My top-10 of Ladybird book trivia Or ‘ten things you have probably never wanted to know about Ladybird books’ 10 The price of a Ladybird book (2 shillings and 6) stayed the same for 31 years -from 1940 until 1971…
Read more
This table looks pretty unremarkable. It’s plain and simple and with a formica top. Some of us will remember tables like this in the house of relatives – or perhaps have one lurking somewhere in our own. So what’s it…
Read more
Last week I spent an afternoon surrounded by the artwork of the Ladybird artist John Kenney. I went to The MERL (Museum of English Rural Life) in Reading where the Special Collections are stored. I’ve talked about MERL and the…
Read more
Flowers didn’t feature much in my childhood. Our garden was tiny, my parents both worked and money was rather tight. We lived in a street of terraced houses, surrounded by similar streets – a perfectly pleasant environment in many ways…
Read more
Peter, Jane and narrator – and the Ladybird Artists exhibition This recording for BBC Radio Kent was made at the opening of the Ladybird Artists exhibition in June 2018. In it I talk a little about the…
Read more
So many of us will have grown up with Ladybird books at school in the 1960s and 70s that it’s hard to remember that they weren’t always a fixture on school shelves. The school market certainly wasn’t in the minds…
Read more
Here are some of the photos from the Ladybird exhibition: Ladybird Artists Opening Event in Canterbury on Friday 8th (the evening before the public opening). It will run until the 23rd September 2018 at The Beaney House of Art and…
Read more
Here are more details about my Ladybird artists exhibition, which will be taking place in Canterbury over the summer months (2018). It will be held at The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, in the centre of Canterbury. Theere’s more information…
Read more
Let me tell you story about a Little Red Hen. This is a story that has a moral, only I’m not quite sure what it is. Once upon a time there was a Ladybird book about a little red hen…
Read more
Of all the ‘golden age’ Ladybird artists, it could be argued that Ronald Lampitt has the most distinctive style. He never received formal art training and it is interesting to speculate whether, had he attended art college, something of this…
Read more