:00:02. > :00:12.Hello, generations of children grew up reading Ladybird books and
:00:12. > :00:14.
:00:14. > :00:18.tonight we're in Loughborough where the story all began. They were the
:00:18. > :00:23.books that inspired millions of children. There's something about
:00:23. > :00:28.them that draws you in. They are pictures in the art work. They wish
:00:28. > :00:38.you through the years. Little by little, your shelves get full of
:00:38. > :00:46.books. We tracked down a man that started it all. Also tonight: They
:00:46. > :00:53.called it the street of shame. have had everything next to me.
:00:53. > :01:03.Prostitutes, all the doors have been taken off the hinges.
:01:03. > :01:23.
:01:23. > :01:26.When the people of Pleasley Hill heard their community was going to
:01:26. > :01:29.be regenerated, they imagined a fresh start after years of neglect.
:01:29. > :01:32.But nearly a decade later, they're still waiting. For the last 12
:01:32. > :01:41.months, Stuart Woodman has been finding out what life's been like
:01:41. > :01:51.for the people who chose to stay while others moved out. This is
:01:51. > :01:51.
:01:51. > :01:54.Nottinghamshire and the outskirts of Mansfield. Once a thriving pit
:01:54. > :01:56.village, Pleasley Hill was a purpose built community serving the
:01:57. > :02:00.local mine. With neat rows of terraces it changed very little for
:02:00. > :02:04.the best part of 100 years. A place where families took pride in their
:02:04. > :02:07.homes. But in 1983 things changed. The pit closed and the village's
:02:07. > :02:11.fortunes changed. Gradually the area became notorious for drugs,
:02:11. > :02:14.deprivation and anti-social behaviour. So in a radical decision
:02:14. > :02:24.which would change the village forever, they brought in the
:02:24. > :02:30.
:02:30. > :02:35.If the village had been left as it was and not used as a containment
:02:35. > :02:42.career for druggies and every other bad person that they didn't want in
:02:42. > :02:47.that area and shovel it into this area, it would still be great.
:02:47. > :02:52.There is nothing wrong with the houses. Some of them are damp but
:02:52. > :02:58.it is the people that don't look after them. I have had everyone
:02:58. > :03:08.looking -- living next to me. A prostitute cum heavy rockers, they
:03:08. > :03:12.took all the floorboards of. What can you do?
:03:12. > :03:21.Pulling down these terraces would mean the death for a community
:03:21. > :03:31.already on the brink. Over the last year, we have been meeting the
:03:31. > :03:38.
:03:38. > :03:44.people who call this area home. If you were determined to stay.
:03:44. > :03:54.didn't want to complain about it. It would bring more trouble on to
:03:54. > :03:55.
:03:55. > :04:00.your doorstep. This part is completely dead. Despite everything,
:04:00. > :04:06.and Richard wants to stay. He lives on one of the streets that is to be
:04:06. > :04:16.saved. I am meeting to other families who have had enough and
:04:16. > :04:23.
:04:23. > :04:29., we are looking for a property to buy. -- at the moment, we are
:04:29. > :04:35.looking for property to buy. We have never been informed what is
:04:35. > :04:41.being built, just what is coming down. We are forgotten people.
:04:41. > :04:46.are you moving out? We have no idea, we haven't found anywhere. It has
:04:46. > :04:54.to be in the next three months. We will be gone and then there is
:04:54. > :04:59.another empty one. Sad to go? I would be if I have still got my
:04:59. > :05:05.neighbours and the people when I moved in here. Who wants to live in
:05:05. > :05:11.a place like this? I am ready to get out. Linda, we have caught you
:05:11. > :05:16.packing. You have been here 60 years. It must be a big wrench.
