A Bear called Paddington

Delightful display at the Museum of London looking at Paddington Bear in the light of the recent film.

There were a number of items lent by the author Michael Bond including the typewriter on which he write some of the stories and letters which children had sent to Paddington at 32 Windsor Garden which had been forwarded to him.

Oddly enough there were lots of parallels with the Sherlock Holmes exhibition as both are enduring characters plus both seem to have a new incarnation for each generation. My version was the 1970s cartoon and it was great to see one of the original bears from that as well as some of the flat background characters. I watched a little girl looking at the costume for the new Paddington and I guess that will be her version. Incidentally I do realise the new version is a cartoon but the animators made a costume so they could animated the texture and movement of his clothes and, yes I loved the film!

Most fascinating was to see that in the original drawings Paddington didn’t wear wellington boots but where toy versions began being made they wouldn’t stand up so boots were added. Michael Bond then incorporated the boots into the books so Paddington looked like the bear that children owned.

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