Ladybird Books

Ladybird Tuesday – Come to Denmark

September 16, 2019 by penny Leave a Comment

This week’s Tuesday delve into my Ladybird collection brings us another ‘Easy-Reading’ book, but one very different from last week’s offering on the Public Services. Instead we’re being instructed to “Come to Denmark”.

Come to Denmark was the second title in Series 606G which was a series of Travel titles. The three books published in this series invited readers to come to Denmark. France and Holland. I’m not entirely sure why though!

Originally published in 1971 I suppose foreign travel was still a relatively new thing but the mix of countries chosen for this series intrigues me. Why Denmark? I need to obviously research this further, but maybe there was someone working at Ladybird who had a certain passion for the country? Who knows. It’s somewhere I’ve been quite a lot lately but I don’t know many people that consider it a tourist hot spot.

Come to Denmark does show its age a bit as a book and some of what it covers seem a little strange in a children’s book. There is obviously a large section on Copenhagen, with a page on the Little Mermaid, another on Tivoli and mention of some of the famous buildings in the country’s capital city. There is also talk of tours around the Carlsberg and Tuborg breweries. Not really children focussed attractions! The book then goes on to talk about seeing horse drawn brewery carts around Copenhagen.

A couple of pages in the book are devoted to farming in Denmark and I did have to smile when the paragraphs about how popular Danish bacon is around the world was accompanies by a laughing farmer holding two smiling pigs!

There’s no doubt that Come to Denmark is an informative little book – and one that I will consult again before my next trip there – but it still does seem a tad strange as a choice for a children’s book. I think there must have been a certain breed of Ladybird children who were educated in somewhat unexpected subjects thanks to their reading habits in the 60s and 70s.

Ladybird Tuesday is a regular feature here on Penny Reads where I delve into my Ladybird book collection and choose a title to share with my readers. The weekly series originally started on my old blog, Being Mrs C, and I’m now in the process of moving all those posts over to Penny Reads and also adding titles that I have acquired since then. A list is currently being compiled here of all the titles I have in my collection.

Ladybird Tuesday – ‘The Public Services’ Electricity

September 9, 2019 by penny Leave a Comment

The Public Services Electricity originally appeared on Ladybird Tuesday back in 2012, which shows you just how long I’ve been collecting Ladybird books. It still remains a bit of a favourite though, mainly as it’s just such a geeky read for children!

Ladybird Tuesday The Public Services Electricity

Just the title of this book has a vintage feel about it: “The Public Services” Electricity. It’s been a fair while since electricity generation was a public service here in the UK, but when series 606E was published about the public services in the late 1960s it was a very different situation. This particular book was published in 1966 with ones about Gas and Water Supply following it.

The map inside the front and rear covers (yep – same in both – why?) shows how things were at the time – very different to the commercial companies all fighting for our custom today.

Whilst this book is described on the cover as being a Ladybird Easy Reader there is no doubt that books of the day went into a fair bit of technical detail for their young readers with history of electricity as well as details as to how atomic, hydroelectric and coal-fired power stations work.

Some things haven’t changed since the 1960s though and one of those is the iconic sight of pylons across the country. It’s something I always fine comforting familiar when returning to the UK after time abroad. Somehow other country’s pylons just aren’t as good looking as ours are.

It’s still the case that in times of a power surge (like at the end of a particularly gripping edition of a soap opera or half time in an international football match) we do “borrow” electricity from France much as we used to do. From what I remember from a documentary I watched a few years back I get the impression we’d be completely stuck if we couldn’t borrow electricity in this way as there is no way to meet the peak demand in the UK when it happens so quickly – like at the start of an advert break. Obviously how things are generated has changed a bit since then as the book has no mention of wind power and if it were to be rewritten today it would surely include pictures of wind turbines that you now see dotted all over the country.

Despite coming with a safety warning of “you must never touch any of these” at the top the book didn’t skimp on the detail of how writing in the house works. The wire colours may have changed since the 1960s but the basics are still the same and I’m sure there must have been a few fathers of the time (because back then those jobs were nearly always left to the men!) who used this book as a bit of reference if they ever needed to change plugs or similar – especially when they were not used to electrical wiring in the homes.

I’m always amazed at just how many technical books Ladybird had in their series and in addition to this one I somewhere have a second book all about the history of nuclear power. And they say children were more educated in years gone by – certainly if you go by Ladybird books alone I can see where they got much of that education from!

Ladybird Tuesday – In The Train with Uncle Mac

September 3, 2019 by penny Leave a Comment

It seems right to kick off the return of Ladybird Tuesday with what is probably the best Ladybird book in my whole collection. One which my husband bought me as a recent birthday present after I made a comment about not having any of the Uncle Mac series in my Ladybird collection. I’m proud to say that I now have three titles, but my favourite has to be In The Train with Uncle Mac.

