When Ladybirds fly home

What’s the first thing you think of when you see a picture of a ladybird? Insect, nursery rhyme or the logo to a flight of fantasy? For me it’s the latter. A symbol that became a ticket to far away adventures. Every Sunday, as a treat, when my dad bought his Sunday papers, my brother and I would choose a Ladybird book from our newsagent’s shelves. A love of reading grew right there. Amongst the banter of the paper shop and the confetti of Sunday supplements seeping from the centre folds of the tabloids. It was an appetite for a story and a hunger for fairy tales that led to a career in writing 15 years later. You see, as a Copywriter, I spend my working days storytelling. Writing words that sell and breathing life into the tales of brands and businesses to form a bond with their customers – just like Ladybird did with theirs.

Read It Yourself. Three words we’ll all recognise from our bookshelves. Three words that gave us permission to be independent, grown-up and not need an adult to narrate our adventures. Which was your favourite? For me it was The Magic Porridge Pot. A shabby and well-loved copy whose spine had been cracked so many times, only the adhesive grip of gaffer tape secured the cover to the pages. Those two magical first pages of butterflies and fields where grey ponies grazed in an enchanted meadow were my pathway to the Porridge Pot that pulled me in over and over again. Vera Southgate’s beautiful words wound themselves around me until I could touch the bowl, stir the pot and live my own adventure time and again. Gaffer tape also secured the pages of Hansel and Gretel too where my brother had taken the scissors to the witch’s face in an act of heroic rebellion. This was our childhood equivalent of the Point Horror books that would dominate our teens. Ladybird brought us fantasy and fairy-tale, magic mixed with moral and memories that nostalgia closely guards. But growing up in Leicestershire, little did I know that whimsical world of Ladybird was only a short drive away in Loughborough.

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So, where did Ladybird’s story begin?

Imagine then my delight of stumbling across The Wonderful World of the Ladybird Book Artists at Leicester’s New Walk Museum this August. Rainbow spines of giant hardbacks welcomed rain-soaked visitors to shelter in storyland and relive the tales of their youth. While children and toddlers of a more technical world could step back in time and discover a print version of Maddie Moat in wicker-weaved dens scattered around the room.

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From how Ladybird began to how each book was made, each artist commissioned and each edition translated across the globe, this was a writers’ paradise. Original typewriters in glass cases, piles of original books to flick through and wave hello to old friends on every page – books you dream of finding in second-hand book shops to create your own pre-loved collection. And then there it was. The wall of wonder. Stretching across the floor from corner to corner, made from hundreds of rectangular tiles – each one a Ladybird classic. Eager faces searched for their favourites amid the collage of Peter and Jane (Plain English ambassadors from the past), Three Little Pigs and the Garden Gang (a series that made 7-year-old me think publishing was in fact possible). And then I spotted it – The Magic Porridge Pot – sandwiched between Goldilocks and The Big Pancake in pristine condition. An old friend staring back at me from the shelf. Accessible to all.

Accidental success

Our national love of Ladybird was never part of the plan. It simply evolved. Wills and Hepworth printers of Loughborough needed to diversify after losing much of its core trade during World War 1. To keep the print works going they created affordable children’s books. These weren’t the quality of the seventies and eighties but produced on cheap paper, without logos. Little did they know back in 1940 that the launch of their first classic, Bunnikin’s Picnic Party, that the Ladybird brand would soon be a household name across the globe for decades to come.

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Today we have channels dedicated to discovery. Programmes like ‘Inside the Factory’ where Greg Wallace enthusiastically shows us behind the scenes on craftmanship usually hidden from view – not quite Willy Wonka’s world but an enigma all the same. But before TV was mainstream – there was Ladybird who opened the doors to the world of work, history and technology through the turn of a page in the their ‘People at Work’ series in 1962 and ‘How it Works’ series in 1965.

Loughborough’s Ladybirds

Loughborough is proud of its red and black little bugs and celebrates its history. A few years ago, I joined in with many on a book bench hunt commemorating the town’s literal heritage. But for now, I’ll have to make do with treasure hunts at flea markets to find inside covers full of scribbles from children learning to write…pages full of practised handwriting and copied letters and those wonderful words carried on the wings of Ladybirds.

Isn’t it time you dusted off the Ladybirds in your life?