We recently inherited a stack of Ladybird books and have wasted many happy hours inside the uncomplicated mind of the 1960s educationalist. Here’s what we’ve learned:
- Computers do not have brains and they cannot really think for themselves
- A stockbroker in the City is probably more interested in financial news, and has time to read long articles about it. A train driver may be more interested in sport, and prefer short, lively articles
- Anglo-Saxons built castles out of wood. So did Africans
- The videophone is really a combined telephone and television which enables the person speaking to actually see the person he or she is speaking to
- All new babies look very much alike. Nurses make sure that the babies do not get mixed
- It may one day be possible to have plenty of fresh water and grow an abundance of food in the deserts by using the heat from nuclear reactors
- England has never had a better ruler than Agricola
- Some musical shows, particularly ‘pop’ shows are mimed. The artistes do not actually make any sound at all
- Some newspapers employ a women’s editor
- As with most hobbies, there is a vast amount of equipment it is possible to use in stamp collecting
If this fount of knowledge were on every child’s bookshelf we’d have no need of Wikipedia :)