Out & About Autumn 2019

Ladybird, ladybird... Helen Day discusses her all-consuming interest in Ladybird books and their artists with GERALDINE GARDNER

A sk Helen Day, a foreign language teacher by profession, when her love of the series of Ladybird books she grew up with turned from being an interest to something more substantial, she is momentarily floored, then she says: “I know exactly when. It was just after the BBC4

both fact and fiction. “I have always loved the books. The Ladybird books were deeply entrenched in my childhood and when my son was born I wanted to share these books with him. “But I also became interested in their provenance and most

especially the artists who had created these wonderfully evocative series of books.” With not much information easily to hand, Helen went about creating her own website. “I literally went into WH Smiths one day and bought an idiots guide to teaching yourself HTML. I said ‘this is me, this is the information I have, is there anyone else out there?’.” The response led Helen down a path she could never have imagined. But, she says, everything that has subsequently happened

Timeshift about Ladybird came out. I was featured in it and there was so much chatter on Twitter about it that I started to tweet about Ladybird. And that really changed everything.” Helen’s twitter account @LBFlyawayhome now has more than 20,000 followers. To the uninitiated, Ladybird books were a staple part of children’s reading and learning, particularly in the 50s to the late 70s when they were in their heyday. Many of a certain age will have started their reading experience

“I have always loved the books. The Ladybird books were deeply entrenched in my childhood and when my son was born I wanted to share these books with him.”

has just evolved from that initial interest. “There have been so many instances of pure chance,” she says. “On one occasion, I was at a barbecue chatting to the lady next to me and it turned out that she was the daughter of one of the artists – what were the chances?” The two became friends and from there Helen was able to

with the Peter & Jane series and will have delighted in the many fairy stories, as well as history, nature and factual series that the publisher produced. “It is that period which fascinates me. Ladybird was a British-owned brand, which churned out series after series of amazingly accessible and brilliantly-illustrated books –

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