:05:16. > :05:23.is. We don't want to leave but we have no choice. Nobody wanted to
:05:23. > :05:29.know. We have no choice, we have to go. Do you no longer feel safe
:05:29. > :05:33.living here? Not anymore. Last summer, there was fighting with
:05:33. > :05:42.baseball bats and hatchets. There was blood everywhere and it is not
:05:42. > :05:52.right. It is a sad end to the place. All the old miners who lived here
:05:52. > :06:02.for nothing. It is all gone. Residents say it talk of
:06:02. > :06:05.
:06:05. > :06:08.regeneration is nothing new.. Mansfield District Council claims
:06:08. > :06:12.to be spending around a million on clearance and improvement. Plans
:06:12. > :06:16.include 900 quality homes, shops, a pub, even a hotel. But it all seems
:06:16. > :06:20.a long way off and some people have got tired of waiting. I'm meeting a
:06:20. > :06:26.man behind a controversial website. Mark Jones has been asking
:06:26. > :06:31.questions about these plans and the plight of the village. Do you think
:06:31. > :06:36.the people and the place became stigmatised? There were times when
:06:36. > :06:42.I was at college and people were looked down again. They were seen
:06:42. > :06:46.as a deity area and people would laugh at accent, as well. -- dirty
:06:46. > :06:54.area. Waugh was the relationship like with the council and the
:06:54. > :06:57.Mayor? We didn't see him around here. As far as the of way the
:06:57. > :07:06.people felt towards the council, it was very heated. People were very
:07:06. > :07:12.angry. You started a bloggers and it was very critical of the council.
:07:12. > :07:17.I didn't know what was going on. There wasn't any way of getting
:07:17. > :07:22.information from the people. They would never get any answers. I
:07:22. > :07:28.thought it was the only way I could get anything moving forward. Within
:07:28. > :07:33.a year, they started to knock the place down. Two years later, it is
:07:33. > :07:39.still knocked down. Does this embarrassment kick-start some
:07:39. > :07:49.action? It could have happened anyway. It is a coincidence that it
:07:49. > :07:50.
:07:51. > :07:56.will happen in one go. Barker wrote his last block it two
:07:56. > :08:01.years ago after he decided to move away and his home was torn down.
:08:01. > :08:07.For those determined to stay put in a struggling community, they are
:08:07. > :08:13.angry at the slow progress of improvement.
:08:13. > :08:17.All the decent people that were here, they would help anyone. They
:08:17. > :08:22.have all moved to different areas. The whole community has been split
:08:22. > :08:27.up. It is like getting a handful of pebbles on the beach and throwing
:08:27. > :08:33.them. They have gone here and everywhere. It is what has been
:08:33. > :08:39.done to the village that has made it the Street of shame. People have
:08:39. > :08:46.lived here all their lives. They don't want to move. They want to
:08:46. > :08:51.stay. It is not good. Not good at all. If they are going to do these
:08:51. > :08:54.things, they should look at what people want. OK, it would be nice
:08:54. > :09:02.to have a new area but it shouldn't take all these years to get round
:09:02. > :09:05.to doing yet, should it? This is a vanishing village. Some say and I
:09:05. > :09:11.sought no more. Some say it Nottingham's poorest people were
:09:11. > :09:15.neglected, ignored and moved on to make way for private development.
:09:15. > :09:18.Tony Egginton, the elected Mayor of Mansfield, has agreed to meet me. I
:09:18. > :09:27.wanted to put the people's concerns to the man ultimately in charge of
:09:27. > :09:32.this village's future. Before the pit shut come this was a thriving
:09:32. > :09:37.village. It is a wonderful community, bags of community spirit
:09:37. > :09:45.but when the pits closed, the Coal Board summer properties. Quite a
:09:45. > :09:53.few people did access finance and purchase properties. Some went to
:09:53. > :09:58.rogue landlords. Things have taken a turn for the worst. It has
:09:58. > :10:04.declined. We would have hoped to have brought this on it sooner than
:10:04. > :10:07.we had. The local paper quotes you saying they promised local
:10:07. > :10:13.residents that work on a housing estate would begin in the next 18
:10:13. > :10:19.months. That is eight years ago. What has happened? It is the
:10:19. > :10:23.industry. The construction industry, the bottom went out of it. To get
:10:23. > :10:28.developers interested has been a hell of a job. Now we are here and
:10:28. > :10:33.ready to go. We have a contractor in place and hopefully we will be
:10:33. > :10:39.on site in the next year. It is not just a low priority for the
:10:39. > :10:43.district council? It has been a high priority. This is my last term
:10:43. > :10:48.of office and a legacy I want to leave behind. I will be happy to
:10:48. > :10:57.say I have enabled this to happen and it will be a proud place for me
:10:57. > :11:02.to come to for the remainder of my life.
