ONCE UPON A TIME . . .

There were TWO bears . . .


The colourful little guy who looks down on me from a window on my way into town is a much-loved figure who since appearing as the title character in the book 'A Bear Called Paddington' published on 13th October 1958 has become a children's favourite worldwide. I was sad to learn today that he has become a literary orphan on the death of his creator, Michael Bond.

This reminded me of another ursine character of children's literature, 'Winnipeg', a bear brought to Europe by a Canadian army officer as a mascot in the first world war and given to London Zoo when the regiment returned home after the war. The b&w snapshot here is of a little boy named Christopher Robin meeting the bear on a visit with his father, A.A.Milne, who thought it might be a nice idea to write some children's stories inspired by the visit.

I met the real grown-up Christopher Robin Milne at the zoo in 1980 when he was invited to unveil a statue of another bear inspired by 'Winnipeg', or 'Winnie The Pooh' as renamed by Milne senior, and thought it might be a good idea to write something about . . . well, you get my drift, don't you?

The moral of this story is that there is no such thing as a new idea, as warned by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882) -- "All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients."