Tuesday 13 October 2009

I'm sitting in the railway station

OK yes too much of this could get boring, but I could not let this day in 1958 go without mention. A certain family by the surname Brown found a bear at Paddington railway station in London in the first of a series of books that was published on 13th October in that year.

Michael Bond created Paddington Bear and many a child has grown up hearing about his adventures since then - including stories of him having a sticky situation with some pastries in the station buffet, or causing chaos on the London Underground, or getting lost in a large department store. I, of course, met my own ‘Paddington Bear’ at the same station and we have had many adventures of our own, many of which I will record in some future publication. However, Jon does not wear a bush hat, red wellington boots or have a label attached to his lapel. Hmm correction, he has adorned one of those things once, but that is a different story. He may have had a few sticky situations with pastries at some time or other too – we all know Jon does like his pastries.

Anyway Happy Birthday, Paddington Bear!

Oh I have just noticed that Margaret Thatcher and Paul Simon share their birthday with the bear from darkest Peru. One is a gifted songwriter and musician, the other, well .........

1 comment:

Naomi said...

My mom read me Paddington Bear stories throughout my childhood and I used to laugh so hard when he would take everything so literally. I still have my Paddington Bear books. (I tried to purchase a stuffed Paddington Bear at Paddington Station our last day in England, but there was some minor verbal misunderstanding with the vendor that I can't even remember now! All I remember is feeling very agitated and embarrassed and walking away.)