Teddy bear stories

The Bears From The Yorkshire Moor 04

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By Truffle McFurry

(Illustration by Miki de Goodaboom based on a photograph by “Go Teddy!” s reporter Ann La Mar)

Hallo my dear Teddy bear friends, here is Truffle writing!

The other day, our lovely Ann La Mar went on a mission in the Yorkshire Moor again, chasing with her camera these amazing Moor Bears. She had gone there already, some weeks ago, and had sent us such fabulous photos, my Mom Miki had painted all these bears with such a pleasure!

She did it again! What a treat to find all these bears in my mail box! It is every time like Christmas, a big happy feast with many twinkling lights in our eyes!

Now, this time she sent us a green bear on an amazing tractor! I had never seen before a bear on a tractor! You know, I am a bear, but I am a boy too, and like all boys, I love all these machines with wheels! The cars, the bikes, the skate boards, the big American lorries… and the tractors! I wish I had such a one too, like the one from the green Moor Bear… I could drive everywhere with it, I must not stay on the boring grey roads. I might ask my Mom, but sure she will answer again that it is too dangerous for a little bear. But the green bear looks pretty safe to me up there!

Anyway, Miki did that painting of all the new bears, the one on the tractor and the other ones, admiring him passing by. There is much heather in the Moor right now, says Ann la Mar, so Miki painted some in the background… she even painted one of the bear girls as if she was all made of heather! She is so cute! I could fall in love with such a heathering girl bear, me!

In the meanwhile, love you all! Bye!

The Bears From The Moor 04 S

 

 

 

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Truffle McFurry Reading The Teddy Bear Hall Of Fame

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By Truffle McFurry

(Illustration by Miki de Goodaboom)

 

Hi Everybody!

Some days ago I had a big surprise: I received a book! Yes, me, Truffle, got that book addressed to me on Planet Goodaboom. It was a gift from my Mom, she had ordered it on the Internet and it came all way from England. I was over the moon! It is my first book ever, and I know it will be my favourite book for ever.

It is an amazing book. It is called “The Teddy Bear Hall Of Fame:”, and it is written by a wonderful lady called Michele Brown. She is the wife of Gyles Brandreth,  and they have the most beautiful collection of Teddy Bears in the world. We hope we will visit it soon in England, perhaps even this summer already.

The book is full of beautiful images of their bears, and Michele tells stories about them. They are all famous bears, you know. Not like me. Really famous bears, like Paddington bear, Winnie-The-Pooh, Rupert bear, François, etc.

And then there is that amazing one, called William Shakesbeare. Michele writes:

“… this is a bear of very great brain…”

and he has written fine plays like “Macbear”, “The Merry Bears of Windsor” and “Two Gentlebears of Verona”.

I am a writer too, you know. I am writing a book right now. And if I do meet William one day, I will speak to him, from writer to writer. Perhaps he can then give me some tips how to write a bearseller!

And do you know what? Gyles did William! Gyles is my big hero now, he has even sent us an email saying that he is looking forward to meet me! You don’t believe it? Well, it is true!

The Teddy Bear Hall Of Fame S

 

Teddy Bear Day Out In Sweden

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By Miki de Goodaboom

(Illustration based on photos sent by “Go Teddy!”‘s reporter Ann La Mar)

I mentioned it in my last post, our wonderful reporter Ann la Mar, from the UK, is actually on a mission in Sweden and sent us  photos of beautiful Teddy Bears she met there.

The big one stood at the entrance of a toy shop, welcoming the clients I suppose, and was incredibly tall, taller than Ann. As for the little ones, they were sitting on shelves inside the shop and immensely bored. They seemed to have sat there for ages! Ann noticed that many of the children hardly paid attention to them, their interest mostly taken by the Frozen Characters and Superheroes dolls. What a sad world, she thought. And so do I!

