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First published in the 1960’s, I remember learning to read with the One, Two, Three and Away books when I was at primary school. The corner of our school hall was also the school library, and there was an entire shelf of these little white books arranged neatly, in order, on the bookshelves. You would borrow one of the books, take it home and read it with an adult. When you’d finished your book you could take it back and get the next book in the series.
The books were written by Sheila McCullagh, and illustrated by Ferelith Eccles Williams. They were split into different levels of reading abilities, starting with pre-schoolers and early readers, and ending with the colour coded series of Blue, Green, Red and Yellow, though whether this is in level of relative difficulty I do not know. I also have no idea what the top end of the reading age scale was intended to be, but I would guess somewhere in the 8-10 year old range.
The first character you met in these books was Roger Red Hat. So synonymous with the series was this character that the range of books was usually referred to by most children as the Roger Red Hat books, rather than One, Two, Three and Away. Roger was a happy little chappy who always word a red hat, that looked something like a beret, a green waistcoat and a spotty red neckerchief.
He was joined by the equally alliteratively named Billy Blue Hat, twins Johnny and Jennifer Yellow Hat, and Percy Green Hat. I can understand Johnny and Jennifer being given names that didn’t start with a letter Y as there are few names to choose from, but surely Graham Green Hat would have been a better choice than Percy?
The books were set in The Village With Three Corners, with each character living in a house somewhere within the triangular village. It was easy to tell who lived where by the colour of the roof of the house. For example, I seem to recall Johnny and Jennifer lived in a quaint little yellow rooved thatched cottage.
I believe these books stopped being published in the 1980’s, but it appears that many primary schools across the UK still have a large number of them stashed away in their libraries somewhere, as my nephew has recently brought a number of them home to read from his primary school.
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April 16th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Now I can remember being force fed these at Primary School (4-7) By the time we were in Junior School we were all reading books about Pirates …
February 8th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
i remember reading these books to my children. I seem to remember roger had an indian friend called sitar. Can anyone remember this person ( sitar was the girl – i think, what was the name or the boy?
February 24th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
Oh my god i used to love these books i wish i could see one again, i hope my little boy has them at school, they were great!!!!!!!
February 26th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
I have fond memories of these books too. As they were graded to reading ability there was always a bit of competition between you and your friends to get to the next ability level first.
March 8th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
sandra
the brothers were called
ramoo and gopal!!!!
i had 3 fish named after them!!!!
liv xx
March 8th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Well remembered olivia. I don’t even recall any Indian characters in the books, let alone their names.
BTW, Ramoo and Gopal are excellent names for goldfish!
August 5th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
I remember reading these books too – i used to love them – Billy Blue Hat was always my favourite! I was always ahead of everyone else in my class when reading them – i was on level 7 books when i was in reception.. i wonder if amazon sell them?
August 5th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
I have fond memories of them too, but I don’t think they are available any more. Perhaps this sheds some light on the poor reading standards of British kids these days?
August 12th, 2009 at 10:44 am
I want to buy the entire set but i am finding it so hard to find. If any one can help point me in the right direction all suggestions are welcome. I loved this series i would like to pass the experience onto my daughter.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:28 pm
As a former Special Needs teacher, I taught many deaf children to read with these delightful books and now would love to buy the whole set for use with my grandchildren (not deaf), as they were full of fun and adventures.
October 8th, 2009 at 2:40 am
i wish i could read
October 8th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Hey Dave, don’t be hard on yourself… You got as far as posting a comment so you can’t be that bad…
October 20th, 2009 at 9:49 am
THANK you! I KNEW there was a Percy Green Hat, but my husband thinks I made him up. I’ll show this to him and that should keep him quiet
What about Rip the Dog?
October 20th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Yeah, Percy Green Hat was definitely there, but quite why he was called Percy when all the others had more alliterative names I don’t know.
Rip the Dog… That does seem to ring a bell now you mention it.
November 12th, 2009 at 12:36 am
Oh my days, I always refered to them as the rodger red hat books. I didn’t even know they where called one two three and away up untill tonight. Me and my best mate where chatting about old times one day and this came up in the convosation as we had both got them in reception at the same time. However my old primary has since replaced them with the biff chip and kipper set which are far less interesting than these, Oh btw, I’m not a child of the ’80s, more like ’90s and we still got these.
November 12th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Sounds like you have fond memories of these Jess. It sounds like the books must have been well looked after by your school if they were still around in the 90s, as I think the main reason most schools get rid of things like this is because they’ve started falling apart.
January 9th, 2010 at 12:19 am
Also the Monster series (purple monster drawn by Quentin Blake, who had a girlfriend, a magic umbrella and went to school), Bangers and Mash (two chimps getting into lots of scrapes), and my personal favourites, a set of 10 books (Hamlyn Robin books I believe) with title such as The Very Long Beard, The Blue Banana, and The Chocolate Rain.
January 9th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Ah, the Monster books. My wife, Li’l Boo, was a big fan of those. We managed to track some of them down on places like eBay a few years ago which we were quite pleased about.
One thing we discovered was there were slight differences between the US and UK versions. In one of the books the UK version contains the phrase “traffic policeman” which in the US version becomes “traffic cop”.
February 7th, 2010 at 8:34 pm
i used to love reading these books when i was younger!!
i’m nowing thinking of getting a few to teach my daughter to read english.
can anybody help me, where can i get the bookbs from!!
February 24th, 2010 at 3:58 pm
if you go onto wikapedia and look under sheila macculagh (the author) for one two three and away it gives you the whole list of books. amazon sell some also ebay
February 27th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
these were fab im a teaching assistant and so want to get hold of these what about tima and tobias by the same author fab
February 27th, 2010 at 9:13 pm
Could anyone please tell me, what the name of those books were with the black cat(Tabitha i think the name was) and a boy (Tim?) ! they solved paranormal crimes i think!
I was reading them about two three years after rodger red hat, which were beautiful books, that picture above sends back strange vibrant memories.