[I would like to tell the story of one of Ladybird’s most remarkable books: The Royal Wedding, 1981. But first, I think I should introduce you to one of Ladybird’s most remarkable characters – at least, from the ‘Penguin’ era: Audrey Daly.]
Audrey, who was Senior Editor at Ladybird over those ‘Penguin’ years, died not long ago. I never met her and actually know very little about her life. But what I can do is here share her own words, written in retirement:
“I am a really old editor and was in publishing several years in Edinburgh
before designers became part of the structure. In those far-off days
editors on children’s books did their own layouts and commissioned their own artists – some even did their own illustrations.
Illustrations had to be drawn half-up. Photographs had to be scaled to fit, and I was the admiration of my colleagues when I used a slide rule for this. (Excuse me, Audrey, what’s a slide rule?)
Another point on method – I was also one of the first to use critical path planning, and my books were always on time, even though I was always late for work. (Please, Audrey, what’s critical path planning? They may call it something else these days, but it’s simple stuff. It’s what any woman does when making a meal – shop for the ingredients, then sort them out in terms of how long each takes to cook, deal with each in turn, and finally bring them together as artistically as possible on a plate. Take note – just the term itself is an ideal one to bring forward at any meeting.)
When our very first designer arrived, my boss Anne Bruce said, “We’d
like you to leave her alone, please, Audrey.” So I did. (I still don’t know
what she meant.) About six weeks later, Anne came back to me. “We’d
like you to give her a bit of a hand, Audrey” So I did.”
The above words come from a short memoir Audrey wrote in retirement. She lived a good long life and the passage of years did nothing to dilute the force of her personality. When she was in her 90s and living alone in the village of St Monans in Fife, she put these notes on her windows, to attact the attention of passers by. (I was sent pictures of Audrey’s window notes by different people over the years, but I think these particular photos come from Jon Kelly @mrjonkelly)
After this brief introduction to the redoubtable Ms Daly, here is the story of the biggest of her bestseller books