Topsy & Tim creator Jean Adamson and her magic fingers
If you experienced the 1960s as a young child, read to children in the ensuing decades or watched CBeebies from 2013, you may already be familiar with the lives of the fun-loving twins Topsy and Tim for which illustrator Jean Adamson MBE is widely recognised. Jean died in December 2024, and Jo Davies celebrates her importance as a figure in illustration history.
Originated in 1959 by Jean and her writer husband Gareth Adamson, the Topsy and Tim children’s books were created in response to a call by Blackie publishers for writers and illustrators to come up with a new series. Topsy and Tim books continue to flourish with 150 titles published, sales of more than 25 million copies internationally and regularly featuring on lists of the most borrowed books from UK libraries over the decades.
Despite the huge impact picture books have on our lives their creators’ lives and motivations are seldom explored so it feels appropriate, following Jean’s passing at the end of 2024, to reflect on her prodigious life both as an illustrator and person of wit, kindness and grace.
Early career
Following graduation from Goldsmiths Jean’s early career, alongside illustrating, included teaching, making ropework sculptures and storyboarding for television commercials at Pearl and Dean and Larkins Studio, challenges that demonstrated her wit, manual dexterity and skills as a designer. It was after moving to Northumberland to set up home with Gareth that her focus shifted and where the couple identified a gap in the children’s book market. “We went to look around a big bookshop in Newcastle and found lovely books about dragons and fairies and witches but absolutely nothing about children in the fifties” (Express, 2013). Although in the earlier stage of her career Jean worked with Gareth on projects that combined their interest in toy theatre and animation and resulted in numerous original animated films for TV it was the creation of Topsy and Tim that was a pivotal juncture in their professional life.
Jean saw magic in the everyday capturing this in her keenly observed imagery, creating illustrations that were vibrant, jolly and inviting for young children. Whether walking to school, visiting the zoo, or chatting to the milkman the 5year-old imaginary twins, Topsy and Tim (who were based on Jean and her favourite brother Derrick) are consistently seen as curious, friendly and adventurous characters, delighting in their encounters with the ordinary world. Jean’s early career experience in advertising and animation, depicting domestic settings equipped her well almost glorifying scenes of contemporary life with fridges, milk floats and chic 1960s outfits having pride of place in the early Topsy and Tim books..
Pioneering
In the late 1950s and early 1960s Jean and Gareth were pioneering in countering the prevalent gender inequalities of their time through the antics of Topsy and Tim. Jean spent much of her childhood determined to keep pace with her older brothers – they both had bikes because they were boys, while she was given a tortoise (named Armstrong).
Although this led to a life-long love of tortoises that featured as pets in Topsy and Tim, (and hibernated in her fridge in later life) such unjust treatment was attitude forming.
The added influence of her feminist mother led to Jean’s sensitivity towards gender equality. With matching outfits and hair styles the Topsy and Tim twins were indistinguishable in their appetites for adventure and mischief, equally strong, equally scared. Equals.
Research
Over five decades there were several iterations of Topsy and Tim. Jean recalled imploring letters from parents requesting “helpful” books to prepare children for the challenges of their young lives, such as hospital visits and the arrival of a new sibling which led to the stories taking on a more educational direction by the 1970s. The couple were meticulous in their research for each book with exotic trips to cowsheds and Belgian chocolate shops and their own children’s deeds surfacing so that the books “almost wrote themselves” (BBC, 2023).
Unusually in Topsy and Tim Dad was depicted washing up, the dentist the children visited was a woman, children of colour were included as friends and disability was reflected and explored. Accustomed as we now are to encountering a myriad of characters in picture books the impact of Topsy and Tim in bucking the trends of the day cannot be understated.
Topsy and Tim develops
When Gareth died suddenly in 1982, and facing the practical and financial pressures of renovating the derelict 16th-century house in Ely that they had just bought, it was with characteristic resilience that Jean took over the writing as well as the illustration of the books. The late 1980s saw a new era of publication, with some of the most popular stories of the 60s and 70s being retold and restyled with revamped hairdos and the banishing of suits and flared trousers, and including challenging content such as bullying. These books document childhood – nits and all. Jean partly stepped back from the most recent generation of Topsy and Tim books, published by Ladybird from 2009. Marking a departure from the usual process of making a picture book for these titles Jean created concept visuals which were handed over to other illustrators who referred closely to a “style bible”, comprehensively compiled by Jean, producing final artwork which Jean later approved.
Jean’s recollections of her own childhood growing up in south east London were happy and vivid. She loved libraries, animals, the outdoors and art and when at school acquired the nickname “Magic Fingers” because of her drawing ability. Many of her memories include her brothers Hubert and Derrick such as making farting noises with their gas masks and together watching aeroplanes fly overhead in the war. She relished her late teenage years especially studying book illustration under Betty Swanwick at Goldsmiths University in London where she displayed the curiosity, playfulness and observation which characterised and permeated her life and work, also here meeting Gareth.
Throughout her life Jean was surrounded by an array of pets – rescue greyhounds lolling on the sofas and stealing her dinner, watched over by paintings by the artists she admired, cats toasting by the fire and tortoises charging around her splendid garden. When she partly stepped back from the final generation of Topsy and Tim books she was able to savour this idyll and spend more time with family and grandchildren.
Jean was awarded an MBE for her services to children’s literature in 1999, and in 2016 accepted an honorary fellowship of Goldsmiths College. In 1984 a TV animation show based on Topsy and Tim was launched and a BAFTA award-winning live-action series produced for CBeebies was first screened in 2013.
Jean Adamson MBE, children’s book creator and illustrator, born 29 February 1928; died 15 December 2024.
Many thanks to Jean’s family for supplying these images.
Jo Davies is an illustrator, academic and co-author of Getting Illustration Clients and Becoming A Successful Illustrator
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