Vintage books

Ladybird Tuesday – Helping at Home

January 6, 2020 by penny Leave a Comment

I feel like I say this rather a lot – but Ladybird Tuesday is back. Again. Let’s call it a new year and a new start eh and not talk about all the other false starts here on Penny Reads? I’m jumping straight in though with what is probably one of my favourite Ladybird books of all time – Helping at Home.

Now, most of my Ladybird books are picked up in charity shops or at car boot sales, but sometimes there’s one that I’m so keen to get my hands on that I’ll actually go searching for it on that well known internet auction site – and that’s exactly what happened with Helping at Home.

Originally published in the Learning to Read series (series 563) Helping at Home has a special vintage magic to it simply because it provides such a lovely insight into family life in the early 1960s.

Being completely fascinated in the 1950s in particular (and Helping at Home just being published in 1961) I found myself staring for ages at all the illustrations in this book, trying to take in all the minute detail of their homes. For anyone who has started watching the latest series of Call the Midwife, you’ll know that it is now up to the mid 1960s (Churchill’s funeral in the first episode of the new series was 1965) so it’s fascinating to compare what you see in the illustrations with how they have dressed the sets for the programme.

In Helping at Home, the accompanying text explains all the things that the children are helping their parents to do around the house and garden. As with the Ladybird Keyword Reading Scheme books the text tries to feature repeated words and also works in conjunction with the pictures to help children work out what all the words are.

What I think I’m somewhat in awe of is just how much these children do around the house to help their parents. Maybe I just need to try harder with my elder two, or make housework into more of a game or fun activity for them. At the moment housework and jobs like these featured end up being things I have to do when I either get a moment’s peace, or once they’ve gone to bed!

As with so many Ladybird books from this period, the male-female role split is very clear. All the jobs at home like making the bed, dusting, cooking, washing up are done my mummy, whilst outside jobs like mending the fence and digging potatoes become daddy’s role. Even shoe cleaning is led by Daddy, pipe in mouth. A role which I can always remember being my father’s when I was a child, yet something that I did for my kids just this evening before their return to school tomorrow. It’s definitely the case that things would be much more mixed up if this book were to be written today!

This era of Ladybird books really had to be my favourite and Helping at Home is a perfect example of “Ladybird Land” at its finest. I know so much has moved on since then, especially in terms of equality, but there’s still part of me that I would love to be able to go and live in Ladybird Land, even if only for a day or two. Please tell me I’m not the only one!

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 – Learn to write book

October 8, 2019 by penny Leave a Comment

It can be hard to know which Ladybird book to choose from my collection to write about each week. There are some titles though that I’m so excited to tell you about. Last week’s addition to the collection is one such book – the Ladybird Learn to write book.

Ladybird Learn to write workbook series S812 Ladybird Tuesday

I was somewhat lucky to find this title as I’m trying to cut down on the amount I spend in charity shops and so have restricted myself to just looking for the familiar size and shape of Ladybird books and try to ignore everything else. Amazingly thought this was at the front of a stack in a local branch of Oxfam and the Ladybird logo on the cover caught my attention. Measuring 9 1/4″ x 7″ it’s a very different size to normal Ladybird books.

As well as the regular familiar Ladybird books there have been several other titles that they published over the years. In the 1980s they branched out into a series of workbooks to accompany all the Keyword reading scheme books and other educational titles that they published. I’d heard of these before by finding Learn to write was my first experience at seeing one in the flesh.

Published as part of series S812 Learn to write was I believe the first title in this series. The copyright date inside my copy is 1981, but I believe the book first appeared in a Ladybird catalogue in 1984 and that tallies with the date written on the front cover or my copy.

The style of the book is very obviously a workbook for children to work though as they develop their pen skills and writing ability. There’s plenty on letter formation in there that I recognise from the Ladybird Handwriting book, although drawing in the dragon’s teeth is a bit more modern in style.

When you look at some of the other titles in the same series though they appear more activity book like.

Learn to write
I can write
Crossword Book 1
Crossword Book 2
Puzzles Book 1
Puzzles Book 2
Sport Billy Activity Book
Major Tom’s Space Activity Book
Learn to Count
General Knowledge Quiz Book
Sports Quiz Book

What is quite wonderful about the copy of Learn to write that I picked up is that it’s not been used at all. There’s a name and the year 1984 written very neatly on the front cover, but inside all the pages are clean as it was when first printed. Quite how it has managed to remain intact for 35 years with no child deciding to have a go with a pen or wax crayon is some sort of a miracle.

From what I can gather from the pages of an old Ladybird catalogue that a collecting friend shared with me the same format and size was also used for four playbooks in series S703 and a series of colouring books in series S779. These apparently took pictures from other Ladybird titles and used them as inspiration for children colour in the same pictures. How I’d love to get hold of some of them.

I’m not totally clear if all the titles listed in the catalogue were actually published or not though as some don’t match with those on the back cover of Learn to write. I can see though that this opens up yet another whole area of Ladybird history for me to delve into. I always used to assume that what Ladybird got up to in the 1980s wasn’t as interesting or exciting as what went before. How wrong I was!

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 – ‘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!

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.

Black Beauty Annual 1978

November 5, 2018 by penny Leave a Comment

I can see an occasional series starting here on Penny Reads. Vintage annuals found in secondhand book shops. After featuring the Buzby Annual that Bonn and I came across in a National Trust shop of all places, today I bring you the Black Beauty Annual from 1978.

Black Beauty

Written in 1877, Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty is probably one of the best selling books of all time. Although Sewell died only 5 months after its publication, she lived to see its success. For years children have loved the story, but it also holds important messages about animal welfare, kindness, sympathy and respect.

What made someone decide to produce a Black Beauty Annual in 1978 is slightly unclear though. I do know that in that year there was a Hanna-Barbera animated version released via CBS, but I’m not clear that this was every released or shown here in the UK where this annual was published. Even if it was, I can’t find any link in the annual itself to Hanna-Barbera.

Annual contents

The annual contains the regular mix that you expected in annuals back in the 70s and 80s. There are quite a few stories for children to read, but also jokes, games, puzzles and some educational bits.

As well as a section on Anna Sewell herself, many of the horses featured the story are profiled, and there’s even a section on famous horses in the bible. I do wonder if they were struggling for content a bit by the end there!

One thing I note about the annual is the fact that it exclusively contains illustrations. There’s not a single photograph of a horse in there at all. I don’t know if that’s because it was cheaper to employ illustrators than photographers, or just quicker. Or maybe a style decision?

With four illustrators listed as having worked on the book, and no author or editor, I’m guessing that the illustrations were seen as an important part of the book as a whole though. It just seems a bit strange to me that they all get credited, yet those responsible for all the words don’t. Or maybe that’s just the way it was back in 1978?