You might be wondering just who Uncle Mac was. And why there was a series of Ladybird books in his name.

Uncle Mac was otherwise known as Derek McCulloch, star of the BBC Radio Programme Children’s Hour. In fact, he went on to be head of Children’s Broadcasting at the BBC from 1933 to 1951. Ladybird teamed up with him for series 455 as they could see the value of working with someone as high-profile as he was and a “trusted”name and voice in many households.

In The Train with Uncle Mac was actually the last book to be published in series 455. The series started in 1945, but by the time In the Train was published it was 1955. Written by Derek McCulloch, this book was illustrated in a photographic style by W. C. Watson. In fact, it appeared to outlive the other titles in the Uncle Mac series and the copy I have (with a dust jacket) only has the one title in the series listed on the inside endpaper.

Bob and Betty, and their dog Trigger, were introduced in the “beside the sea” with Uncle Mac book and they reappear to take a train journey with Uncle Mac in In The Train. The journey starts though with them travelling alone from Newtown to London, where they meet with Uncle Mac, take the Underground across London before boarding another train at Waterloo to their destination of Sandbay.

In The Train follows their journey, with each page pointing out various features of their journey and the runnings of the railway. It covers everything from stoking the engine, to the guard who looks after them when they travel alone, and level crossings that the train goes over. The London Underground also features as the children use it with Uncle Mac to get from one London mainline station to another.

The book is incredibly of its time in so many different ways. There’s the obvious steam train on the cover that features in the mainline sections of their journey, but also the simple fact that children of Bob and Betty’s age travel alone, and are well behaved enough to have been bought tickets to take dinner in the train’s dining car. Nowadays you’d be hard pushed to find a train in the UK with a dining car of the sort where you can order a three course meal at your table which is beautifully adorned with a white table cloth.

My love of old fashioned train travel and the London Underground means that combining these together in a vintage Ladybird book is simply my idea of perfection. A gorgeous look back at the 1950s in Ladybird-land.

Recollecting my Ladybird Collection and relaunching Ladybird Tuesday!

August 19, 2019 by penny Leave a Comment

Before moving house a couple of years ago my Ladybird book collection was in pretty good shape. I had an accurate written record of what I owned, the condition it was in and useful things like prices, tally numbers etc. I also knew where they all were. Beautifully arranged on shelves outside my bedroom so that I could stop and admire then whenever I walked past.

Fast forward two years, and following two house moves and a period in storage I’m only just starting to get my Ladybird collection back in order. I’ve not stopped collecting in that time, but I haven’t really been collecting in an organised manner. In an attempt to get so much of my life back on track this is another area that needs to change.

Once again I’m trying to use my blog as a way of forcing myself to do something.

For years I ran a little feature called Ladybird Tuesday over on Being Mrs C. I used to really enjoy sitting down once a week and pulling out a Ladybird book and writing all about it. I tried to move the feature over to here, but got rid of the regular posting. That was a bit of a failure. It seems I’m a creature of habit who needs to be forced to do things on a regular basis.

Therefore I’m pleased to announce that from next Tuesday, Ladybird Tuesday will return. I’ll be honest and say that I have absolutely no recollection as to why it was Tuesdays that I chose to share my Ladybird collection with readers, but it seems silly to get rid of the name when people are familiar with it. And it saves me the stress of trying to make a decision as to which day of the week I should post on!

Ladybird Tuesday will be a collection of new posts and also some re-edited ones from my old blog that I will move over. I’m also in the middle of creating a new spreadsheet containing all the books that are in my collection. I can’t commit to having it complete by the time Ladybird Tuesday re-launches, but I am hoping to make a start to the list I keep on this site.

For now though let me whet your appetite with a glimpse at a few things that have come into my collection recently.

Firstly – an utterly gorgeous selection of Uncle Mac books. I always wanted to find an Uncle Mac title in one of my charity shop trips, but I’ve never been that lucky. Instead, I am lucky enough to have a wonderful husband who listened to me telling someone about my love of the Uncle Mac titles and managed to find these for my birthday.

Second up is something a little bit bigger than a regular Ladybird book. The story of Jayne Fisher’s Garden Gang series is something of a legend to Ladybird collectors. I knew there was a larger Garden Gang book once published, but I’d never seen a copy in the flesh. Until one day I was busy looking at something else in a charity shop and spotted it looking down at me from a top shelf. Far more than I would usefully pay for a Ladybird book, but far less than they seem to be going for on eBay. This is a book that I simply had to make mine.

I look forward to sharing these treasures and so much more from my Ladybird collection with you. I just hope we can make it a regular date.

Ladybird: What on Earth are we doing?

January 3, 2019 by penny Leave a Comment

No – this isn’t some statement about the state of UK politics (although – maybe it should be!) but instead the question posed in the title of this week’s Ladybird book choice.

