There’s a much-loved book in Ladybird Land from 1960 called ‘The Party’ in which two young children go to their friend Ann’s birthday party.
In the story, they give Ann a gift which she unwraps right away – and to her delight she has a Ladybird book! The book is “The Farm” (which, with a typical Ladybird meta flourish, had been published in the same series as ‘The Party’, just 2 years earlier). Not only that, but Ann also gets a small pack of pencil-crayons and looks overjoyed with both.
Artist: Harry Wingfield 
Now not for the first time, I have been reminded that life in Ladybird Land is often a little different from the real life of the books’ young readers. On Facebook recently, Sally England recorded this moving and troubling personal account – and one with a rather complex moral:
“When I was about ten I was invited to Ellen Baker’s birthday party.
On the day I pointed out to my mum that I ought to take a present but didn’t have one. Mum drove me to the nearest shop (Maddens, Hillmorton Road, Rugby – still the best hardware/general stores anywhere ever) and went in to get something.
She came back out with the Ladybird book of Oil.
I was distraught! Ellen Baker was really rather girly and I knew that the last thing she would want in life was a book about oil.
I kicked up a fuss, refused to go to Ellen’s party and ended up being sent to bed with no tea. But I did for many years after that have the Ladybird Book of Oil on my shelf, looking at me accusingly.
I still know that Ellen would have hated it.”
Thank you for adding such perfect illustrations! I’m still traumatised….
I would also have been mortified
Did they not have The Nurse?
I am named after Susan in The Party as it was my big sisters favourite book when I was born. We still have the book and I read it to her daughters when they were small. I love having that connection to the books and how my name was chosen.
This fills me with sadness. I am 66 and my mum had to always come to parties with me. A very sick child, I spent my first 4 years on my mum’s knee being nursed. I could not bear to be separated from mum. In later years, she told me she had recognised depression in me at that age. So while these pictures are beautiful and I love them, they don’t bring me unalloyed joy. But my word. They are evocative. Oh. By the way. I got better in the end and lived a totally normal life haha.