Toby Twirl is a young pig who walks upright. He has human hands and feet like Rupert Bear. The character is based upon a soft toy which was made by the wife of Edward Jeffrey. [2] The first book, Toby in Pogland, was produced in large format and published in 1946. Four other large format books followed. The standard sized annual format, also published in 1946, began a series that continued until 1958, totalling 14 in all. There were also other formats including small strip books, pop-up books and jigsaws. A series of 8 Toby Twirl Tales, each with two stories, were published between 1950 and 1954. [1] The Stories [ edit ] Sheila Hodgetts was the daughter of the Managing Director of Sampson, Low, at that time a major children's publishing company, with the publishing rights for Tourtel's Rupert Bear Stories, and, later, Enid Blyton's “Noddy” stories, and many others.

Toby is always looking for something to do, although not always as careful as he might be. For example, in the “annual” Toby Twirl Adventure Stories (1948), which includes a Grimms’-like story of enchantment, “Toby Twirl and the Magic Drum”, the following story – which introduces the secondary, but otherwise realistic world of Dillyland – “Toby and the Dilly-Puff”, Toby and his friend Eli Phant are happily wandering around their village neighbourhood. With Jeffrey's illustrations, Sheila Hodgetts also published two non-Toby-Twirl titles: the fairy tale story, The Sleeping City (1947), in which, of course, a magic spell must be broken to wake a sleeping city; and One Magic Night (1947), in which young Terence ventures out, one magic night, to watch the fairies dance, but is bound in magic cobweb by some unpleasant pixies, until a friend, Rufus, a rabbit, brings the Fairy Queen to rescue the boy. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/invisible-ink-no-199-sheila-hodgetts-8904586.html During World War II, she joined the WAAF (Women's Auxiliary Air Force) in 1941, and met her husband-to-be who was at that time serving in the RAF (Royal Air Force). They married in 1942 and have (as reported in 2003) two daughters, Tania (born in 1945) and Domini (born in 1948). Hodgetts is reported to have started her writing career in 1943, but no details of any early titles are known.https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/books-that-changed-me-catherine-de-saint-phalle-20191115-p53ax9.html Although Sheila Hodgetts’ writing career spanned far beyond Toby Twirl, it is Toby and his adventures she is remembered for, and will be, deservedly so, very ably brought to visual life by Edward Jeffrey. When did you become aware of the escalating prices for the Tony Twirl singles and the cult following for the band? up to date value guide with full colour pictures of the 'Toby Twirl' books, collectable items, and 'rarities'. The

Toby Twirl (born in 1946), would have been at least sixty-one in 2007, but he doesn’t seem a day over ten, and still as resourceful as ever!

Line-up included

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9888441/Alan-Titchmarsh-Enid-Blytons-books-were-a-product-of-their-time.html The new album contains a lovely version of ‘Something’ – I assume The Beatles were a great influence on Toby Twirl?

We were half way through our act when suddenly the audience (mostly pensioners) got out of their seats and started to run towards the stage. I thought we were going to get invaded, was this Saga Mania? There were a number of line-up changes for the band – can you talk us through the line-up changes from when you signed to split.It seems incredible that it’s taken 50 years for pop-psych band Toby Twirl to release their first long player. The roots of the band started at Rutherford College in Newcastle in 1963 and originally named Shades Of Blue where Barry Sewell, Jim Routledge and Stu Someville who were all in the same form. From 1968 the band, now called Toby Twirl, released recorded three highly revered singles for Decca. The new album is a mix of original material and popular covers – is this reflective of the material you played in your live shows? Hodgetts also wrote four full-length large-format story books, Toby Twirl in Pogland (1946), Toby Twirl Rescues Prince Apricot (1947), Toby Twirl and the Mermaid Princess (1948), and Toby Twirl and the Magic Ring (1952). In some later Toby Twirl stories, Hodgetts uses prose for the narrative, but most of her Toby Twirl stories rely on quatrains.

Sheila Hodgetts’ artistic collaborator, Edward Jeffrey, created Toby Twirl, visually (albeit, in a Rupert-like mould), basing Toby on a soft toy that his wife was making at the time. Hodgett's must have explained, also, that the name “Twirl”, related to the pig-features of the character, and, by implication, Toby's parents, including, in the early stories, an eponymous pig's twirly corkscrew tail. Children's author, Sheila Hodgetts (born in 1924), is most famous for her stories about “Toby Twirl”, illustrated by Edward Jeffrey (1898-1978), a noted landscape artist and book and magazine illustrator.Working with several other illustrators (none with the pictorial quality of Jeffrey's art), Hodgetts had an extensive career as an author for several other series of children's books in the 1950s and early 1960s. These included “Sleepy Time Tales” - such as Sleepy Time Tales of Primrose Wood - a series of books that contained fifteen, or twelve, short (five minute) bedtime stories, often with a gentle moral at the end, and a light sense of humour, set in different locales, also including Apricot Farm, Happytown, Puddletown, Candytop Castle, Cuddleytown, Playtime Village, Playtown, Faraway Forest, The Pan Babies, and Sleepy Time Tales of the Little Cherubs. (More than one hundred short stories!) Before illustrating the first of the stories, Toby Twirl in Pogland, Edward Jeffrey had worked for the publishing company, Sampson, Low, producing a large number of book-cover illustrations for adult novels. Just as Rupert had his regular friends (most of them with human bodies, and animal heads – all about the same height, regardless of their different animal species - but also some who were all animal, and others who were wholly human), Toby Twirl has some regular friends. These include, Pete the Penguin, Eli the Elephant (also known, formally, as Eli Phant, his mother being Mrs Phant), Winnie the Wallaby, and a squirrel-headed fellow, as well as some less friendly folk, such as Warty Weasel. Adult characters, such as Mrs Twirl (and less frequently, Mr Twirl) tend to appear briefly at the start and end of the stories to express their relief at Toby's safe return. By contrast, Professor Bison (an actual bison, and an obvious homage to Tourtel's and Bestall's character the Wise Old Goat, an actual goat), is of frequent assistance. But here, with Hodgetts’ first story about Toby Twirl we return to Tourtel's medieval Grimms’-like milieu of dark magic.