it is quite amusing in retrospect...that scene within an empty room - at powergen 1980....solihull.....

 

EMB on a chair in the middle of that empty room...despairing.....looking at the book that scarlett had found in solihull library....you see it was 'on a par' with the above book for 'very young children' and not what you would call 'esoteric' at all....

 

in fact it was much funnier than the above illustration - or the one below for that matter....

 

you had this massive ship with all of the animals upon it...a bit like noah's ark... designed with a pre-school audience of children, in mind......there was a WHITE DUCK or was it a seagull - at the helm - dressed in a stripey white/blue swimming costume...squawking and splashing water everywhere and daldry was to giggle and say 'that's me'.....emb was not amused.

 

anyway, look at what else i found...further on upon a  search for DR DOOLITTLE...i wonder if jade laing had created that one? or one of the 51 gang?

 

Anyway, the illustration below...sums it all up for me...that 'horrorstory holiday' in 1980:

 

the truth behind that book...the arisocratic peacocks....

and the prague rothschild colour...the colour of those 'holliday cars' for sale on that manningtree garage forecourt....