:11:02. > :11:06.Tony has two years to achieve his legacy. After demolition is don't
:11:06. > :11:11.come up won a short row of terraces is all that will remain, an island
:11:11. > :11:21.in the middle of hundreds of new homes, built on farmers' fields and
:11:21. > :11:25.
:11:25. > :11:28.the past. Barry has been offered one of few
:11:28. > :11:38.houses not being bulldozed. His nearest neighbours, Linda Grubey
:11:38. > :11:39.
:11:39. > :11:47.and Paul Johnson, finally did a deal with the council. They could
:11:47. > :11:53.afford a modest home closer to Mansfield. I am settled again. I am
:11:53. > :12:01.somewhere that I don't have to worry about anything. I just have
:12:01. > :12:07.to get on with my life. You had to fight for compensation, didn't you?
:12:07. > :12:11.We had to fight for a decent amount of money. What they offered you the
:12:12. > :12:18.first time, you couldn't have bought a one-bedroomed house. That
:12:18. > :12:28.is all we want, somewhere to live for the rest of row years and
:12:28. > :12:31.hopefully I have caught it. -- -- And all the residents have since
:12:31. > :12:40.moved out of Pleasley Hill and demolition will be finished in the
:12:40. > :12:43.The Ladybird books we all know and love were published on this street
:12:43. > :12:45.right here in Loughborough. Books like this one certainly helped
:12:45. > :12:48.millions of us to read, including me! Printers, Wills and Hepworth,
:12:48. > :12:52.had been producing things like car catalogues but that all changed
:12:52. > :13:02.with an idea from one of their own sales team and to think, they
:13:02. > :13:05.
:13:05. > :13:10.weren't even interested at first! The television set is familiar
:13:10. > :13:13.through homes throughout the world. Many boys like to play football.
:13:13. > :13:17.Everyone in England knows that the Fifth of November is Bonfire Night.
:13:17. > :13:27.If you were young in the '60s and '70s, you'll remember these. But
:13:27. > :13:28.
:13:28. > :13:33.the man who had the idea was ignored for years. I can remember
:13:33. > :13:42.my father going round worried that it wouldn't work. The gamble was
:13:42. > :13:45.launching the reading scheme featuring Peter and Jane. It is
:13:45. > :13:49.still alive and well, Peter and Jane are still teaching many to
:13:49. > :13:51.read every year. The Ladybird factory has gone but they will
:13:51. > :13:57.forever be linked with Loughborough in Leicestershire. The tales are
:13:57. > :14:00.still being told. The rest of the crew were in the rowing boat!
:14:00. > :14:08.There's also a big market in Ladybird nostalgia and a new way of
:14:08. > :14:14.telling the stories. Can you see the Tiger? It takes you back,
:14:14. > :14:21.details in the art work which put you through the years. Everybody in
:14:21. > :14:29.this country will have come across It all began in this Derbyshire
:14:29. > :14:32.market town. A commercial salesman called Douglas Keen had a big idea.
