What Ladybird Books taught me about history

Visiting my family’s house, now inhabited by my sister, the other day, I dug out the heart of my childhood library, my Ladybird Books. They were the only books I bought with my pocket money when I was a small boy. Each short, well-produced hardback cost half a crown (12.5p). I got one old penny for each year of my age. So when I stopped buying Ladybirds at the age of 12, I was laying out two and a half weeks’ earnings on them. Rereading them now, I see how much they excited my imagination. Perhaps because of their link with childhood, they read well at Christmas.

There were many different types of Ladybird books – ones about the farm, or travel, for instance – but the ones I liked the best were called ‘Adventures from history’. The first, published in the year of my birth, 1956, was King Alfred the Great.