mornings. I look forward to them very much and, er,” he cleared his throat and looked around, “I’m sure we all hope you have many more birthdays!”
When the chorus of agreement had died down, Mr Brown rose and looked at the clock. “And now,” he said, “it’s long past all our bedtimes, most of all yours, Paddington, so I suggest we all do a disappearing trick now.”
“I wish,” said Paddington, as he stood at the door waving everyone goodbye, “I wish my Aunt Lucy could see me now. She’d feel very pleased.”
“You’ll have to write and tell her all about it, Paddington,” said Mrs Brown, as she took his paw. “But in the morning,” she added hastily. “You’ve got clean sheets, remember.”
“Yes,” said Paddington. “In the morning. I expect if I did it now I’d get ink over the sheets or something. Things are always happening to me.”
“You know, Henry,” said Mrs Brown, as they watched Paddington go up the stairs to bed, looking rather sticky and more than a little sleepy, “it’s nice having a bear about the house.”
A Bear Called Paddington didn’t begin life as a book. The opening paragraph was simply an early-morning doodle brought on by the certain knowledge that if I didn’t put something down on the blank sheet of paper in my typewriter nobody else would.
However, it caught my fancy, so I wrote a second paragraph, then a third, until by the end of the day I had completed a whole story.
The source of my inspiration was a toy bear sitting on the mantelpiece of our one-room flat near London’s Portobello market. I had bought it in desperation the previous Christmas Eve as a stocking-filler for my wife, and we called him Paddington because I had always liked the sound of it and names are important, particularly if you are a bear and don’t have very much else in the world.
In no time at all he became part of the family. In fact, for a long time he was the family and was treated as such; joining us at meal times, sharing our holidays, occasionally interrupting our conversations.
Ten working days later, having completed seven more stories, I realised I had a book on my hands. It hadn’t been written with any particular age group in mind, which was fortunate, because until then I had always written for adults and if I had consciously aimed at a young audience I might have ‘written down’, which is always a bad idea. Anyway, I agree with Gertrude Stein: a book is a book is a book, and it should be enjoyable on all levels.
It was lucky, too, that I picked on a bear for my doodling. The late Peter Bull, actor and arctophile, once said that whereas dolls are always wondering what they are going to wear next, you never know quite what bears are thinking, and he was right. You feel you can trust them with your secrets and they won’t pass them on. Another thing about bears is that one perceives them in the wild lumbering around on two legs, so they are already halfway to being human.
The first book in a series is always the most fun to write. The world is your oyster and you can go wherever your fancy takes you. However, at the same time you build in certain parameters which are there for all time. Although Paddington’s adventures take place in the present, I always picture him going home at the end of the day to the rather safer pre-war world which I remember from my childhood.
I don’t think they ever realised it, but my parents served as role models for Mr and Mrs Brown. (There is also a lot of my father in Paddington, for he was very law-abiding and never went out without a hat in case he bumped into someone he knew and had nothing to raise.) Jonathan and Judy were there to bridge the age gap. Mrs Bird was based on memories of my childhood best friend’s live-in nanny. Paddington’s ‘best friend’, Mr Gruber, is important because he knows what it is like to be a refugee in a strange country, so they have a special relationship. The Browns’ long-suffering next-door neighbour, Mr Curry, triggers off many a story. I have only to put the two together and things start to happen. ‘Number 32 Windsor Gardens’ I saw as being just around the corner from our flat.
Paddington was, and always will be, very real to me. He has his feet firmly on the ground and he has a very strong sense of right and wrong. So much so that when I come up against a problem in my own life I often ask myself what he would do.
The fact that others believe in him just as much is rewarding. For example, the boy who wrote saying he was so used to Paddington being the name of a bear it now seemed a funny name for a station. And the nun who wrote to me out of the blue telling me she was in hospital – I suspect suffering from an incurable disease – and thanking me for all the comfort Paddington brought her. He couldn’t have had a greater compliment paid him.
Writing comedy is a serious business; a matter of distillation, of finding exactly the right word. On the whole, without the benefit of an immediate audience response, one works in a kind of vacuum.
However, I did once find myself sitting in a restaurant and overhearing two men in the next booth discussing Paddington’s exploits. They were both laughing their heads off, and that was very satisfying because in the circumstances it was obviously genuine. I didn’t let on I was there for fear of embarrassing both parties.
Then, some years ago, on a promotional tour in Australia, I had to carry a stuffed Paddington everywhere I went. Each time I boarded a plane I knew it wouldn’t be long before he would be asked up to the flight deck. On one occasion I left him up there, strapped into a spare bucket seat while the crew explained the controls. A little later on I received a second message asking if I would mind him staying up there because he wanted to practise landing the plane. I didn’t tell the other passengers!
When I wrote the first book I had no idea that he would eventually be honoured with a life-size bronze statue on the station itself. People use the plinth to sit on while they eat their sandwiches, which is rather apposite really, and it’s nice to think they will probably still be doing it long after I have gone.
I don’t suppose we shall ever meet, but if we do I shan’t be at all surprised. Being a polite bear I’m sure he will raise his hat, and as we go our separate ways I shall regret not wearing one too, so that I could raise it in return as a mark of respect.
MICHAEL BOND
April 2001
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