A ladybird …… an advert….. and a story of ecology

This is one of those fascinating pieces that appeared in the Eagle comic and its companions, Girl, Swift and Robin, which pretty much dominated British comics in the 1950s.

It had begun with the Eagle in 1950, and was quickly followed by Girl and Swift and Robin which were aimed at a younger age range.

All four offered a mix of strip cartoons, factual material, with adverts for everything from Walls ice cream to bicycles and breakfast cereals.

Often the adverts were presented in the form of an adventure story, where characters like Tommy Walls was pitted against all sorts of things, but always came out on top, and celebrated with an ice cream.

But the adverts could also be more sophisticated, like this one for Ladybird clothes, which managed to tell a story, advance an ecological message about the value of insects, and take a side swipe at the over reliance on pesticides.

And all the more remarkable given that this was 1960, and the advert appeared in the Swift Annual which was aimed at children still in Junior School.

Some might still criticize the use of adverts in children’s books and comics, and I would agree, but in this case, it is a neat little story, well-illustrated and with a topical message.

Picture; advert for Ladybird clothing, from the Swift Annual, number 6, and cover of Swift Annual, Number 4, 1958  from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Swift Annual Number.6, 1960