Things from the Cupboard

Home in Scotland a couple of weeks ago I had a search through my old "toy cupboard". We had a boot fair in London a few months ago so I couldn't resist bringing some things back to start filling up the cleared out spaces!


This is a map from 1963 - the year my parents (as newlyweds) went on a road trip to Norway with my grandfather and teenage aunts.







My beloved Tufty Club Book - I thought it was lost so was very happy to discover!
Illustrations are so powerful to children and the emotions they create seem to get so fixed inside us - when I saw these pictures of bonfire night, the naughty weasel and the mole family on a long dark road I remembered how fearful I found them. And it surprises me how gentle the pictures seem when the feelings I can recall are more akin to those created by horror films!

I'm also surprised how things are not nearly as complex as I remember. I loved the tree house Tufty lived in - but now it seems so small and simple - not how it was in my head as a child!



I bought this book with a book token I got as a school prize aged seven for art. My Mum thought prizes were a terrible and unfair thing until I got one! I have just discovered a little about the illustrator Ronald Ferns
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Ferns
What a wonderful selection of projects he worked on!