Jean Adamson obituary

Jean Adamson, who has died aged 96, was never a household name, but the success of the Topsy and Tim books that she created with her husband, Gareth, and illustrated more than made up for that.

Topsy and Tim were ubiquitous in the lives of families with young children. The simple and entertaining stories about their lives, and particularly the way that they navigated the universal everyday experiences of childhood, became an essential resource for parents when looking for reassurance and information that they could trust and that their children could relate to easily.

From their first appearance in 1960, the Topsy and Tim books were welcomed. The contemporary look of their illustrations, small format with colour illustrations and low price meant that they sold well in traditional and non-traditional bookselling outlets, ensuring that they reached a wide range of families.

In libraries, too, they became a staple of book stocks as librarians working with young children saw that the Adamsons’ realistically illustrated stories of everyday experiences were perfect for families looking to prepare their children for all kinds of situations.

This wide appeal came not through a publishing fluke, but the deliberate ambition of their creators. Jean Bailey and Gareth Adamson (two years her senior) met as students at Goldsmiths’ College (now Goldsmiths, University of London), later married and became parents.

The were disappointed by the prevalence of two features of books for their children: the dominance of boys as the leading characters and the prominence of imaginary worlds as a setting.

To challenge the first, most obviously seen in Enid Blyton’s Noddy books and the Rev W(ilbert) Awdry’s Thomas the Tank Engine series, the Adamsons settled on the idea of twins, to be sure that the genders could play equal roles. They sharply countered the second with stories set in realistic indoor and outdoor settings that were vividly captured in the well-observed illustrations.

Ambitious about making a new statement in picture books while also entertaining readers, the Adamsons shaped their stories by both observation and research. The idea of creating picture books together had first been proposed by Gareth while they were students. By the time they embarked on the project, Jean had the greater experience as an illustrator, as she had worked on creating cartoons for the film industry after graduating and had already illustrated her first book, while Gareth had some writing background. Once they started creating books together, their input was intertwined, with Jean researching the subject, drafting an outline of the story and illustrating it, and Gareth crafting the story ready for publication.

With their bold lines, strong colours, simple and uncluttered images and the precise details of the setting of every story, Adamson’s illustrations had an immediate appeal to readers. Topsy and Tim were nice looking in a homely way and had faces that readily expressed their emotions, making it easy for new readers to understand how the experiences were affecting them.

The first to appear, Topsy and Tim’s Monday Book (1960), was a simple observation of an ordinary day in the life of the five-year-old twins. Entirely of its time, it shows them walking to school without an adult and the encounters they have along the way with various local neighbours. The tone is warm and reassuring, with as much of the telling coming from the illustrations as the brief texts.

Published in full colour, which was unusual for the time, the book was an immediate success.

Ambitiously, Gareth had planned it as the first of a series with six more titles, one for each day of the week, to follow. By 1962 those had been completed and during the rest of the decade Topy and Tim had adventures in the snow, and at school, the seaside and the zoo, among many other things.

In the 1970s, the stories became more purposeful, with titles that were useful for parents looking for authentic information about a hospital visit, the arrival of a new sibling and a visit to the dentist, as well as more general guidance on things such as taking no risks and keeping safe. Jean continued to research all the storylines intensively as well as drawing on her own experience as a parent with three children, making the Topsy and Tim brand of advice authoritative and accessible while managing to steer clear of being judgmental.

Following the misdiagnosis of a brain tumour, Gareth died in 1982. Jean took on writing the Topsy and Tim stories as well as illustrating them, creating an impressive flow of additional titles in the following decades. Blackie, the original publisher, was bought by Ladybird Books in 1988, and this ensured the books’ long-term survival.

A new wave of Topsy and Tim titles was published, with some changes made to storylines, formats and to the look of the illustrations. Some of the most popular stories of the 60s and 70s were retold in updated versions, reflecting a more inclusive and multicultural society. Topsy and Tim: First French Words (1995) introduced the idea that you could speak another language, and Topsy and Tim and Their New School Friend (1997) included a child using a wheelchair.

Although some of the newer titles such as Topsy and Tim Have Itchy Heads (2005) were sometimes mocked, the revamp meant that Topsy and Tim continued to resonate with families and their adventures could live on. Jean remained closely linked to the new developments, creating the concepts and sketching the rough designs. She was appointed MBE in 1999, and an honorary fellow of Goldsmiths in 2016.

Ladybird celebrated Topsy and Tim’s 60th anniversary in 2020 with a reissue of Topsy and Tim: On the Farm, first published in 1970, with Adamson’s original artwork. Overall, 130 Topsy and Tim titles have been published in many different formats with worldwide sales of more than 25m copies. Since 1984, Topsy and Tim have also appeared on TV in both an animated TV series and, more recently, since 2013 in three seasons of live-action TV, still aired on CBeebies.

Born in Peckham, south-east London, Jean was the youngest of three children and only daughter of Daisy and Charles Bailey, a teacher. At Ivydale primary school, she showed a talent for illustration.

She described herself as a curious child, who delighted in visits to Nunhead library with her mother. Her start at grammar school was disrupted by that of the second world war, when it was evacuated first to Sevenoaks, Kent, and then to Gloucester. Graduating in illustration and design from Goldsmiths in 1948, Jean stayed on as a tutor before starting a freelance career including working on an advertising campaign for Bird’s Eye frozen food and as a “storyman”, a role for which she had to make up characters and stories, in a new animation unit at Pearl and Dean, the cinema advertising firm.

In 1951 she wrote and self-published Little Circus, a rag book printed in three colours from lino cuts, which she sold herself to London bookshops. Her first commission was to illustrate The Tired Train (1952), a collection of stories by Leila Berg.

Jean and Gareth married in 1957 and moved to Newcastle upon Tyne. He worked in advertising and they started on their books, drawing inspiration from their three young children, Leo, Gabrielle and Kate, for some of the ideas for scenes and events. In 1968 the family moved to the Fens in Cambridgeshire, near Ely, where Jean remained.

She is survived by her children.

• Jean Adamson, children’s book creator and illustrator, born 29 February 1928; died 15 December 2024