:14:33. > :14:40.He lived in Heanor with his wife and mother-in-law and enrolled them
:14:40. > :14:44.both into his plan. My father had the idea there of doing educational
:14:44. > :14:48.books for children. They were the sort of thing that adults could use
:14:48. > :14:53.as well. These would be stories to capture every child's imagination
:14:53. > :14:55.about the world they lived in. Books unlike the Ladybird
:14:55. > :15:05.children's books Wills and Hepworth churned out in Loughborough during
:15:05. > :15:12.wartime to keep the printers busy when commercial work fell away.
:15:13. > :15:16.did and -- he was not making them until the 1940s, and then they
:15:16. > :15:20.decided to make some books to keep things going until the end of the
:15:20. > :15:30.war. But Douglas Keen's plan for the Ladybird brand was slapped down.
:15:30. > :15:34.
:15:34. > :15:40.They told him to go away and This was from the accountant, Jim
:15:40. > :15:42.Clegg. "it is not anticipated that book will form a major part of our
:15:42. > :15:46.turnover after the ceasefire has been sounded and while not wishing
:15:46. > :15:49.to discourage your interest in books, it would be wiser to focus
:15:49. > :15:54.your interest on the commercial side are printed, the car market,
:15:55. > :15:57.for example". A Douglas Keen was not easily put off. He made use of
:15:57. > :16:07.his mother-in-law's ability at art. She'd studied at art school in
:16:07. > :16:10.Derby and put together a prototype He was going around thinking this
:16:10. > :16:15.was the right thing to do, to convince them? And this came about?
:16:16. > :16:20.Yes. This is the prototype he put together to convince the directors.
:16:20. > :16:25.My father had a lot of books on beds so I imagine he sorted out the
:16:25. > :16:28.format and gave the her a picture to work from. My mother did the
:16:28. > :16:33.little black and white illustrations of the nests and the
:16:33. > :16:39.eggs and the setting for the nest, and my father wrote the text.
:16:39. > :16:43.hard work paid off. Wills and Hepworth changed their tune. "I
:16:43. > :16:51.must say at first that however lukewarm up my suggestion was two
:16:51. > :16:59.years ago, I am now 100% in favour of publishing this book". As you
:16:59. > :17:03.can see, it looked for all intents and purposes remarkably similar.
:17:03. > :17:07.The start off getting a book and you think, I remember that, and
:17:07. > :17:17.then you think I would like to collect the set. Ladybird books
:17:17. > :17:19.
:17:19. > :17:23.come in numbered sets so a bit of you liked ticking boxes. Helen Day
:17:23. > :17:26.has ticked every box. She has the lot. A love of books generated from
:17:26. > :17:32.learning from them and remembering them. She still has one from her
:17:32. > :17:38.childhood among the collection. can look at one of the pictures
:17:38. > :17:43.today, and remember looking at that so deeply as a child. Long before
:17:43. > :17:52.the Romans conquered Britain, men have lived in these islands for
:17:52. > :18:00.hundreds of years. adequate policemen are on duty day and night.
:18:00. > :18:04.Some people were often attacked by Helen also has a collection of
:18:04. > :18:07.original art from some of the books. The artwork in the '60s and '70s is
:18:07. > :18:14.what made the books stand out. From his new family home in Stratford,
:18:14. > :18:18.Douglas Keen commissioned the artists himself. They were quite
:18:18. > :18:22.exotic for the 1950s. John Berry, for example, smoked and had been
:18:22. > :18:24.divorced and had a sports car. It was all rather exotic. One of the
:18:24. > :18:29.artists was Martin Aitchison who had worked for Barnes Wallis
:18:29. > :18:33.sketching plans for the Dam Busters mission. Profoundly deaf since
:18:33. > :18:43.youth, Martin - who is 93 - still paints. He had done work for Eagle
:18:43. > :19:00.
:19:00. > :19:03.Comics but was initially turned And so he was taken on to
:19:03. > :19:06.illustrate the Ladbyird Key Words reading scheme. This was a huge
:19:06. > :19:16.task based on the theory by William Murray that 12 words account for a
:19:16. > :19:18.
