The bears take over zoom
It all started last week when Maggie met Harold Lupa’s new bear Richard. Maggie offered to introduce Harold to her bear Gregory, which she did on Zoom coffee on Sunday. And then everyone decided to introduce their bears (and other animals)!
There were bears from the Netherlands, Canada, France, Ireland, Kenya, Switzerland and Engliand.
Bear friends included a large hippo from Canada with a special Japanese hat, a bull, a tiger, a squirrel, a pink elephant, a black bird and an interesting puppet.
Some bears were with their original owners, while others have been inherited. The bears had had different life experiences. They had been through several marriages, or been taken to school (some with nametapes which are still on), or been used at work or crossed continents. Some are still called ‘bear’ and others are named after people, like ‘Iggy’ after ‘St Ignatius’
Like us the bears, and their friends, all have a history. Erika, who is Canadian, had a neighbour who had gone to school with Christopher Robin and had met ‘Winnie the Pooh’. He said Erika’s bear reminded him of the original bear. ( ‘Winnie the Pooh’ was originally called ‘Edward’ but after Christopher Robin Milne visited the London Zoo and met a lovely Canadian bear ‘he’ became ‘her’ and ‘Edward’ became ‘Winnie’. Harry Colebourn, a Canadian lieutenant, had brought the bear cub, named after the city of Winnipeg, to England at the beginning of World War I, as his regiment’s mascot. He left her at the London Zoo when his unit left for France in 1915.)
Jane has a bear that is over a 100 years old that belonged to her mother called Ben Dalton (her mother’s maiden name). Jane says he is very old, very small, very loved and very worn and he just fits neatly into her hand.
Nick’s Swiss mountain bear (with backpack and walking stick) is even older. He is 150 years old!
A fiercesome tiger and bull were presented to Sue by the China-British 48 Group. Sue remembers then peering nervously over the top of a Chinese New Year goodie bag as the recipients were told how terrifying they were.
Bill told us a story about his stage star monkey. It was bought as a prop for the Hampstead Players production of ‘Inherit the Wind’ – the play about the Scopes Monkey Trial. It was used by the peanut vendor played by Angela Bates who during the play met one of the stars of the show, David Gardner, and romance blossomed. Soon after the play David bought another monkey to remember their meeting which he still has.