Ruth Ainsworth

Ruth Ainsworth (16 October 1908 – 16 May 1984) was a British writer, of over seventy children's books and numerous radio scripts.

Life

Ainsworth was born in Manchester, in 1908, the second child (and first daughter) of Methodist minister Rev. Percy Clough Ainsworth and Gertrude Fisk of Pendleton, her older brother being mycologist Geoffrey Clough Ainsworth.[1]

Ainsworth's father died on 1 July 1909 from typhoid aged 36. Soon after the family moved to 2 High Cliff Villas, Cobbold Road, Felixstowe. Ainsworth enrolled at Ipswich High School, Woolverstone where she studied between September 1924 and July 1926.[1] She later attended the Froebel Training Centre in Leicester.[2]

On 29 March 1935 she married chemist Frank Lathe Gilbert in Leicester. On 7 September 1936 she gave birth to twin sons: Christopher Gallard Gilbert (furniture historian and museum curator)[3] and Oliver Lathe Gilbert (ecologist and lichenologist).[4] She had a third son Richard Frank Gilbert.

The Gilberts initially settled in London, but their house was bombed in World War II. They relocated to Porthmadog. Latterly theGilberts lived in Corbridge, Northumberland.[1]

Ainsworth died in 1984 aged 75. Her ashes were scattered in a stream in Wasdale.[1]

Work

Ainsworth re-told classic fairy tales, as well as new stories of her own.[5]

Ainsworth was a scriptwriter for Listen with Mother, a popular BBC children's programme.[6] Some were published as Ruth Ainsworth's Listen with Mother Tales. Astrid Walford (illustrator). William Heinemann. 1951. .

Some of her stories were televised as marionette plays.[1]

Bibliography

The series "Books for me to read", written with Ronald Ridout, has the secondary title "A book for me to read" on each cover.

It is not clear if the color sub-series ("Red book 1" etc.) is used throughout its history. Some or all of the books were republished with slightly different titles, for example Pony Pony (London: Bancroft, 1965) as Pony, pony : my sixth reading book (Bristol: Purnell, 1983) while still in "Books for me to read. Blue series." Most or all of these books were published in the initial teaching alphabet.

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Ruth Ainsworth biography". ruthainsworth.co.uk. Retrieved 29 May 2015.
  2. ↑ R. Reginald (2010). Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, Volume 2. Douglas Menville, Mary A. Burgess (editors). Wildside Press LLC. p. 792. ISBN 9780941028776.
  3. ↑ "Obituary: Christopher Gilbert". The Independent. Retrieved 29 May 2015.
  4. ↑ "Oliver Gilbert". The Independent. Retrieved 29 May 2015.
  5. ↑ Jack Zipes (2002). The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198605096.
  6. ↑ The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature. Jack Zipes (editor). Oxford University Press. 2006. ISBN 9780195146561.
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