Fictional Teddy Bears
- Russell The Bookworm
- Oct 12, 2016
- 3 min read
Apparently October 12th is National Take Your Teddy Bear to Work/School day. I didn't know this was even a thing until I Googled 'national awareness days'. I can't tell you where this day originated and I can't even tell you what countries in the world it applies to, but I thought it was a brilliant opportunity to celebrate some of the well-known and best loved teddy bears from fiction. And where better to start than Winnie-the-Pooh?
Winnie-the-Pooh
Alan Alexander Milne was born in 1882 in London, but his most famous character Winnie-the-Pooh didn't come into being until 1925.
In 1904 Milne started t work at magazine Punch as an Assistant Editor. It was here that he met his future wife Dorothy; who happened to be the God-daughter of the Editor of the magazine.
After the First World War, Milne retired from Punch and concentrated on writing plays. In 1924 Milne published a book of children's poems which featured a teddy bear who "however hard he tries grows tubby without exercise". This was the first unofficial outing of Winnie-the-Pooh. It was a year later in time for Christmas 1925 that Winnie-the-Pooh officially came to life as part of a bedtime story published in The Evening News. The poem featured Milne's son Christopher Robin and his adventures with his teddy bear.
Winnie-the-Pooh is an instantly recognisable golden bear who wears a red t-shirt and lives in 100 Acre Wood with an odd assortment of friends including a piglet, a tiger and a kangaroo.He is a small golden bear, stands at nearly 22 inches tall and wears an old red color t-shirt. The hunny loving bear's birthday is generally regarded as 14th October and is celebrated worldwide.
To celebrate the 90th anniversary of Winnie-the-Pooh, author Brian Sibley has created the character of Penguin as part of a collection of authors who worked together t create an official sequel to Milne's original novels.
Paddington Bear
Paddington Bear first came into being in 1956 when cameraman Michael Bond bought a bear for his wife's Christmas present. The bear was called Paddington after a local station to the Bond home, and the idea of Paddington was born.
In 1958 William Collins published the first Paddington Bear book "A Bear called Paddington" and illustrated by Peggy Fortnum. In January of the following year, A Bear Called Paddington is awarded the The Best Children's Novel of 1958, leading to the sequel "More About Paddington" being published in the September of 1959. By 1965 Bond had stopped working as a camera man, enabling him to write full time.
By 1967, Paddington had travelled to Japan and A Bear Called Paddington was translated into Japanese.
In 1994 a Paddington Bear soft toy was chosen by English tunnellers as the first item to be passed through to their French counterparts when the two sides of the Channel Tunnel when linked up.
Rupert The Bear
Rupert the Bear first appeared in The Daily Express in 1920, created by English artist Mary Tourtel.
Rupert is a bear who lives with his parents in a house in the fictional English village of Nutwood. He wears a distinctive red sweater and bright yellow checked trousers and matching yellow scarf. Rupert's friends include Bill Badger, Edward Trunk the elephant, Willie the mouse and Freddie and Ferdy Fox. The Wise Old Goat also lives in Nutwood, and helps Rupert in some of his adventures. There are also some human inhabitants of Nutwood, such as the Professor (who lives in a castle with his servant), Tiger Lily and her father "the Conjuror". There is even a recurring haracter; a Merboy.
The series often features fantastic and magical adventures in faraway lands. Each story begins in Nutwood, where Rupert usually sets out on a small errand for his mother or to visit a friend, which then develops into an adventure to an exotic place such as King Frost's Castle or the bottom of the sea. At the end of the story Rupert returns to Nutwood, where all is safe and well.
To date, there are over 70 Rupert The Bear books and annuals dating from 1936 to 2012.
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