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A children's author which reminded me so much of visiting the library close to my Junior School on Friday afternoons after school in the mid to late 1980s, has passed away at the age of 87. Along with his late wife Janet who pre-deceased him in November 1994, Allan Ahlberg delighted generations of children, teachers, and no doubt, librarians with his colourful and easy-reading books usually aimed at Primary School-aged children. I have mentioned him on this forum a few times in the past as the Search function has revealed, but he has given myself and other 1980s children, pleasure in reading books, not to mention enriching the process of learning to read in itself. No Book Corner was ever spared with at least one to two Ahlberg books in place. Back in the day when there were no JK Rowling novels gracing the classroom bookshelves back in the 1980s; but the likes of Roald Dahl, Roger Hargreaves, Pat Hutchins, Shirley Hughes and David McKee "rubbing shoulders" on the shelves with many of the Ahlbergs' classic books. And no doubt that in the days when Miss (in the days when it seemed to me that the female teachers wore uniform and the kids did not) would read one of them now and again while we waited for home time and the pins and needles to vanish while sitting on the carpet.
Just like the card game of the same name (Mr Bun the Baker we salute you!), its Happy Families namesakes was made into a series of books with surnames and occupations sharing the same initial letter. Mrs Lather's Laundry and Miss Jump the Jockey was just a couple of them. Miss Wobble the Waitress was another one, and I can remember borrowing them from the local library and reading them on Friday nights and over the weekend. Some titles can be slightly obscure even many years later; it took me years (meaning a good 20 years after I left school) to realise that the "Tick" in Mr Tick the Teacher actually referred to the art of Sir or Miss marking books in red Biro, and the book itself satirised the real-life art of schools closing down by LEAs, County Councils and Unitary Authorities because of the limited number of pupils on roll - it happened to one of the schools that I went to school just over a years after I had left. The Ticks used the same seven children in various classes giving an illusion that there were more pupils in the school than there really was. I do remember that Mr Tick had a blue cover; Miss Wobble had a purple cover and Miss Jump had a green cover, but I might be wrong on all three counts.
Ahlberg's Happy Families stories was even translated into a Children's BBC series in the early 1990s with Vicky Ireland from both Words and Pictures as well as Stepping Stones narrating. As a matter of fact, a couple of the Happy Families books made it onto Words and Pictures, and so I must have seen them on Monday afternoons at 2.00 pm during term-time circa 1983 to 1986. Miss Wobble made it on to there, and it adds to the nostalgia of the books - that episode was the one which children were invited to watch Magic Pencil to see how a small letter W was written. The Ahlbergs proved that children's books can be educational as well as entertaining. I think that Ahlberg as a household name wasn't as big as an author as Roald Dahl or other authors, probably because his genre were limited to children's book of a stringent age focus, and I believe that he would have been a bigger name had the age range was increased.
Other aspects of Ahlberg's work include The Jolly Postman; I believe that it was different to Postman Pat but it was a two-dimensional book where one had tiny letters included to "deliver" them within the book or something - I don't remember the book itself but just its title - does any else remember the concept of that book? Also, Ahlberg wrote Heard it in the Playground which was, I believe, a book on poetry based on playground games, or indeed, it was a book about antidotes by children during school playtimes around the country. Again, I only remember the title - does any one remember what those books were all about? Heard it... was written in the late 1980s when I was still at Junior School and that I was just about within the age brackets for those books, and so therefore they felt up to date for my generation, and were not books written and published in the 1970s or many a century or so before such as Beatrix Potter and other authors. If he had ever written his autobiography, I think that such a title could be one that satirised his own Happy Families books - what about Mr Ahlberg the Author? He outlived his wife Janet by over 30 years.
Just like the card game of the same name (Mr Bun the Baker we salute you!), its Happy Families namesakes was made into a series of books with surnames and occupations sharing the same initial letter. Mrs Lather's Laundry and Miss Jump the Jockey was just a couple of them. Miss Wobble the Waitress was another one, and I can remember borrowing them from the local library and reading them on Friday nights and over the weekend. Some titles can be slightly obscure even many years later; it took me years (meaning a good 20 years after I left school) to realise that the "Tick" in Mr Tick the Teacher actually referred to the art of Sir or Miss marking books in red Biro, and the book itself satirised the real-life art of schools closing down by LEAs, County Councils and Unitary Authorities because of the limited number of pupils on roll - it happened to one of the schools that I went to school just over a years after I had left. The Ticks used the same seven children in various classes giving an illusion that there were more pupils in the school than there really was. I do remember that Mr Tick had a blue cover; Miss Wobble had a purple cover and Miss Jump had a green cover, but I might be wrong on all three counts.
Ahlberg's Happy Families stories was even translated into a Children's BBC series in the early 1990s with Vicky Ireland from both Words and Pictures as well as Stepping Stones narrating. As a matter of fact, a couple of the Happy Families books made it onto Words and Pictures, and so I must have seen them on Monday afternoons at 2.00 pm during term-time circa 1983 to 1986. Miss Wobble made it on to there, and it adds to the nostalgia of the books - that episode was the one which children were invited to watch Magic Pencil to see how a small letter W was written. The Ahlbergs proved that children's books can be educational as well as entertaining. I think that Ahlberg as a household name wasn't as big as an author as Roald Dahl or other authors, probably because his genre were limited to children's book of a stringent age focus, and I believe that he would have been a bigger name had the age range was increased.
Other aspects of Ahlberg's work include The Jolly Postman; I believe that it was different to Postman Pat but it was a two-dimensional book where one had tiny letters included to "deliver" them within the book or something - I don't remember the book itself but just its title - does any else remember the concept of that book? Also, Ahlberg wrote Heard it in the Playground which was, I believe, a book on poetry based on playground games, or indeed, it was a book about antidotes by children during school playtimes around the country. Again, I only remember the title - does any one remember what those books were all about? Heard it... was written in the late 1980s when I was still at Junior School and that I was just about within the age brackets for those books, and so therefore they felt up to date for my generation, and were not books written and published in the 1970s or many a century or so before such as Beatrix Potter and other authors. If he had ever written his autobiography, I think that such a title could be one that satirised his own Happy Families books - what about Mr Ahlberg the Author? He outlived his wife Janet by over 30 years.
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