Ladybird books - Royal Wedding Industrial Espionage
The latest tale of international espionage and intrigue surrounds Loughborough based Ladybird Books efforts to produce the first book on last week's spectacular Royal Wedding.
Secrecy surrounding a highly-organised plan to rush transparencies of the wedding from London to Loughborough on the afternoon of the big day was broken.
Fifty-six transparencies were to be rushed by high speed motor-cycle messenger, but only half arrived at the Loughborough offices.
The company are claiming that foreign rivals may have bribed somebody to pass the films to them. A spokesman said they had no firm proof of the alleged deal, but the company, and other British publishers similarly hit, have launched an investigation.
Beatrix Potter once employed illustrator Ernest Aris (series 474) but later fell out with him when he named one of his rabbit characters 'Peter' - she accused him of plagiarism.
