Ruth Gallard 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 Pendleton may refer to:
Places
;United Kingdom
*Pendleton, Lancashire, England
*Pendleton, Greater Manchester, England
;United States
*Pendleton, Indiana
* Pendleton, Missouri
*Pendleton, New York
*Pendleton, Oregon
*Pendleton, South Carolina
*Pe ...
, her older brother being mycologist
Geoffrey Clough Ainsworth
Geoffrey Clough Ainsworth (9 October 1905 in Birmingham – 25 October 1998 in Derby) was a British mycologist and scientific historian. He was the older brother of Ruth Ainsworth.
Education and work
Ainsworth received his doctorate fr ...
.
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
Woolverstone is a small village and civil parish in Suffolk, England located on the Shotley peninsula. It is situated about south of Ipswich, near the southern shore of the River Orwell. In 2005 it had a population of 240,[ ...]
where she studied between September 1924 and July 1926.
She later attended the Froebel Training Centre in Leicester.
On 29 March 1935 she married chemist Frank Lathe Gilbert in Leicester. On 7 September 1936, while in Lancaster, she gave birth to twin sons:
Christopher Gallard Gilbert
Christopher Gallard Gilbert (7 September 1936 – 29 September 1998) was a British furniture historian and museum curator. He wrote on Thomas Chippendale and was a founding member of the Furniture History Society in 1964. From 1975 to 1983, he w ...
(furniture historian and museum curator) and Oliver Gilbert (lichenologist), Oliver Lathe Gilbert (urban ecologist and lichenologist). 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 the Gilberts lived in Corbridge, Northumberland.
Ainsworth died in 1984 aged 75. Her ashes were scattered in a stream in Wasdale.
Work
Ainsworth re-told classic fairy tales, as well as new stories of her own.
Ainsworth was a scriptwriter for ''
Listen with Mother'', a popular BBC children's programme.
Some were published as .
Some of her stories were televised as marionette plays.
Bibliography
The series "Books for me to read", written with
Ronald Ridout
Ronald Joseph Ridout (23 July 1916 – 5 December 1994)''Contemporary Authors Online'' (2003) Detroit, Gale was a prolific English writer of school textbooks. His textbooks include the hugely successful series ''English Today''.
Biography
Ronal ...
, 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
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ainsworth, Ruth
1908 births
1984 deaths
British children's writers
Writers from Manchester