Helen Day

Flooded fields under a leaden sky, a scene that could be the Somerset Levels

“Heavy rains that often fall in February have flooded the low-lying meadows in the broad valley.”
‘What to Look for in Winter’, 1959
Artist: CF Tunnicliffe
Writer: EL Grant Watson

A small village shop viewed from the outside near a large tree. The shop has a bowfront, open front door and is stacked with fruit and vegetables outside.

Beautiful everyday Ladybird things
Village shop (1964)
Artist: Harry Wingfield

A stark, bare landscape of flat ground, ploughed field and stream under a grey sky is enlivened by detailed studies in the foreground of the plants and flowers of February

“February. Another cold, dead month, or so it seems. The elms are bare against the sky, the plough-ground is naked and wet, and still as brown as the sodden leaves.
Yet the world is waking up”.

Artists: Edith Hilder, Rowland Hilder (ShellGuide, 1955)

Finally detailed, mixed media illustration of an overgrown kitchen garden in front of a Manor House set in wooded, rising ground

Other work by the Ladybird artists.
'The Old Farmyard, Findon Place'
Artist: SR Badmin

Two sea otters float on their backs, one holding a baby and looking straight at the viewer

‘Sea Otters’
Artist: John Leigh-Pemberton
(Sea and Air Mammals, 1972)

A very loose, spare, painterly watercolour of a long view over a flat expansive landscape dotted with winter trees in broken sunshine under a cloudy sky

Other work of the Ladybird artists.
A February Day
Artist: Rowland Hilder

A bright red anthropomorphic mail van waits outside a village post office as the postman collects parcels

‘Mickey the Mail Van’

Tootles the Taxi (1956)
Artist: John Kenney

Something like that

🤣

☺️

A photograph of myself standing in front of ladybird book shelves holding a large wooden ladybird model

When this vintage wooden shop display Ladybird came up for sale, how could I resist?

The front covers of the four ladybird books laid out in a square

Ladybird cover stories.

The four seasons books.
Artist: C F Tunnicliffe

“The cat on the path is looking at the blue-tits, as cats do at birds they cannot reach”

Artist: CF Tunnicliffe
Writer: EL GrantWatson

The shopkeeper, dressed in a brown suit with tie and pocket handkerchief, tips a quarter of sweets into a striped paper bag as three excited boys look on

Everyday Ladybird things
The sweet shop (1967)

Artist: Kenneth Inns

A sailing boat sales on a calm sea at dusk. The sunset reflects in the water with an orangey glow and mountains are dark in the background.

Today is Candlemas - which is a beautiful name. A chance to celebrate 'the return of light'

Artist: Roger Hall

1970s I think. I’ve got it upstairs and will try to dig it out. Whitbread calendar ‘Hedgerows’

A flora identification guide and illustration of the plants of early February, including snowdrop, hellebore and celandine

Other work by the Ladybird artists.
‘February in the Weald of Kent’
Artist: SR Badmin

A blackbird is purchased on the ground of a wooded bank near a lake on a misty winter day. Overhead, hazel catkins droop.

“When we see the hazel catkins turn yellow, we know that spring is not far off”

Writer: EL Grant Watson
Artist: CF Tunnicliffe

An aerial view looking down on the 1960s station as if it were a Hornby set - with level crossing, taxi, porters and pedestrian bridge

The railway station in Ladybird Land - captured in Treasure magazine, 1963

(Artist: Don Harley)

A tabby cat with its back to the viewer sits on scrubland grass surrounded by dying fern fronds, harmonising but not camouflaged

Other work by the Ladybird artists.
‘Cat among ferns’
Artist: CF Tunnicliffe

A male and female blackbird perched on a bare but budding tree branch against a cloudy blue sky

Ladybird Nature Corner.
Blackbird.
(Who doesn’t love a blackbird?)

Artist: John Leigh-Pemberton

An etching of a wide flat landscape under stormy skies. On a slope a Shepherd surveys his flock while overhead a hawk soars through the rain clouds.

Other work of the Ladybird artists.
'Hawk above the Downs'
Artist: CF Tunnicliffe

Front cover of the book showing the mother, unable to remember the stop charm as the porridge pot begins to overflow

Ladybird book in the Spotlight

The Magic Porridge Pot (1971)
Artist: Robert Lumley

I believe this was the cover for a Readers Digest volume. It shows an aerial view, just below that of the geese, looking down on an expansive Winter landscape

‘Winter Skein’

Other work of the Ladybird artists, (1983)
Artist Ronald Lampitt

An advertisement for ladybird clothing ‘ladybird adventure club’, featuring two children, a boy and a girl, looking very enthusiastic about their apparel

Do you remember the ‘other’ 1960s Ladybird brand? The clothes they sold in Woolworths? The dressing gowns with the ladybird buttons? Well they also brought out a series of children’s books. Usually children were saved from peril by the quality of their clothing ...

A hare dashes across the furrows dug by the plough, barely noticed by the large flock of seagulls that follow the tractor

“The soil has thawed sufficiently to allow the farmer to start ploughing”

‘What to Look for in Winter’, 1959
Artist: CF Tunnicliffe

Against a blue sky at sunset, the ‘Post Office Tower’ dominant with just a few tall buildings dotted against an expansive landscape

The modern world in old Ladybird books
London skyline, 1968

Artist: Robert Ayton
The story of Radio

An aerial view of a city, probably at ‘going home time’. It is Winter and it has been raining but there is a lot of hustle and bustle with cars and even a horse and cart which might date the picture to the late 1940s or 1950s

Other work by the Ladybird artists
‘Early Evening’
Artist: Ronald Lampitt
Magazine cover, 1948

Botanical study of the flowers for an identification guide with a loose watercolour backdrop of winter trees and ploughed fields

Hellebore and Snowdrop
‘Wild Flowers’ (1957)
Artists: Edith Hilder, Rowland Hilder

A group of reception age children collect their school dinners from the counter and then find a seat

School dinners
‘Going to School’, 1959
Artist: Harry Wingfield