By DAPHNE LEE
Tots to Teens
PADDINGTON Bear is 50 years old this year! I'm not a big fan of the series about the little bear (I have only read the first book, A Bear Called Paddington ), but have never been able to resist the bear himself, as drawn by the original illustrator Peggy Fortnum, or his mysterious past in Darkest Peru.
Paddington, who has a Peruvian name that he never divulges, lived with his aunt Lucy until she went to live in a home for retired bears. He then emigrated to England
where he met the Brown family, of 32 Windsor Place, London, at Paddington station.
When you first meet Paddington, he's a scruffy-looking thing sitting on a battered suitcase. All he has on is a wide-brimmed hat and a label, on a string around his neck, which says "Please look after this bear. Thank you."
Peggy Fortnum's sketches in the first chapter show messy fur in a vague bear-shape, including a snout that speaks volumes about its owner's curious and enquiring mind. Paddington reveals that he is rather partial to marmalade, and enjoys the odd sticky bun. An accident at tea leaves him plastered in strawberry jam and causes the driver of the taxi the Browns hire to say, "Bears is six pence extra ... Sticky bears is nine pence." This, in my opinion, is the high point of the book.
The first time I read A Bear Called Paddington, I had a small child and I suspect I did not find Paddington's adventures (misadventures is more accurate) as entertaining as I might have if I wasn't tired out from dealing with my son's own messy mishaps. Even now, just flipping through the book, I find myself sighing over (and actually wincing at) the pictures of Paddinton in an overflowing bath, falling down an escalator, sitting under a heap of tins, basins and bowls, painting a picture (there's more paint on the floor than on the paper) etc. He looks adorable in all the pictures of course, but the scenes fill me with dread. They all look so distressingly familiar and as my younger two kids are still just five and three, the chaos and confusion are something I can't really gaze at with dispassionate amusement. (When I-Shan, my youngest, is 12 I shall attempt a re-read.)
Ten other books follow the first - the last, Paddington Takes the Test, appeared in 1979. This year, to celebrate the bear's 50th birthday, Michael Bond has written a new collection of stories called Paddington Here and Now. Unfortunately, the illustrations for this book are not by Fortnum, but R. W. Alley. Alley's pictures are charming, but in them, Paddington resembles a handsome prickleless hedgehog, not an untidy but charismatic bear. I guess Fortnum, being 89, didn't feel up to illustrating another Paddington book. Well, the good news is that in October HarperCollins will be publishing a commemorative edition of A Bear Called Paddington, complete with Fortnum's original illustrations in full-colour.
By the way, if any Malaysian fans of Paddington ever find themselves at London Paddington (the railway station), look out for the bronze statue (complete with battered suitcase) that is based on Fortnum's sketches of the bear.
For the complete list of Paddington titles visit my blog. And next week, I'll be writing about another fictional bear: Else Holmelund Minarik's Little Bear.
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