Beatrix Potter

Artist Storyteller, Countrywoman

I have enjoyed reading the books I took out from the library so much, I have ordered a copy for myself to keep and refer back to when in need of inspiration. Here is a few paragraphs for you to savor and a few pictures of Miss Potter when she was a little girl.

"I remember so clearly as the brightness of the rich Scotch sunshine on the threadbare carpet - the morning I was ten years old - my father gave me Mrs. Blackburn's Book Of Birds, drawn from nature, for my birthday present.

The third floor nursery in Bolton Gardens was for the next forty seven years Beatrix's playroom, schoolroom and eventually her studio. Much has been written about the strictness of her childhood, but the Potters were no more overbearing than any other middle class parents of the time. Children were seen and not heard, they were looked after exclusively by their nannies and governesses. Beatrix's nurse was a young woman from the Scotish Highlands, She had a firm belief in witches, fairies and goblins. "I can remember quite plainly from one or two years old, not only facts, like learning to walk but sentiments...."I cared for only two toys a dilapitated black wooden doll called Topsy, and a grimy hard stuffed once white flanelette pig."

Beatrix was a delicate child and often ill. She new few other children and seldom ventured out in London, except for walks in Kensington Gardens with her first dog Sandy, a brown Scotch terrier, and with nurse, who saw that she was carefully dressed. " What I wore was absurdly uncomfortable, white pique starched frocks just like Alice in Wonderland, and cotton stockings striped round like zebra's legs, with high black buttoned boots. Her hair was worn brushed straight back and held in place by a plain band behind her ears, "Black velvet on Sundays and either black or brown ribbon with a bit of elastic, looped over a button behind the ear, it hurt."