If you were going to appoint a governement made up of Ladybird book characters, who would you choose? Here’s my top team: Chancellor of the Exchequer: The Ogre from Jack and the Beanstalk. Keeps tight control of financial affairs –…
Read more
My Aunt died last month. She never married and myself and my brother were her only younger relatives. As I was clearing her things, last week, I came across this short piece she had written. When and why, I’ll probably…
Read more
You can normally judge a vintage Ladybird by its cover. For many years the standard approach was to use an illustration from inside the book on the cover. But some Ladybird books really under-sold themselves on the shelf. This is…
Read more
Vintage Ladybird books are famously hard to date because the dating conventions usually used by booksellers rarely work with Ladybird books. The following pages will help you take a book and work out its date. They WON’T help you work…
Read more
Wild flowers and garden flowers. You’d think the skills required to illustate one book or the other would be much the same – but that’s not how one artist saw it. ‘British Wild Flowers’ (1957) is one of the best-loved…
Read more
The following is the text of a brochure created to accompany an exhibition of Harry Wingfield’s Ladybird illustrations, held at the New Art Gallery, Walsall, Feb 1st – 17th March 2002
Read more
The lovely Kate Garner has written this catchy song which pays homage to the ‘well loved’ books of her childhood. I’ve added a gallery of all the books that she mentions – so you can play the song and click…
Read more
Lynne Bradbury, 9th June 1947 – 9th June 2020 I’d like to take you on a journey through a cardboard box, and on the way I’m going to talk about Lynne Bradbury. What part did Lynne Bradbury play in the…
Read more
Lynne Bradbury 9th June 1947 – 9th June 2020 By Lynne’s brother Richard. My sister, Lynne, was born in Congleton, Cheshire in 1947. She was the first child of George and Vera Bradbury who married just before the war ended….
Read more
This is a story I have been given permission to share – although I don’t know the name of the original narrator:
Read more