:19:18. > :19:25.quarter of those we use in the This is fun, says Peter. Yes, this
:19:25. > :19:29.is fun, said Jane. William Murray had developed the theory of Key
:19:29. > :19:32.Words and had written several books about it and I think he had one
:19:32. > :19:36.unsuccessful attempt with another publisher who wanted to produce a
:19:36. > :19:41.reading scheme but had fallen through. Initially he was quite
:19:41. > :19:45.reluctant to try again but my father managed to convince him.
:19:45. > :19:49.Apparently Douglas Keen loved a boffin, he loved people who would
:19:49. > :19:55.be dedicated and got engaged in the conversations and I think William
:19:55. > :20:00.Murray was quite reluctant to start Because it was a teaching set, over
:20:00. > :20:06.30 new books had to be be launched at once. They piled up in the
:20:06. > :20:09.warehouse and concerned staff in Loughborough. He was worried
:20:09. > :20:16.because they built up so much stock and that meant things were not
:20:16. > :20:19.selling and I remember him saying, they had never seen things like
:20:19. > :20:23.this, and he said, this is deliberate: We need to bring up
:20:23. > :20:29.this level of stock before we do it. A just imagine that Campbell and
:20:30. > :20:33.looking at them. -- just imagine that gamble. To date, they've sold
:20:33. > :20:36.80 million copies. They are still being used today. The artwork was
:20:36. > :20:39.all created from original photographs. To make the stories
:20:39. > :20:49.work, Martin Aithcison had to find his own models. He spotted Jane
:20:49. > :21:25.
:21:25. > :21:30.Sometimes fate played a hand in the People At Work was another of
:21:30. > :21:37.Douglas Keen's innovations. And looking at the pictures now they
:21:37. > :21:44.take you back to a different era. The illustrations pin-down this
:21:44. > :21:49.sense of that time. The policeman, for example, in the People At Work
:21:49. > :21:57.series, was not the Cup Lee Dixon of Dock Green, laughing policeman
:21:58. > :22:03.that he would expect. Much more a guardian of society and almost an
:22:03. > :22:06.anonymous figure. Even in the most bland and boring book, something
:22:06. > :22:16.about the art work which made you think there was more to it than met
:22:16. > :22:17.
:22:17. > :22:24."motor cars were first made in England just before 1,900. Apart
:22:24. > :22:27.from the bodies and engines, the The popularity is undimmed. The
:22:27. > :22:37.many car-related books were featured last year at the Heritage
:22:37. > :22:40.
:22:40. > :22:44.Motor Centre in Warwickshire with Even from the start, something
:22:44. > :22:50.retrospective about those books. If you look at the pictures in the
:22:50. > :22:55.1960s, they probably better represent the 1950s. There are
:22:55. > :23:00.something inherent in nostalgia, even in Ladybird at its most keen
:23:00. > :23:08.to be current. In Leicestershire, museum curators know the worth of
:23:08. > :23:12.featuring the books. Ladybird was a huge part of Loughborough's working
:23:12. > :23:15.life, and even social life. Thousands of people worked in
:23:15. > :23:20.Ladybird in the time they were based in Loughborough. It comes
:23:20. > :23:24.with the territory, that to cover major working places and also play
:23:24. > :23:29.so that had an influence throughout the country because everybody of a
:23:29. > :23:32.certain age is familiar with Ladybird books. And there have been
:23:32. > :23:42.factual books so well written that they've been used in a practical
:23:42. > :23:44.
:23:44. > :23:50.way by adults. 10 been How It Works book about cars were used by Thames
:23:50. > :23:59.Valley Police and they were going over to patrol cars and they wanted
:23:59. > :24:04.officers to understand what went on Trilogy, population, rainfall and
:24:04. > :24:10.land-use map. Each of the following small maps opposite gives us
:24:10. > :24:15.specialised information about our country. The Understanding Maps was
:24:15. > :24:19.used by the army. And How It Works: The Computer was widely used by a
:24:19. > :24:24.lot of firms, in fact by IBM to tell the start about how computers
:24:24. > :24:28.work. There is something about computers that is both fascinating
:24:28. > :24:37.and alarming. There was a backlash though. Some said the pictures were
:24:37. > :24:44.sexist and out-of-date. It began to be perceived as to roll specific.
