Telling The Time, 1962

Telling the Time, series 563, is, for me, one of the more nostalgic and evocative of all Ladybird books – although you could never tell that from the cover alone.  It was written by child-education expert Margaret Gagg and beautifully illustrated by Harry Wingfield.   It takes the reader through the assumed day of a 5-year-old 1960s child from breakfast to going to sleep.  Now I was born in the 1960s and what is most appealing about this is the way Wingfield’s depicts domestic scenes with a perfect blend of accuracy and fantasy – yes, all the details of the book could be from my earliest memories and yet … everything is so shiny and perfect and happy.  Mum’s hair is always freshly set, the children’s clothes are spotless.  No task appears to be a chore and everyone smiles.  And that was exactly what I wanted from my reading material when I was little.  In fact, I’m not sure that much has changed …

In common with all the books in seried 563, Telling the Time was originally issued with a dustwrapper.

This matt copy has a notable fault that a child has marked a tick or cross on a good many of the text pages (see photo). Other than this, it’s a decent copy.  It dates to the late-1960s and has the original price of 2/6 printed inside.