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Artist and Illustrator b. 1920 - d. Leslie Wood was born in Stockport Cheshire in 1920, son of a master-craftsman. He studied at the Manchester College of Art. Winning a travelling scholarship, he was prevented from using it abroad by World War 2 and decided to use it for a trip to London. Some time in 1943 he walked into the offices of Faber & Faber the publishers and showed them some of his work. A week later he was commissioned to take over the illustration of Diana Ross's Little Red Engine books from Jan Lewitt and George Him who, much as they had loved illustrating the first book in the series, The Little Red Engine gets a Name, were under much pressure to do other war-related work and therefore declined to continue with the subsequent stories in the series. At about the same time as Wood was commissioned to illustrate The Story of the Little Red Engine, he was also commissioned to illustrate Whoo Whoo the Wind blew. Neither of these stories could be published until after the end of the war because of the shortages of paper and coloured printing inks. He went on to illustrate numerous other children's books. See excellent presentation on Leslie Wood's work at the
Brighton School of Design :
This includes his maps of Taddlecombe
and District
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