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. George was an observer in the Air Force during the war and Vera served in the ATS. After “little brother” arrived in 1951, the family moved to a council house in Congleton.

It was there that Lynne started to show her talent for imagination. As brother and sister, we played together. We put on plays for grandparents, making a theatre out of a cardboard box. The characters were made from paper card and on sticks so that they could be slid in from the side and moved around. Of course, Lynne wrote the script and did all the voices. I rigged up lights from an old torch and moved the scenery around.

Illustrations from The Space Boat – one of the books Lynne was to commission for Ladybird

We, or rather she, created a secret service game. We had pretend passports; secret messages written in disappearing ink only to be revealed again when heated. Not bad for a 7/8-year old.

Invisible Ink – by Martin Aitchison. From ‘Books Are Exciting’ – published some years before Lynne joined Ladybird

Dad took a job in the Civil Service and when our parents had saved up enough money, we moved to the Mossley district of Congleton. Lynne went to the local junior school and then to Congleton Girls Grammar School. She loved the English subjects more than anything else. Maths and science subjects were not her forte. She joined the drama club at the school where they put on the classic Shakespearean plays which I had to endure once a year.

We did not have a car until quite late, so as children, we travelled mostly by train and bus. Our Grandparents on Mum’s side lived in North Finchley, in London, and we visited them regularly. Lynne and I would take the opportunity to go off on our own to explore the sites of London, taking the trolley bus and the Underground. The world was different then.

Lynne decided she wanted to go into teaching. So, on passing her “A” Levels, she went to Kesteven Teacher Training College, just outside Grantham. Lynne graduated and took a job with Leicestershire Education Authority.

This picture of a teacher, by Martin Aitchison, was modelled on his wife Dorothy. Aitchison, in the last years of working for Ladybird, collaborated with Lynne on a couple of books

After a few years later, she became a peripatetic teaching advisor in English and travelled the length and breadth of the County. It was at this time in her life that she moved to Kings Walk, in Leicester Forest East, where she stayed.

The next step in her career was when she became Senior Editor at Ladybird Books, on 1st September 1977. This job was absolutely made for Lynne. The range little hard-backed books were old-fashioned and were in need of bringing up to date. She revelled in the task. There was part of her brain where she could imagine she was a child and she could turn her ideas into words and pictures that a child would relate to.

One story, related to me very recently by Rod Ritchie, was that in 1985 Ladybird decided they needed a Christmas book; and quickly, if it was to be printed and be available for booksellers to order. She took up the challenge and went into an office clutching two packets of cigarettes and emerged 4 hours later, in a huge cloud of smoke having smoked most of them but having just written “Santa Claus has a busy night”. It sold half a million copies, and she took no royalty for it.

In her time at Ladybird, she met Prince Charles who confessed that he too had Ladybird books as a young prince and Princess Diana, also, when she visited the factory in Loughborough. Using her educational background, she worked extensively with Sheila McCullaghlagh to devise the Puddle Lane Reading Scheme which transformed learning to read and became part of the National Reading Scheme in schools throughout the Country.

However, with increasing competition from television and digital media, the book industry was going into decline. Ladybird lost its independence in 1972 when it became part of the Pearson Group with consequences for the editorial staff. Lynne had a sharp brain and a sharp tongue too. She was never afraid of expressing her views when she thought she was right – which was nearly always. She didn’t agree with the management changes. Lynne was a purist, not a businesswoman. She saw the writing on the wall, and with ailing health, she took early retirement on 31st March 1993. After she left, Ladybird Books was subsumed further into Penguin Books, and the offices and factory in Loughborough closed in 1998.

For a short spell, Lynne flirted with being freelance. But she was not the best at organising herself. Even at school, she would cram for exams and was always last minute. Nor was she good with technology – publishing was by now fully digital. So, it was not to be, and it fizzled out.

Lynne was always wanted to deal with people face to face. Once people got past the oft-times prickly exterior and fierce independence, she made long and lasting friendships. She loved to talk about anything and everything. Lynne never did anything by halves. Strong willed and independent. She conducted her life on her terms. She loved her house and garden and was determined to stay there – and she did – despite the difficulties with her health.

Richard