THERE was an old lady who swallowed a fly.

No-one knows why she swallowed a fly, but Swindon is at the heart of the mystery.

Since 1972 more than two million copies of the tale have found their way to everywhere from San Francisco to Sydney.

The book is among thousands of titles issued since 1972 by Child’s Play, one of Swindon’s least known but most successful companies.

Its brightly-illustrated wares – the work of an international roster of authors and artists – are indelible childhood memories for countless millions of people all over the planet.

Publisher Neil Burden, 58, heads a small team based at Ashworth Road, and there are distribution centres in Maine and New South Wales.

“The company itself was started in 1972. The guy who started it was called Michael Twinn. He moved here from Maidenhead specifically to start the business because he felt that Swindon was the perfect location in terms of communications.

“He started out in a warehouse in Wootton Bassett, in High Street, and then we moved here in about 1985 to a purpose-built warehouse and office.

“The great thing about Child’s Play is that it’s a privately-owned company, so we’re very much in control of our own destiny. There’s a real value in that.

“Everything that we do goes back to the original ethos that Michael started the company with, which was to make the child the centre of everything. Everything that we publish has some kind of educational element to it – not necessarily the alphabet and one-two-three, but there’s something of value.

“Every time we publish a book we always start with the child. What will appeal to the child? What will benefit the child? What will stimulate the child? What will challenge the child?”

A shelf of international awards are testament to the ethos.

There are about 400 titles in the current range and 40 or 50 new ones each year.

There are books about the seasons, about the benefits of sharing, books to help children deal with a birth or a death in the family, a book for children whose elderly loved one has dementia. There are books explaining why we should not be frightened of creatures such as spiders and bats. There are educational packs for schools, toys, visual aids.

The biggest seller of all, though, is based around the old rhyme about the danger of eating a spider, a bird, a cat, a dog and a horse after inadvertently swallowing a fly. It has been in print for 33 years, mostly due to the brilliant illustrations by the late Swindon artist Pam Adams.

Miss Adams, who died in 2010, aged 91, is regarded as among Britain’s best children’s book illustrators, and The Old Lady is her most fondly-remembered work.

Neil said: “We’re now getting people coming to us and they’re buying it for their children, but they themselves, the parents, remember it from their own childhood.”

Child’s Play has an eye on the future, but print remains strong.

Neil added: “These are interesting times, and – particularly for our age range – we feel that the printed book will never die.

“As proof of that you just have to think of all the young children you’ve ever seen wandering around clutching their favourite book – and wanting to sit down and read it with anyone and everyone who will give them five minutes.

“We’ve got a couple of initiatives going. We’re working, for example, with ITV, who have produced some apps of our books which are signed, so they’re for deaf readers.

“We’re not sticking our heads in the sand. We understand that there’s a place for e-books, but we’re finding that the market for printed books is very healthy.

“Even babies respond to sharing books and being read books.”