What on Earth are we doing? is part of Ladybird’s 1970s Conservation series (series 727). These books seem to have been published with two different cover versions, but I have to be honest and say that I’m not exactly sure which version of the cover came first. This title was published in 1976 and judging by the man on the cover of both versions I believe it to be just the covers that differ, with the inner pages remaining the same.

There is something that makes this particular Ladybird title a bit special though and links it back to the original Ladybird nature titles, despite it’s very 70s appearance.

What on Earth are we doing? is credited as having two authors, D H Keen and G E Simmons (and was illustrated by Pat Oakley of Hurlston Design, Birmingham) but it is the first of these authors that is of particular interest and this mysterious sounding D H Keen plays a very important role in the Ladybird story.

Douglas Keen first joined Wills and Hepworth (the original publishers of Ladybird) as a travelling salesman in 1936 and returned to the company after returning from service in the Second World War. Wills and Hepworth had started publishing Ladybird books during the war and it had been their intention to revert back to printing car brochures once the war was over. Keen was keen (excuse the pun) to convince Wills and Hepworth to continue publishing Ladybird books as he could see how successful they were. The first Ladybird books were based on fair stories and animal tales but Keen could see a market for education titles too and as he had a passion for the natural world he set about, with his wife, to make a prototype book entitled A Book of Birds and Eggs. His work paid off and Ladybird used his prototype as the basis for the book British Birds and their Nests.

So, how does this link in with What on Earth are we doing? Well, author D H Keen is no other than Douglas Keen. And What on Earth are we doing? is said to be the only title where he is credited as co-author. The book itself covers all the different ways in which man’s life impacts on the planet, and what we can do to change that impact. It starts of by talking about how this is “a book about you” and the world itself. There are pages on the land and the impact of farming methods on it, as well as talking about towns and cities, pollution and means of travel. The book also talks about how the Earth’s population is growing and how the planet’s resources aren’t necessarily enough to feed everyone if the population continues to grow at the expected rate.

In a way it was seen as a slightly controversial book, but one that I think was also very important in educating young readers about what was going on to the world around them through man’s actions.

As a Ladybird collector it raises lots of questions for me about exactly who Pat Oakley was and why a design company were credited will illustrating the title. I’m guessing (and it really is only a guess) that they may have been commissioned to illustrate a whole series, but it’s something I feel I ought to go and research more before I can properly call myself a Ladybird collector.

Once I’ve moved and got my collection all in one place I think it will be time to properly swot up on everything and try to earn my collector stripes!

This post first appeared on Ladybird Tuesday over on Being Mrs C. I am currently in the process of moving all these posts over to their new home on Penny Reads. To see the posts that have already moved over take a look at this page.

Ladybird: Learning with Mother Book 4

October 19, 2018 by penny Leave a Comment

Learning with Mother Book 4 original featured as part of the Ladybird Tuesday series over on Being Mrs C. As I prepare to start on the motherhood journey afresh it seemed an obvious choice to move over to Penny Reads. And it’s also possibly time to refresh my memory as to what I’ve got to come over the next few years!

And who could possibly resist these gorgeous vintage illustrations?

As soon as I see this particular Ladybird book, or in fact any from this Learning with Mother series, I’m somewhat overtaken by emotion and a desperate desire to give my children the wholesome, educational upbringing that it shows.

I’ve covered Book 2 from the series before on Ladybird Tuesday, but Book 4 (covering 4 – 5 years of age) deserves its own post too now that it’s in my collection. This Under Five series (number 702 for any keen collectors reading) is designed to fit in with the belief, stated inside the front cover, that “almost half of your child’s intelligence will be decided by four and a half” and it is therefore targeted at parents who want to give their children every opportunity to develop to their maximum potential.

The book starts with a really good description of the development stage that 4 – 5 year olds are at and what sort of opportunities they need to given to help them in their development. Published in 1971 this book was written at a time when parents made their own entertainment for their children during the day, instead of the present day schedule of toddler classes and trips out. It really was Learning with Mother.

I strongly believe that there’s a lot we can learn from how children spent their days as I regularly feel that many modern day children don’t have the simple, old fashioned, ability to entertain themselves. Learning with Mother really does contain some lovely ideas of activities to do with children and also examples of everyday things which have great learning opportunities behind them.

I really love the activities in this book, especially because they’re so simple but engaging for children. I spent Sunday with my mum and Little Miss C at a 1940s experience (a whole blog post about that very soon as I loved it!) and it was fascinating watching LMC play in the children’s room there. She loved all the simple games and toys that they had and kept asking to go back to play with the toys there for the rest of the day. Children don’t need modern day technology to keep them amused, it’s just turned into a habit for us to give them that sort of thing.

I’m determined now to set my kids off with some old fashioned traditional toys and games based on both what I see in Ladybird books and also what children had during the war. Hopefully I’ll be back soon to share how we’re getting on.