Not that I don’t like all these modern toys. In fact I even drink my water everyday out of wonderful little bottles shaped as  Frozen and Superheroes characters!  But a Teddy Bear is, and will always be something else, timeless, irreplaceable. Would a child or event an adult grasp hold of  Superman or a Frozen princess when he needs comfort? I doubt it!

There they were, these wonderful little bears on their shelves, forgotten, unseen, nameless. So the Big Bear decided to take them out on a ride for the day in his beautiful wooden carriage and the little bears were over the moon!

And I decided to give them a name:

The white one in the carriage is called “Snowflake”.

The red one behind him is called “Redmoon”.

And the orange one, in the arms of the big one, is called “Gingerly”

 

Teddy Bear Day Out In Sweden S

Smogenbear

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By Ann La Mar & Miki de Goodaboom

(Illustration by Miki de Goodaboom, based on a photograph by Ann La Mar)

Yesterday Truffle and me received an electronic postcard from Ann La Mar, one our star reporters at “Go Teddy!”. She is actually on a mission in Sweden. She wrote:

“… Today we went to a place called Smogen it was by the sea and very pretty as I imagined…We were just walking along a decked walkway looking at the boats and I found something to embrace….some cousins for Truffle!…love from me and the Swedish Teddy Bears…”

A wonderful motif and… the first Swedish teddy Bear I am meeting… it is very exciting!

Smogenbear S

 

Truffle McFurry And His Girlfriend From Portugal

/ Miki de Goodaboom / 1 Comment

By Truffle McFurry

Hello everybody, are you ok?

We have come back from the Algarve in Portugal, we had a beautiful trip in our new car “Hey Juke”, and we saw many lovely things, and even our footie heroes “The Rams”, and Miki did many paintings.

And I fell in love!

There was this doll in our flat, she had such amazing blond hair, and that lovely face with the bright blue eyes and the  cute red mouth… Miki had told me to be more careful with girls, after I had my heart broken by an island princess in Tenerife some years ago. And I was very careful, I never fell in love again. But this time, I could not resist, it took me by surprise, it happened in the same moment as she looked at me with her bright blue eyes.

Her name was Veronica. She was so nice to cuddle!

Now we are separated again, but we have promised to be friends for life, and to write to each other. I still haven’t done though, I was too busy with other stuff on Planet Goodaboom. She hasn’t written either, she must be busy too… I am not sure if I should be worried…

What I am really worried about is the colour of my fur. Normally I don’t go in the sun, Miki does not allow it, saying it is bad for me. But in Portugal we had to be in the sun, it was everywhere, we could not escape it, and now my fur is lighter at some places. I don’t understand: Miki is the contrary, after the sun, she is darker in some places. She says she will soon be white again, but she says too, that my fur will stay like that, with these lighter pieces. She says, we will call them “highlights”, it is very modern and fashionable and girls like it. But I am not sure if Miki says it to please me… on the other side, Veronica did love me exactly how I was… I wonder if I should dye my fur now… it does look so weird! But I think Miki would not let me… she is scared that I am allergic to the chemical stuff… she is always scared for me! I guess, it is because she loves me so much…  🙂

The Girlfriend From The Algarve S

 

Teddy Bear Times

/ Miki de Goodaboom / 1 Comment

By Truffle McFurry

Hallo everybody!

We are back from Portugal, I have seen the Rams playing footie against Benfica (they lost a lot though…) and many beautiful places! I hope Miki will soon do some paintings of me there and I can show you.

But for now, I have fabulous news: I am getting famous… at least I hope so. Me and “Go Teddy!” and Miki, we are featured in that great international magazine called “Teddy Bear Times”, with a big article and many of the bear paintings.

It starts in the first page with one of the bears from the series “My Teddy And Me”… but the amazing thing is that within the painting they have put the famous English broadcaster Gyles Brandreth holding one of his bears! He is a big fan of Teddy bears, and has a huge collection. And do you know what? Ann La Mar, our wonderful reporter at “Go Teddy!” has invited us to visit Gyles’ collection at Newby Hall, when we will go over there in August.

