pointy features in those stripy tights.  Is that about getting a wasp sting in early life?

3) Things that lie under bridges.  The Bridge Troll seemed to be many people's big fear.  Even though he had big, soft round eyes and a rather daft expression many people said that they still feel uncomfortable crossing bridges even today.  Maybe another manifestation of the fear of the creature lurking under the bed?

4) Anger.  People seemed to be very troubled by the furious anger of some characters, even when those characters didn't seem to have any particular power to do harm.  There was the pointy finger of the bad fairy in Sleeping Beauty, the furious stamping of Rumpelstiltskin. But the most notable example of this was the angry dwarf in Snow White and Rose Red.  When I put him into the contest I didn't really expect him to put up much of a challenge - but the response to him surprised me.  He lost his particular round (to the eventual overall winner) but those people who voted for him responded very badly to his elimination: there was much sulking and verbal huffing, (all very unLadybird).  By eliminating the angry dwarf, it was tantamount to deriding his power over our emotions  - and to some, that mattered.

I had to think about this one.  Why did that ill-tempered but pretty useless little hominid provoke such a strong reaction in so many?  I wonder if it's got something to do with the powerlessness a child feels when confronted with (what seems like) irrational and uncontrolled anger in adults; ie from the people we expect to be rational and controlled?

Enough!  I don't mean to give you nightmares. Here is a soothing picture to end on.  

It's from many people's favourite childhood book: Tootles the Taxi. Illustrations by John Kenney, who also illustrated Thomas the ... Tank ... Engi.. ...

What to Look for in Tunnicliffe

I've always loved the pictures in Ladybird Books - but of course my preferences and tastes have changed over the decades.  As a child, for example, I found most of John Berry's 'People at Work' series dull and grey and the world of work they portrayed did not inspire me to want to join.  Now John Berry is one of my favourite artists and I find the People at Work series compelling.

But even as an adult my appreciation and enjoyment of different artists has been fluid.  It would be fair to say that, just a few years ago I couldn't really understand why everyone made such a fuss about CF Tunnicliffe.  To my eye, some of his artwork looked naive and childlike compared to other Nature artists.

 A lot of the pictures in his artwork for Ladybird had, to my eye, over-bold black lines around them.  The light and shade seemed often crude and the colours seemed more stark in comparison with, say, the work of John Leigh-Pemberton.

From 'European Mammals' John Leigh-Pemberton

I'm not sure how this came to change, but little by little I came to love the Seasons books (and also the book 'The Farm', which tends to get forgotten). What once has seen childlike to me now seemed impressionistic.  I came to appreciate the atmosphere and depth of this artwork, perfect for books like these, crammed with detail, when the more you look the more you see. 

There's another quality that I have become more aware of and that's a sort of William Morris-esque design to the composition.  I found myself thinking that some pictures would make good wall-hangings or even wallpaper.

The layout and colour palette of some of the 'seasons' artwork makes me think of Japanese prints.










What could make me 'feel' a wet, autumnal dusk more than this:

What to Look for in Autumn

Or a hazy lazy summer day than this

What to Look for in Summer

The artwork in some of the other Nature books now looks a little 'stagey' and static. Still lovely, but ...

From 'Heath and Woodland Birds' John Leigh-Pemberton

I know, I know.  I must be a bit slow on the uptake, but at least I got there in the end.

Storing or displaying?

Seeing some of my lovely books so beautifully displayed at the De La Warr pavilion recently really made me think about my collection in a new way.

These books had been sitting in boxes in my shed for years, if not unloved (never that!) maybe rather unappreciated.  They had arrived at Bexhill in odd boxes, much as they had been stored for years (although carefully filed according to age and series) - looking something like the jumble you might see on the car-boot field(though frankly, that would be a pretty cool car-boot find)

Plastic stacking drawers - efficient but meh

The curators at Bexhill are good at what they do.  Placing them into this white, custom-made shelving - covers facing outwards - is transforming. It's as if the self-esteem of these same books suddenly receives an enormous boost.  Suddenly they face the world with quiet confidence, enjoying the unexpected, unaccustomed attention.  I watch the visitors walking up and down the long corridor of the book-lined gallery, drinking in the details and the memories, pointing and reminiscing. Suddenly, just as a result of artful display, my everyday boxes of books were cultural artifacts!

It has made me realise I really should do more to display my 'real' collection in a better way.  Of course if I had a living room the size of a gallery, this would not be hard to do.  Space is always going to be a major factor when you have a lot of books in a small house. Most will have to stay stored in drawers and on shelves, showing only their spine.  But now I want to take my 'A-Team' collection and make a bit more of them.

The 'A Team'

Got a fairly small collection? Then these original table-top carousels are lovely ( I don't know if you can still pick them up easily; I found them both cheaply on eBay a few years ago) but are no use when your collection grows in size.

 So I've started looking around at what other people do with their collections - large and small - and there's some real inspiration out there.

Visiting the home of Caroline Alexander recently I saw her collection beautifully grouped around a doorway (with a portrait of her father Douglas Keen, looking  down approvingly).  What added to the visual impact was the way she had combined efficient spine-forward storage with occasional cover-facing - as they often do in libraries and book shops.  This works really well and it's something I'd like to try.

Some people 'colour-code' their books on the shelf and, if you have enough of them, it can have a real impact.  

@sophiefielden's shelves

The trouble is, I'd never be able to find anything this way - I want to be able to display them in terms of series if not chronology and that would work against a neat colour-scheme.

Here are some more shelves I've seen online: asymmetric shelves; glass cabinets; custom made for a snug-fit; shelves where only the smartest covers are displayed; shelves where spine-less, well-loved books are proudly intermingled ...

(clockwise from left - From the collections of @geekisnewchic @muzzerdaftbat @hwarlow  @navyandbrown)

Have you found an interesting way of displaying books?

 

The last page?

Such a lovely day here today!

We're at the start of March and I believe Spring officially starts on 20th but perhaps to hurry it along a little I've made this video.  I was inspired by another one I saw which took a lot of Tunnicliffe pictures long with a few others and turned them into a video.  For someone with a lousy attention span like me, that one was beautiful but a bit slow.  This one is perhaps a bit fast, but I haven't worked out how to make fine adjustments yet.

Anyway, if you're a fan of the wonderful Charles Frederick Tunnicliffe, I hope you enjoy it: