TEDDY

This is my teddy bear. I got him on my first birthday and now I'm 52! So, teddy is almost as old as me. He was bought for me by my paternal grandmother. It was a kind of tradition in our family. That was the present she bought all her grandchildren on their 1st birthday. And as far as I know we've all still got our teddies. I wonder how many kids today will still have a toy they were given on their 1st birthday, 50 years later.

I have always loved my teddy. Owning a teddy in the 1960s was just a normal part of growing up. Everyone had a teddy - even boys. In the 1960s there was no way a boy would be given a doll. But teddies were different. Teddies somehow were unisex so it wasn't considered 'girly' for a boy to have a teddy.

I remember when I was about 8 or 9 years old, 'Blue Peter' (the main children's TV programme at the time) taught us how to knit/sew clothes for our teddies. I think we must have had to write to the BBC for the patterns because we certainly weren't able to go online for them. A lot of children must have made them though, because I remember everyone's teddies at the time were dressed in 'Blue Peter' clothes.

I'm not sure what a modern day teddy looks like - or even if a teddy is something that all kids have. In the 1960s all teddies had a 'squeaker' inside them. If you pressed their tummies they would squeak. Thinking about it - why did teddies squeak? Teddies were bears - surely they should have growled? Not sure how long the squeakers lasted for. My poor teddy stopped squeaking a long time ago.

I suspect that teddies do not have the significance for kids today that they did half a century ago. These days 'Build a bear' shops seem to have sprung up in all major towns - children can choose what material their bear is made from, what he's stuffed with, what colour his eyes are, etc, etc. Then they can buy him all sorts of outfits from skateboarding gear to cars he can drive around in. Is that really as satisfying as knowing that the 'Blue Peter' outfit that we made our bears was created lovingly out of scraps?

These days my teddy just sits in my bedroom. ......... And I have a 60 year old ex boyfriend who also has a teddy that sits in his bedroom, so it's not just a female thing. Another friend in her mid fifties has taken her teddy on every single holiday that she has ever been on. That certainly must be teddy devotion??!!