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ALLAN & JANET AHLBERG

Allan Ahlberg was born 5th June 1938 in Croydon, Surrey and soon after moved to the Black Country. He had many jobs ranging from postman ('The Jolly Postman'!), plumber's mate & gravedigger before working as a Primary Teacher and eventually becoming a Head Teacher.

Janet Ahlberg (nee Hall) was born 21st October 1944 and brought up in Leicester . The couple met at Sunderland Teacher Training College in the early 1960s and married in 1969.

Left: Cover illustration from The Jolly Pocket Postman

After graduating, Janet found the constraints of a teaching job hard to bear but had been encouraged to paint and draw whilst training and so decided to explore her creative bent. She attended Leicester Polytechnic to study graphic design.

While Allan settled into his role as Primary School Teacher, Janet went on to illustrate books for children and had her first book Night, published in 1972. She then asked Allan, already an established author, to write stories primarily for children, for her to illustrate and thus a hugely successful partnership was formed. Janet's career as an illustrator really took off with the publication of The Brick Street Boys series, written by Allan.

She and Allan worked side by side from that day forward and in 1978 Janet was awarded the Kate Greenway Medal for Each Peach, Pear Plum and again in 1991 for The Jolly Pocket Postman.

Below, right: Illustration from Baby's Catalogue

Many of the Ahlberg's collaborations are set in the Midlands of the 1950s and re-create a happy, bustling family life. Their daughter Jessica, who was born in 1980, became the inspiration behind Janet's illustration of the baby in the Peepo books, which reflected Allan's childhood. Their influences for masterpieces such as The Baby's Catalogue came from comics and cartoons. In total, Janet & Allan jointly published over 37 titles. All of which, with their rhythmic prose and quirky sentimentality, have become classic children's titles, being very easy to both read and listen to, as many a parent who has read them on numerous occasions, often night after night, will agree! The Ahlbergs are currently 8th on the list of Authors/Illustrators most commonly borrowed from lending libraries.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of possibly the most well-known of the Alhberg's collaborations - The Jolly Postman. The book shows clearly how Janet and Allan worked in harmony with a perfect link between text and illustration, giving a full-bodied feeling to the whole design. The envelopes contained within, with their puzzles, peep-shows and miniature cards, leave no illusion about how a book works and children relish this simplicity. Their "Christmas" version of this book captures the anticipation and excitement of the season wonderfully. The book in its entirety is now much sought after and to find a second-hand version, complete with all its enclosures, is rare.

Above, left: Envelopes in The Jolly Postman fire a child's imagination.

Janet's illustrations took longer to create than Allan's writing so he collaborated with other illustrators on many of his well-known titles such as Put On A Show (Colin McNaughton), FunnyBones, Bumps In The Night, and Ten In A Bed (Andre Amstutz). He created the "Happy Families" series with illustrations done by, amongst others, Joe Wright (Mrs Plug The Plumber) and Fritz Wegner (Ms. Cliff The Climber).

Allan also went on to write a range of fiction titles for older children including The Bear That Nobody Wanted, which Janet illustrated for him; Woof, The Giant Baby and The Better Brown Stories, all of which were illustrated by Fritz Wegner. Teachers throughout the country are forever in Allan's debt for also producing two hugely successful poetry collections which look at the funny side of school life.

Sadly Janet died prematurely in 1994 at the age of 50, but Allan continued to work and produced a beautiful tribute to her, entitled Janet's Last Book. He also continued to create wonderful books for children of all ages and their daughter Jessica has followed in Janet's footsteps and illustrated one of Allan's books, Half A Pig.

An exhibition to celebrate the creative partnership of Janet & Allan Ahlberg is currently being held in Newcastle until the end of 2006. It explores the innovative, creative picture books they produced together. Visitors are shown where Allan and Janet got their ideas and inspiration and how they turned them into original books of huge appeal to both adults and children.

 

For further information please click on the link - www.sevenstories.org.uk

 

Submitted by Eleanor Saunders

 

Archive of previous articles.

 

A selection of Ahlberg books in stock