The Lost Idyll of Ladybird

One of my earliest memories is of sitting on my mother's lap, looking through the 'Ladybird Book of Nursery Rhymes'. The insistent rhythms of the verses made a lasting impression:

"Fiddle-de-dee, fiddle-de-dee, the fly shall marry the bumblebee..."

But most of all, I loved the illustrations: 

Perhaps the illustrator of the Dan Dare science fiction comic-strip wasn't the natural candidate for a collection of nursery rhymes, but Frank Hampson turned out to be an inspired choice. His pictures are some of the most evocative in children's literature.

In his illustrations,  Hampson created an idyllic, pre-industrial England of villages and market towns, without a single Satanic mill in sight.

The fashions and buildings were (like many of the rhymes) mostly 18th century, but sometimes a steam engine, Victorian top hat or Tudor ruff would add a note of temporal discombobulation.

I often wonder whether these illustrations inspired my later life. I do seem to have ended up living somewhere that's remarkably similar to this illustration for 'Hot Cross Buns'. Is that Lewes Castle in the background?

Of course in the real world, the hot cross bun man would have been driven out of business by Caffè Nero and I'd have to resort to a pain au raisin, served by some over-familiar barista.

Many of the verses are of unknown provenance, but the occasional obsolete rhyme points to their antiquity. For example, in 'Tweedledee and Tweedledum', barrel rhymes with quarrel.

 And in 'Goosey Goosey Gander', wander rhymes with gander:

This was one of my favourite illustrations, from an age in which Gloucester was synonymous with Doctor Foster rather than Fred West. A contemporary version would probably end with Doctor Foster suing Gloucester City Council or, at the very least, phoning the Potholes Hotline.

I also loved this idyllic, Devon-like scene of rolling hills, unpolluted rivers and falling children.

The rhyme, which appears in the second volume, has the benefit of a little-known additional verse to 'Jack and Jill', in which "Dame Dob...patched his nob." A line that would have caused no end of sniggering when I was at school.

Some of the nursey rhymes have a rather melancholy tone. When Old Mother Hubbard discovers that her cupboard is bare, there is no hint of any possibility of redemption. Something that my three-year-old self found quite hard to take.

I preferred the world evoked in 'Tom, He Was a Piper's Son', with its blue sea, brightly-coloured clothes and the prospect of sailing off to exotic lands. Sadly, if you search for it on YouTube, there's a strong possibility that you'll stumble across this very disturbing Japanese manga version. I had to exorcise myself afterwards by listening to the Carpenters.

My least favourite illustration was the slightly harrowing image of a little boy waiting to be beaten in 'I do not like thee, Doctor Fell'.

The Wikipedia entry for Doctor Fell, which is said to date from 1680 (the rhyme, not the Wikipedia entry), is a fascinating read. I had no idea that Fell was a real person, or that Hannibal Lecter used the name as a pseudonym.

Today, boys aren't encouraged to hang around harbours and chat to sailors, but in this counting rhyme we're presented with a far more innocent world. I seem to remember my son being given a tape of children's songs, which included "One, two, three four five. Once I caught a fish alive..."

It met with a mysterious accident. My son didn't complain.

This illustration for 'Jack Be Nimble' is pretty straightforward, but some of Frank Hampson's pictures make me wonder what he put in his pipe. This bizarre vision of 'The Man in the Moon' is wonderfully bonkers:

'The Old Woman in the Basket' is also rather odd, with its depiction of a blue space. Intriguingly, the Ladybird book has a version that uses "quoth" instead of "said" - a word which has been out of use for at least 250 years:

How do you draw blind mice? Hampson's solution is rather novel. However, the prize for the most eccentric illustration is the one for 'This Little Piggy':

Quite why Frank Hampson suddenly went all 1960s, with a moped and television, I don't know. The perspective is also rather odd.

Proust had his madeleines. I have my Ladybird books of nursery rhymes. Just one look at any of the illustrations is a bittersweet experience, recalling a happy time in my childhood, but also reminding me that I don't live in a carefree world of endless summers and tricorn hats.

I don't think I've ever quite recovered from the disappointment.