HOW WE GOT THE READING BUG

A new exhibition celebrates the glorious Ladybird Books that opened our eyes to nature

For all of us who were children during the golden age of Ladybird Books between the 1950s and 70s, nothing evokes more literary nostalgia than the covers of those slender hardbacks, with their beautiful, absorbing illustrations.

Now we can enjoy them once more, thanks to a new family exhibition at the Garden Museum in London which focuses on images from the particular titles that encouraged children to look closely at the natural world.

One of the most memorable of these classics is British Birds And Their Nests, published in 1953 – and the treasured vintage copy on display in the exhibition belongs to none other than television gardener Alan Titchmarsh.

‘The front cover [of British Birds And Their Nests], with its stunning image of a kingfisher, is imprinted on my mind,’ reminisces Alan. ‘As is the ladybird image of a hawfinch – a real rarity which I discovered in Middleton Woods, near my home in Ilkley, North Yorkshire, injured and sheltering at the foot of a tree.

‘The Ladybird Book enabled me to identify a bird I had never seen before – nor since, as it happens! I offered it a nibble of my toffee bar but it declined, in spite of its astonishingly powerful beak. I can remember the moment with perfect clarity. I left the bird where it was, hoping that it would eventually recover and fly off. I’ve always wondered if it did...

‘Volumes two and three of the series were bought for me when Mum saw how avidly I devoured the first.’

For generations of children, Ladybird Books reflected a postwar childhood utopia – where Peter and Jane enjoyed carefree games in the garden, wideeyed youngsters explored thei r local supermarket in Shopping With Mother, and boys like Alan roamed unhindered by helicopter parenting. It’s an optimistic world of mid- century architecture and new towns with greenbelt countryside only a bus ride away. The cover of The Ladybird Book Of Garden Flowers features lupins, pansies, sweet williams and nigella. ‘It’s what we’d

think of as typical 1950s planting,’ says curator Eleanor Black. ‘They give the common names – and the proper names – there’s lots of information and they weren’t talking down to children. They were commissioning authors who were natural historians and botanists.’ Another charming painting of tidily staked chrysanthemums – the illustrations are by former wartime pilot John Leigh-Pemberton – shows the gardener leaning on his broom in what appears to be the garden of a stately home. Gardening, in the Ladybird world, is a male pastime; ‘Lots of gardeners in the books appear to be dads,’ says Eleanor. Only rarely do we get a glimpse of a harsher world. Published in 1957, The

Ladybird Book Of British Wild Flowers described rosebay willowherb: ‘This plant may be found in great numbers where trees have been felled and on bombed sites in cities.’ Bomb sites would have been a playground for many 1950s children and the museum possesses an album of dried flowers that one youngster collected on a nature walk across these areas in London. Everyone had a favourite Ladybird Book – and many readers can still describe the iconic artwork in detail decades later. The illustrators were distinguished artists – and most distinguished of all was the renowned wildlife and bird painter CF Tunnicliffe, who had illustrated the original edition of Henry Williamson’s Tarka The Otter. Tunnicliffe’s association with Ladybird Books began in the 1950s with The Farm – but he is best remembered for his illustrations for the What To Look For series of nature and wildlife books covering the four seasons. Frolicking lambs in spring, swallows swooping in summer, an autumn squirrel and birds on an icy pond… Tunnicliffe’s exquisite paintings will live forever in the memories of generations of British children. ‘ The original artwork – oil paintings on board – is beautiful and vivid,’ says Eleanor. ‘These are the books that people really remember.’ The first Ladybird titles – Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales and Tiny Tots Travels – were published in 1914 by Wills & Hepworth, jobbing printers in Loughborough. But it was during the Second World War – in order to make the most of their paper ration – that the classic Ladybird format was devised and they began to produce 56- page books that could be made from just one large sheet measuring 30 inches by 40. The price remained a pocket-money-friendly 2s 6d (12½p) for decades.

Eleanor admits that, being only 30, she falls outside the ‘golden age.’ ‘That was my parents’ generation – but lots of people have passed them down to their children and grandchildren. ‘What I love about Ladybird Books is that they encourage children to look at the natural world in detail.’

What To Look For In The Garden: A Ladybird Books Exhibition is at the Garden Museum, London, until 27 October, gardenmuseum.org.uk.

Garden Flowers (left) and (above) Pets

An illustration from Life Of The Honey-Bee (main) and (inset) British Birds And Their Nests