Return to the Farm, Ronald Lampitt

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Learning About Insects and Small Animals by Romola Showell. Loughborough, Wills & Hepworth (Ladybird Books), 1972. The poster was first issued in 1961. This is a later version, which must date from 1965 or 1966, as it features the 'double arrow' British Rail logo and was issued by the North Eastern Region operating area, which merged with British Railways Eastern Region in 1967 and ceased to exist.

What to Look for Outside a Church by P. J. Hunt. Loughborough, Wills & Hepworth (Ladybird Books), 1972. John Berry had a great gift for portraiture and this can be seen in his powerful portraits of People at Work for Ladybird. It can also be seen at the Imperial War Museum, where his wartime work as a war artist and portrait painter is still on display today. Growing up in the 1970s, I have long-standing memories of Lampitt’s artwork, mainly from using ‘Our Land in the Making’ and ‘Plants and How they Grow’ for school projects. I wasn’t interested in maps and associated his work with school and with the muted, muddy colours which are a characteristic of those books. It wasn’t until years later, when I came across other work that he produced, for Readers Digest, Look and Learn, the Whitbread Calendar and John Bull, that I fell in love with the wistful, nostalgic appeal of his landscapes, with expansive views dotted with the elm-trees, small lanes and oast house and tiny figures engaged in daily activity.

During the war he worked in Intelligence and although (perhaps inevitably) the nature of this work is unknown, it is possible that his wartime work helped develop his exceptional topographical accuracy and the ability to animate technical drawings into something visually rich and appealing. Mid-20th century British illustratorRonald Lampitthad a predilection for maps. It probably was no coincidence that he got to draw, in the Illustrated Magazine of 17 February 1951, the proposal of John Sleigh Pudney for an ideal city. Initially I wanted to find out more about the history behind the books, which itself is a remarkable story. The company that was to become a phenomenon in children’s publishing had an unlikely start as a diverse local print and stationery business in Loughborough, Leicestershire. During the early days of the Second World War, necessity became the mother of invention for the company, then called Wills & Hepworth.

John Kenney, for example, who illustrated most of the History books for Ladybird, also illustrated Thomas the Tank Engine. Ronald Lampitt, who lived most of his life in Kent and loved the local scenery, painted many beautiful and evocative scenes of country and suburban life for publications such as Illustrated, John Bull, Look and Learn and Readers Digest. Presumably it was these books which drew Lampitt to the attention of Ladybird’s Editorial Director, Douglas Keen. Over a 7 year period, Lampitt produced the artwork for 9 Ladybird books – all of which were to prove something of a fixture on school bookshelves over the period and beyond. These titles were:His book illustrations included work for Summer Pie, Oxford University Press and Ladybird Books, many of them in collaboration with Henry James Deverson (1908-1972). Lampitt's association with Deverson included working on the Mainly for Children series published by the Sunday Times in the early 1960s but also went deeper as Lampitt was married to H.J.'s sister, Mona Deverson (1911-1995), in 1938. The couple had two daughters, Judy and Susan. Keen’s attempts to convince the directors initially fell on deaf ears so, undeterred, he decided to produce a prototype, non-fiction Ladybird book, aimed at the older child. His choice of topic was one that interested him personally – British birds – and he wrote the text himself. His mother-in-law and wife, both talented amateur artists, were asked to produce the illustrations.

thatch, stonework, porticos and a random juxtaposition and size realationship, but at its heart, it is not. The same concept could have been used featuring a really exciting range of modern archetecture. Now that would have been something. But who knows perhaps in aA Ladybird Book of Our Land in the Making: Book 2: Norman Conquest to Present Day by Richard Bowood. Loughborough, Wills & Hepworth (Ladybird Books), 1966. Although born in the West Country, Lampitt lived most of his life in Sidcup and loved the Kent countryside. He was a good friend of Roland and Edith Hilder, who had previously illustrated ‘Wild Flowers’ for Ladybird, and together they formed a sketching club, going out for long walks in the countryside around Shoreham, armed with sketch pads. Animals and How They Live by Frank Newing & Richard Bowood. Loughborough, Wills & Hepworth (Ladybird Books), 1965.

Yet there are more changes still to come. This landscape has not yet seen the combine harvester: the hedges are maintained and not yet ripped out. We can see some newly pleached with trimmings being burned. The gates have not yet been widened. The elms will be lost to Dutch Elm Disease in less than a decade introduced, like many of the first tractors, from North America.Ronald Lampitt saw all this and recorded it for Treasure Magazine. It can be dated, just by what it shows, to a February day in the late 50s [the picture was published in 1963 but may have been produced a few years earlier] but the details it includes show the past and present of this small farm and hints at its future.” Ronald never got that ‘proper job’. Self-taught as an artist, he began to take on work as a commercial illustrator. Shortly before the war, in 1938, he married Mona Deverson, six years his junior. Lampitt was a private man: sociable when among a small group of friends and family (the Deversons in particular) but with little interest in seeking entertainment further afield. When engaged on a project he spent long hours in his ‘studio’– a room at the top of the family home, coming down only for meals. He died in 1988, aged 82, after a long fight with Parkinson’s disease. Although born in Worcester, he adopted Kent as his home, living in Sidcup for 50 years, until his death in 1988. The Kent countryside figures prominently in his art and illustration and at weekends he used to go out sketching with his friend, artist Rowland Hilder who was a Kent native. However, he also illustrated railway posters in the 1950s and 60s for destination including Bexhill-on-Sea, Harlech Castle and St Michael's Mount in Cornwall. For many years I have been collecting original artwork, artefacts and stories about these artists and their world and I am delighted that The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge first gave me me the opportunity to share this fascinating story.