"Learning To Read With The Flopsy Bunnies"

Today I saw " Miss Potter", the new film directed by Chris Noonan, starring Renee Zellweger as the writer Beatrix Potter. Her co-star is Euan McGregor as her sweet shy publisher, Norman Warne, who eventually becomes her fiancee. It's an intriguing film, which paints a haunting picture of a private ( but rather strong) woman. The main characters: Barbara Flynn as Beatrix's snobbish mother ( "Tradespeople, Beatrix! They bring DUST in the house!") and Bill Patterson, with his gentle Scots accent and enormous sideburns, are superb, as are the settings of 1903 London and the stunning Lake District. This film may well have embroidered facts and added some too, but as a Potter fan for several decades, I found it sheer delight.

SOPORIFIC. That's quite a word for a four year old. But I learned it alright. Beatrix Potter taught me that word in her "Tale Of The Flopsy Bunnies" and I never forgot it.

That word intrigued me. I lay in bed in the dark saying "soporificsoporificsoporific" , until I really was SO soporific that I fell happily asleep.

And I dreamed about sleepy rabbits, who wore waistcoats, trousers and even clogs ( Benjamin Bunny, no less) , who talked like human beings, who gorged on too much lettuce. And I dreamed of a duck called Jemima, who wore a poke bonnet, of Mrs Tabitha Twitchett, the tabby cat who expected friends to tea, of rabbits called Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter. And I shivered in my sleep as images of scary Mr Macgreggor (who had a garden of flowerpots, frames and tubs) flashed across my dreams. Potter's world was magic; it had red cotton pocket handkerchiefs, camomile tea, a scarecrow wearing a tam-o-shanter; it had Pigling Bland and Jeremy Fisher and Moppet and Mittens, kittens dressed in clean pinafores and tuckers . It had rabbits who supped bread and milk and blackberries at bedtime; it had a toad called Mr Jackson, who drank acorn cupfuls of honeydew...

And there were new words to learn in her stories and bright images to stare at in her pictures. And most of all, Potter's world opened my four year old's eyes to stories and drawings, characters and plots..

My father read to us regularly. We sat on deckchairs beside the lilac trees, we lolled on the comfy brown leather sofa by French windows overlooking the snowball tree. I remember bedtimes snuggled beneath a slippery pink satin eiderdown, clutching Edwina, Wonky and the handsome Tumpkins ( teddies, of course.)

And we listened to Potter over and over. We loved her elegant words which we learned by heart , we enjoyed her detailed delicate paintings which remain in my minds-eye for ever. And all the while, my father's gentle tones soothed us into our sleep.

Two decades later, I read them again. In fact, I was so keen to get back to Potter that I bought my eldest son " Benjamin Bunny" on his first birthday. And NOW I wouldn't be surprised if next time I'm shopping, I just might pop into a bookshop and buy my grandson " The Flopsy Bunnies" or possibly " Jemima Puddleduck" ...