I am SO excited, I can’t wait!

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Bear-sur-Ciel

/ Miki de Goodaboom / 1 Comment

By Truffle McFurry

(Illustration by Miki de Goodaboom )

 

Hello everybody, Truffle here!

Yesterday I said in my Facebook page that Miki would stop for a long time to paint Teddy Bears, because we we go soon on a painting trip to Portugal, and when we come back, she would have to paint serious stuff like boats, houses, churches, streets, etc… People buy this kind of things, you know, but they don’t buy Teddy bear paintings, and Miki has to earn money for us.

But today she could not resist… she did another one! She really can’t live without us! We saw this one while we were in the South of France, last time, in a lovely village called Cordes-sur-Ciel.

It means Cordes-upon-Sky. I don’t why, because we were climbing and climbing and we never arrived above the sky. But the name is nice. She and my Dad were impressed by the  monuments, but me, I don’t really like old stones,  I much more prefer the toy shops. There was a lovely one in Cordes-sur-Ciel, full of old toys, as old as the stones. Most of them were white, as if they were made out of snow. Or of clouds.  They were so cute!

I wanted so much the little dog with the black spots, but Miki said a very loud NO. She said, dogs are nice, yes, but if we had a dog, we wouldn’t be able to travel where we want any more. Dogs are not like Teddy Bears, she said, one can’t take them everywhere… and one cannot abandon them again when we don’t need them any more…

I called that Bear “Bear-sur-Ciel”… a lovely name for a French bear, isn’t it?

Bear-sur-Ciel S

His Bearness

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By Miki De Goodaboom

(Illustration based on a photograph by “Pete”, from the UK)

I can’t tell much about this motif, except that a certain “Pete”, from the UK, sent me a photograph of his Teddy bear, dressed as a basketball player from the Chicago Bulls.

Pete only told me that he is a fan of the Chicago Bulls, of Michael Jordan and that he is somehow related to one of the players from an earlier time.

I personally don’t know much about basketball, but I do know from the legendary Michael Jordan, of course, and that one of his nickname was “His Airness”. Which is why I allowed myself that wordplay and called Pete’s  Teddy Bear “His Bearness”!  🙂

His Bearness S

The Oxfam Camel And Teddy Bears

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By Miki De Goodaboom

(Illustration based on a photograph by “Go Teddy!”‘s reporter Kev Le Chat)

It is wonderful to have these reporters, such as Ann La Mar and Kev le Chat, so dedicated and committed to our cause in “Go Teddy!”. Every time they sent me some Teddy photos, it is an immense joy for Truffle McFurry and for me. We love so much to see all these bears from around the world!

Kev le Chat who often goes to charity shops, mostly in search of books, has noticed that there are great motifs for “Go Teddy!” there. And this is true. Most of the time, the bears and other soft animals he sees in these places are quite old, and look so different from all the modern Teddy Bears. Having started very late (only 3 years ago) to be interested in Teddy Bears, it is a whole new fascinating world opening to me. I really do not know how Teddy bears looked like in earlier days…

When I see these Bears from earlier times, I feel that they carry many stories with them. You can feel that they have been cuddled many times, that they have comforted many children (and adults like me probably), and that they have listened to many secrets. They are so touching!

And it is so interesting to see how different they look like and feel. They are less sophisticated than the modern ones, and made out of different material. Material that last forever, I guess. I was amazed as I had once in my hands Benjamin, Truffle’s oldest cousin. He felt so unusual, it was because of the stuffing. I think it was made of real straw. And there was the other one – I don’t remember which one it was,- he was so heavy, I think he was full of lead pearls!

Here is a wonderful motif coming from OXFAM, in Derby I think. A camel and his Teddy Bear mates… judging by the looks, from many different eras!

The Oxfam Camel And Teddy Bears S