Google Logo Helps Celebrate Paddington Bear 50th Birthday - Original Technology: The Post Chronicle:
Fifty years ago today, on October 13, 1958 "A Bear Called Paddington" was first published. English author Michael Bond recalls how Paddington first came into being: "I bought a small toy bear on Christmas Eve 1956. I saw it left on a shelf in a London store & felt sorry for it. I took it home as a present for my wife Brenda & named it Paddington as we were living near Paddington Station at the time. I wrote some stories about the bear, more for fun than w the idea of having them published. After ten days I found I had a book on my hands. It wasn't written specifically for children, but I think I put into it the kind things I liked reading about when I was young."
Paddington Bear - Wkp:
The polite immigrant bear from Darkest Peru, with his old bush hat, battered suitcase and marmalade sandwiches has become a classic English children's literature icon.
Paddington is an anthropomorphised bear. He is always polite (always addressing people as "Mr.", "Mrs." and "Miss" and very rarely by first names) and well-meaning (though he inflicts hard stares on those who incur his disapproval), likes marmalade sandwiches and cocoa, and has an endless capacity for getting into trouble. However, he is known to "try so hard to get things right".
In the first story, Paddington is found at Paddington railway station in London by the Brown family, sitting on his suitcase (bearing the label "WANTED ON VOYAGE") with a note attached to his coat which reads, "Please look after this bear. Thank you." Bond has said that his memories of newsreels showing trainloads of child evacuees leaving London during the war, with labels around their necks and their possessions in small suitcases, prompted him to do the same for Paddington. He has arrived as a stowaway coming from "Darkest Peru", sent by his Aunt Lucy (one of his only known relatives, aside from an Uncle Pastuzo who gave Paddington his hat), who has gone to live in the Home for Retired Bears in Lima. He claims, "I came all the way in a lifeboat, and ate marmalade. Bears like marmalade." He tells them that no one can understand his Peruvian name, so the Browns decide to call him Paddington after the railway station in which he was found.
Happy birthday little bear - Sunderland Echo:
The Paddington books proved such a great success that, in 1965, Michael Bond was able to retire from his job at the BBC to concentrate on writing.
But the global popularity of the little bear is still rather a mystery to 82-year-old Michael, who was awarded an OBE for services to children's literature in 1997. "I am constantly surprised by all the translations, because I thought that Paddington was essentially an English character," he said.
* Read more about Paddington Bear and Michael Bond on the official Paddington Bear website at www.paddingtonbear.co.uk
but does he still have the original bear he bought on xmas eve?
michael bond still "the original bear - Google Search
... Bear from 'darkest Peru' returns for new adventure -by Danica Kirka, Associated Press (13 June 2008, Daily Herald) :
oh- he and his ex-wife, with whom he is still on good terms, still share custody of the original bear.
"He's very real," Bond says. "If I met him on the street, he'd raise his hat to me."
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