Iona and Peter Opie

Peter Opie was born in 1918 in Cairo in the war-time British Protectorate or Sultanate of Egypt and was educated at Eton College.

At the outbreak of World War II, Opie joined the Royal Fusiliers, becoming a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Sussex Regiment.

However, an accident whilst training ended his military career.

Iona Margaret Balfour Opie, (13 October 1923 – 23 October 2017) and Peter Mason Opie (25 November 1918 – 5 February 1982) were an English married team of folklorists who applied modern techniques to understanding children's literature and play, in studies such as The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (1951) and The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (1959).

They were also noted anthologists, assembled large collections of children's literature, toys, and games and were regarded as world-famous authorities on children's lore and customs.

Their research had a considerable impact on a number of research fields, including Folklore and Childhood Studies and altered perceptions of children's street culture and notions of play, by emphasising the agency of children.

Working outside of academia, the couple worked together closely, from their home (firstly near Farnham, Surrey, later in Alton, Hampshire) conducting primary fieldwork, library research, and interviews with thousands of children.

In pursuing the folklore of contemporary childhood they directly recorded rhymes and games in real time as they were being sung, chanted, or played.

They collaborated on several celebrated books and produced over 30 works.

Iona Margaret Balfour Archibald was born in Colchester, Essex, England in 1923.

She was educated at Sandecotes School, a boarding school for girls in Parkstone, Dorset.

During World War II she joined the meteorological section of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force.

The Opies' use of surveys as a research methodology has been compared to growth of social surveys (such as the Mass-Observation project) in Britain from the 1930s onwards.

The book has also been seen as revitalising the study of Folklore in post-war Britain, the subject having fallen into relative decline.

The couple met during World War II and married on 2 September 1943.

The couple moved from London to rural England.

Their interest in children's lore has been credited to the Opies recalling whilst out on a countryside walk, the ‘Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home’ rhyme from their youth.

They began researching into the origins of the rhyme, and as their interest grew they began to collect nursery rhyme books.

Initially, the Opies based their research on printed material or previously collected oral sources.

He began a career as a writer and was joint winner of the £1,000 Chosen Books competition, with his autobiographical discursion The Case of Being a Young Man (published in paperback, 1946).

From the early 1950s, they increasingly drew on their own field research, carrying out interviews with school-age children via a network of school teachers.

In 1951, they published The Oxford Book of Nursery Rhymes, still hailed as the standard work on the subject.

By the time of the publication of The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (1959), they had received contributions from about five thousand children (at seventy state schools).

Over the following decades, the number of contributors grew: Iona Opie believing the final total to be close to twenty thousand.

The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren was meant to counter the argument that mass media and the entertainment industry had ruined childhood traditions.

In 1960, the Opies were jointly awarded the Coote Lake Medal, the highest honour of The Folklore Society, "for outstanding research and scholarship".

In 1962, the Opies were awarded honorary degrees from Oxford University.

Further honorary degrees from the Universities of Southampton, Nottingham and Surrey, and the Open University followed.

Peter Opie also served as President of the Folklore Society in 1963 and 1964 and President of the Anthropology Section of the British Association in 1962 and 1963.

In 1970, the Opies were awarded the Chicago Prize of the American Folklore Society for their book, Children's Games in Street and Playground.

The American Folklore Society's biannual prize for the best book published on children's folklore is named in honour of the Opies.

Peter Opie died on 5 February 1982 at home, Westerfield House, West Liss, Hampshire.

Iona Opie continued to research and publish.

She completed two further volumes based on the Opies' joint research, The Singing Game (1985) and Children’s Games with Things (1997).

In 1985, The Singing Game was awarded the Folklore Society's Katharine Briggs Award.

She also collaborated with Moira Tatem on A Dictionary of Superstitions (1989), and with Brian Alderson and her son, Robert Opie, on A Treasury of Childhood: Books, Toys, and Games from the Opie Collection (1989).

Iona Opie revised the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (1997) and went onto produce a solo volume, The People in the Playground (1993), which differed by "focusing on the players, rather than the games and rhymes".

Iona Opie was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in 1998 and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1999.

Speaking in 2010, Iona spoke of working with her husband as being "like two of us in a very small boat and each had an oar and we were trying to row across the Atlantic" and that "[W]e would never discuss ideas verbally except very late at night".

Iona Opie died on 23 October 2017.