In Oxfam the other day I found a stand full to the brim (there was no brim – stands don’t have brims. But imagine there was a brim, and it was full-to) of postcards depicting the covers of Ladybird books. (If you’re too young to know about Ladybird books then you can be assured that I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.)
Ladybird books were a huge part of many childhoods, my own included, and it’s only slightly overstating it to say that if Ladybird books didn’t exist then my illiteracy would be so comprehensive I’d be ill-equipped to write any words about them, but I suppose it wouldn’t matter because they wouldn’t exist (in this scenario – they do in real life), so even if I wanted to write about them I couldn’t, and if I tried to explain that I wanted to write about Ladybird books I’d be laughed right of town because, like, I said, the things wouldn’t even exist (again, in this scenario. I stress they do exist in real life) . I’m making this needlessly complicated.
I bought quite a few of the postcards (only 35p each) because they are a delight, in a nostalgic-for-your-childhood-because-you’re-too-BLOODY-feeble-to-handle-real-grown-up-life kind of way. They harken back to a time when real actual people drew lovely illustrations for kids’ books, as opposed to today when the pictures for such tomes are – and I’ve looked this up – generated via complex colour-cognisant algorithmically-infused robot tablet computer phones.
Anyway, look at this!