A cartoony style illustration from the 1980s ladybird Children’s Classics version of the tale, showing Mole and Ratty rowing on the river
On this day 8th March 1859 Kenneth Grahame, author of Wind in the Willows, was born in Edinburgh
Artist: Martin Aitchison (1983)
Boy wearing shoes and girl wearing wellies. The wellies are shiny
Exactly!
There now. Sorry. My mistake was to forget to post them!
Official answers
Took me far too long to see it. I checked (almost) everything 🤣
But this one is a fruiting coconut palm (it says).
Here are the official answers.
(Artist: Don Harley)
Good work.
This is a tough one – they all are – but I think it’s doable
A monochrome ‘spot the mistake’ scene featuring a postman cycling along a lane besides a half timbered thatched cottage
An observation test for your inner 8-year-old.
Can you spot 12 deliberate mistakes?
From Treasure magazine, 1965
Official answers coming soon
(Even if you don’t reply, could you please ‘like’ or share this one?)
A lane rolls gently down a hill towards a small farmstead in early spring. The first trees are in blossom.
Other work by the Ladybird artists
‘Spring Landscape’
Artist: Ronald Lampitt
A girl and a boy rush excitedly towards the river. It is a cloudy day, but the sun is shining.
That Friday feeling
Artist: Martin Aitchison (1964)
On a breezy day in early spring, the wind tugs at a row of white sheets and bedding on a washing line set in a garden in front of a large white house
Breezy Day (1975)
Artist: Gerald Witcomb
A wholesome picture showing four young children with a map spread out of them, viewing the idyllic countryside ahead of them and a mysterious looking church
Childhood reading leaves scars.
When I was lounging on the sofa, watching Scooby-Doo, I always had the uneasy feeling that my school holidays should look like this instead
#WorldBookDay
Artist: AN Buchanan
A photo realistic close-up of a mixed selection of biscuits, including chocolate fingers, chocolate digestives, and a lemon puff
The mastery of artist Harry Wingfield.
‘Biscuits ’
(Yes, it is a painting - from First Picture Book, 1970)
Two children, a girl and a boy are playing by a stream. The boy holds a jam jar and is looking for tiddlers, the girl holds a small fishing rod
By the river
‘In the Country’, 1954
Artist: Septimus Scott
A bird is perched on a rock on heathland, looking from right to left. Another bird slightly lower, looking the same way, peers through the grass.
Ladybird Nature Corner.
Wheatear
Artist:Roland Green
(Third book of British Birds, 1956)
Image of two people in seal skin clothes building the sort of igloo you thought it would be possible to build when you were seven years old and it was snowing in the School playground
Ladybird things I really, really wanted.
To make my own igloo
Artist: BH Robinson
(Homes, 1975)
Absolutely 👍
Four activities from the ‘what to make’ books including a cotton reel snake, puppet, tractor and tank
Wooden cotton reels and what to do with them. Some Ladybird suggestions.
Artists: G Robinson, Robert Ayton
“In the first week of March the wind blows hard, swaying the reeds and bushes and bending the big trees beyond the lake to its cold breath.”
The first page of ‘What to Look for in Spring”
Artist: CF Tunnicliffe
Writer: EL Grant Watson
Bright and breezy illustration of three daffodils painted on a simple, grey background
St David's Day
Dydd Gŵyl Dewi
Artist: H Woolley (1954)
A bleak, stark oil painting in shades of brown and cream of waterlogged fields under a flat white sky dotted with bare elm trees
Other work of the Ladybird artists.
‘February Fill Dyke’
Artist: Rowland Hilder
Absolutely, it’s possible.
Yes, she was a teacher. She was a strong character, a good teacher and smoked like a chimney.
An old-fashioned gas heater surrounded by a wooden clothes horse. A couple of towels are drying steamily on it
Everyday Ladybird things (1967)
‘Clothes horse by the fire’
Artist: Martin Aitchison
Not mine. Still in the possession of car o line 😊
Here’s a key to the trickiest bit:
“I think-k kit = it
wise = is
one of yawn = yaw = your
vest =best
A hand-drawn picture code letter where pictures can be substituted for words or part of words for example, a picture of an eye for the word ‘I’
A little girl once sent a drawing to artist John Leigh-Pemberton for his approval.
He replied in this delightful picture-code letter - which she has treasured for over 50 years. Can you work out his reply?
The front covers of three 1970s ladybird books: learning to sew, crochet and knitting
Ladybird books in the spotlight.
Crochet, Knitting, Sewing (1972-5)
Artist: Eric Winter
