Web Page No 2566

23rd March 2019

1st Picture. Ladybird book of The Hangover

 2nd Picture. Ladybird book of The People Next Door

 3rd Picture. Ladybird book of The Zombie Apocolypse

4th Picture. The Haynes Marriage Workshop Manual

5th Picture. Ladybird book of the Three Little Pigs

Was Vera Part of Your Childhood, Too?

Late last year Barry sent me the following article which

I think we can all identify with.

So was Vera Part Of Your Childhood, Too? And you did not know it!

No... not Vera Duckworth from Coronation Street!

We're encouraging our six-year-old little girl to read more. We needed books which aren't too long, where the words are just at the right level of difficulty... and which have a really good story.  So I thought back to my childhood... 

Aha... got it! Ladybird Books!  My daughter will enjoy them and I can relive all the  happy memories that they will no doubt bring back for me.

So I had a look online... and it seems that Ladybird Books are enjoying somewhat of a nostalgic resurgence... but for adults.  I found books covering The Hangover (Pic1) and the People Next Door(Pic2) 
and even... the Zombie Apocalypse (pic3),

Freaky!

And it seems like others are getting in on the act too.

Did you ever have one of those manuals, for your first car which kept going wrong?  I remember buying one for my first car but I didn't ever quite get round to doing any repairs...

Anyhow... Haynes (who dominated the niche) are up to the tongue-in-cheek, cash-in-on-the-humorous-nostalgic market too as you can see from Picture 4
But enough of that... back to Ladybird Books for children....

I found a classic... The Three Little Pigs... but it didn't look anything like I remembered... (Pic 5)

Oh no (I thought)... it's been sanitised and "adapted for 2018" (ugh).  

(It turns out that if I'd looked a bit harder I could have found the version that I remember, but they didn't have that one on the online book store at the time).

When the book arrived I opened it and  read it with trepidation.  

What would happen to the pigs?

... and, most important of all, what's going to happen to the wolf at the end? It's bound to be something milder than I remember.

After all, it wouldn't be very "children's book in 2018" correct for the wolf to meet such a grisly end... He'll probably get a mild telling off... Or not be allowed to watch television for a week...

But as I read the story I became increasingly optimistic...

The words had a familiar ring to them...

The first little pig (straw house)... eaten!  Hurray (I know that's not what I'm supposed to say when the piggy is chomped... but "hurray" because that's what happened in the version I read when I was little).

Second piggy (house of sticks)... 2nd course for the wolf.  2 down, 1 to go...

Would they dare to give the wolf the fate I remember?

Surely not... far too gruesome... But wait!   They did... Scolding pot of water on the fire... wolf climbs down the chimney... and the wolf is boiled to death...

Yippee! (does anyone still say that anymore?)

What an unexpected treat...

They haven't sanitised it at all... or any of the others in the set of Ladybird Books that we're working through (or not so far anyway)

So thank you Ladybird... what a wonderful surprise. Finally, someone hasn't dabbled with a nostalgic classic...

NOW

Who is Vera?  It turns out that Vera Southgate is the person who wrote (strictly speaking "re-told the tales because most of the stories have been around for years) a load of the Ladybird Books versions that I remember from the 1960s... including the Three Little Pigs.

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Peter

gsseditor@gmail.com

On this day 23rd March 1960-1965.

On 23/03/1960 the number one single was Running Bear - Johnny Preston and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Wagon Train (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 23/03/1961 the number one single was Wooden Heart - Elvis Presley and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was The Dickie Henderson Show (AR) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 23/03/1962 the number one single was Wonderful Land - The Shadows and the number one album was Blue Hawaii - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was French Algerian War ends

On 23/03/1964 the number one single was Little Children - Billy J Kramer and the number one album was With the Beatles - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was 10 found guilty of Great Train Robbery.

On 23/03/1965 the number one single was The Last Time - Rolling Stones and the number one album was Rolling Stones Number 2 - The Rolling Stones. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.