It runs in the family
Douglas Keen
My grandfather, Douglas Keen, who died in 2008 aged 95, was the visionary mind behind Ladybird books. He had joined the firm in 1936 and was the editorial director from the late 1950s until 1972. It was around my grandparents’ kitchen table that the Key Words Reading Scheme with Peter & Jane and all the other wonderfully illustrated and informative Ladybird books from the 1950s to the 1970s were thought up. Douglas was the first to decide that the company should produce informative, factual books for children as well as fiction, and the first of these was ‘ British Birds and their Nests’ in 1952. The prototype for this book was illustrated by my grandmother, Margaret Keen and great grandmother, Margaret Jones, who also created life-size cut-outs of the storybook characters for shop window displays.
Read more about Douglas Keen and Ladybird Books: http://www.ladybirdflyawayhome.com/keen.htm
Douglas Keen obituary: www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/nov/29/3
Prototype of British Birds and their nests
British Birds and Their Nests
Cut out window display by my great grandmother
Greetings card by my great grandmother
My mum, by my great grandmother
Great Grandmother by my mum, aged six and three quarters!