Who has read the delightful story of Paddington Bear?
Paddington Bear first appeared on October 13th, 1958 in the timeless children’s classic, A Bear Called Paddington. Since then, he has been featured in more than twenty books, numerous television shows and two recent movies. The author, Michael Bond, based Paddington Bear on a lone teddy bear that he noticed on a shelf in a London shop near Paddington Station on Christmas Eve, which he bought as a present for his wife. He is one of the most popular British fictional characters and in 1994, a Paddington Bear soft toy was chosen by British tunnelers as the first item to pass through to their French counterparts when the two sides of the Channel Tunnel were linked.
In the original story, the Brown family finds Paddington Bear at Paddington Railway Station in London. Paddington is sitting on his suitcase with a note attached to his coat that reads, “Please look after this bear. Thank you.” Paddington arrives as a stowaway coming from Peru and claims, “I came 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. He is always polite and kind-hearted but has an endless capacity for innocently getting into trouble. He frequents the nearby Portobello Road market, where he is respected by the shopkeepers for driving a hard bargain!
