Ladybird books
For 100 years, Ladybird books have entertained and educated kids and adults alike. Time to enter Peter and Jane’s world
ACENTURY AGO , shortly after the start of World War One, publisher Wills & Hepworth of Loughborough introduced its books for children under the Ladybird imprint. Curiously it was only months into the Second World War that, in 1940, they introduced their most famous and endearing books that children immediately fell in love with and still conjure nostalgia for millions of men and women who grew up with them.
The wartime paper rationing encouraged efficiency, resulting in the Ladybird format that would endure until the Loughborough printworks closed in 1999. Measuring 7in x 4½in (18cm x 11cm in today’s units), a 56-page book could be printed and trimmed without waste from a single 30in x 40in sheet of paper.
Despite the economic restraints, the books – with hard covers and (until the 1960s) a dust cover – did not feel cheap. They were printed in full colour, illustrated by leading artists of the day and, most importantly, the economy of scale meant that they could be sold for half-a-crown – a price that, rather astonishingly, remained the same for the next 30 years.
The first of the little hardbacks featured Bunnikins and Downy Duckling but would soon extend to cover fairy tales, history, nature, travel, people at work, transport and all forms of general knowledge.
In 1964 Ladybird’s ‘Key Word’ reading scheme books arrived, based on the fact that a mere 12 words make up a quarter of day-today English, 100 account for half and 300 words take us to three-quarters. Eventually totalling 36 books, they introduced Peter and Jane to the world and were a huge success, selling over 95 million copies. Peter and Jane, with their more contemporary stories, would see off that rival pair of sibling aids to reading that had preceded them: Janet and John.
Ladybird artwork, 24 illustrations for each book, was created by a core of talented artists of the calibre of Harry Wingfield, Robert Ayton, John Kenney, Kathie Layfield, and the ex-Eagle stalwarts Martin Aitchison and Frank Hampson – of DanDarefame – to name only a handful.
By then the 1960s were, however, swinging and the family represented in the books How many of us learned about the oil business, or even space exploration, motoring and more in our formative years with a
Ladybird book? They’ve been around for a century, now. reflected very much a middle-class utopian stereotype firmly rooted in the 1950s. To more cynical modern eyes the Ladybird-world is a little too wholesome, and its saccharin innocence has provided rich material for pastiche – not all of it repeatable – but mostly very funny.
Using the original artwork cheekily modified with new text, some chuckle-inducing spoofs, featuring Peter and Jane, include HowtoWrite Abusive Letters to Your Elderly Neighbours and another in which Peter assiduously concentrates on rolling My First Joint. A praying Peter and Jane under the title Death Cultsis far more sinister.
Nearly 60 years after the event, my wife still feels the bitter disappointment experienced after the exhilaration of winning the last race in her junior-school sports day. Her eye, and heart, were on the sole remaining prize, a Ladybird book, which turned out to be IWant ToBeAnEngineDriverrather than the more girl-orientated one she had hoped for. Her reaction would now be inappropriate as, bowing to political correctness, Ladybird ceased to publish books promoting ‘limited gender stereotypes’ in 2014.
But this was back in the 1950s, before computer games, 24-hour TV, and before health and safety. Children carrying penknives, lighting fires, climbing trees and playing conkers, all without high-vis vests, safety goggles and spoilsport adult supervision was the norm. It was an age when children still read for pleasure and boys were boys and girls were air hostesses and housewives in waiting.
If you want to rekindle warm memories of your childhood or simply take stock of what you missed, hurry to the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, where until 10 May there is an exhibition, ‘Ladybird by Design’, celebrating the books’ centenary and featuring more than 200 original artworks from the heyday of Ladybird books – and it’s free.
‘Its saccharin innocence has provided rich material for pastiche – not all repeatable but mostly very funny’