:24:45. > :24:47.The children were allocated duties based on whether they were a boy or
:24:47. > :24:57.a girl. Martin Aitchison was commissioned to redraw his work in
:24:57. > :25:10.
:25:10. > :25:15.Nostalgia today means the pictures Martin painted are still popular.
:25:15. > :25:23.We are still using the same illustrations so that retro feel to
:25:23. > :25:29.Peter and Jane is very much as it was in the 70s when they were in
:25:29. > :25:34.the street again. -- illustrated again. Ladybird presses closed in
:25:34. > :25:36.Loughborough 14 years ago. They are now part of London-based Penguin.
:25:36. > :25:43.Today in Loughborough's newly- refurbished library it's Ladybird
:25:43. > :25:48.Live, a reading roadshow for pre- school children. It was a sad time
:25:48. > :25:53.when the factory closed here in Loughborough but now the home is in
:25:53. > :25:57.London for Penguin Books but we are very much enjoy a be involved in
:25:57. > :26:01.the community. Douglas Keen retired when Ladybird were first sold to
:26:01. > :26:04.the publishers Pearson in the seventies. And in his retirement
:26:04. > :26:11.wrote a book himself. One again ahead of his time. It was about
:26:11. > :26:19.saving the planet. Bury radical to be talking about ecology to a
:26:19. > :26:29.popular market and children at that time. -- very radical. So specimen
:26:29. > :26:37.
:26:37. > :26:41.only, first ever, 1945. Helen Day You take people to see what can be
:26:41. > :26:51.achieved. Right up to date. Those same Ladybird books are now
:26:51. > :26:53.
:26:53. > :26:59.readable as an app on a smartphones and tablets. To reach those
:26:59. > :27:02.children, we must look at these different platforms. Lots of older
:27:02. > :27:05.generation people are getting nostalgic about it, recording their
:27:05. > :27:09.own sound effects which is fantastic but also using it with
:27:09. > :27:15.their children which is brilliant because it is bringing everything
:27:15. > :27:19.full circle. This was when she was about eight. Douglas Keen's own
:27:19. > :27:22.granddaughters also tried to make their own Ladybird books. One has
:27:22. > :27:32.gone on to make a career illustrating children's books. An
:27:32. > :27:33.
:27:33. > :27:37.art legacy which began on a kitchen Gosh, it takes you back, doesn't
:27:37. > :27:40.it? And great to see those brilliant books have got a future
:27:40. > :27:43.thanks to Douglas Keen and it's the centenary of his birth this year.
:27:43. > :27:46.That's it from Loughborough. Thanks for watching. Goodbye.
:27:46. > :27:50.We do blood pressure, we do defibrilation if you collapse in
:27:50. > :27:54.front of us. It's all free. It's on the NHS. You've all paid for it.
:27:54. > :27:57.Just come and choose which one you'd like. Next week, it's the
:27:57. > :28:00.biggest shake-up in the history of the NHS, so what will it mean for
:28:00. > :28:06.patients and doctors? GP and comedian Phil Hammond sets out his
:28:06. > :28:09.stall. This is what the biggest shake-up in the history of the NHS
:28:09. > :28:15.is all about giving local doctors, nurses and patients the chance to
:28:15. > :28:18.call the shots and shop around for the best care.
:28:18. > :28:22.With "choice" the buzz word, Rob Sissons asks what difference will
:28:22. > :28:25.it really make to your life in the East Midlands? It's very difficult
:28:25. > :28:34.for patients because you're not really aware of who is better than
:28:34. > :28:37.And Ben Jackson is back in the saddle again. There are days, let