Sixty five years ago, the world received one of its all-time great origin stories. A train station. An immigrant. A label reading “PLEASE LOOK AFTER THIS BEAR. THANK YOU”. A family.
In its opening 800 words, Michael Bond’s A Bear Called Paddington – first published on 13 October 1958 – contained Paddington Bear’s entire DNA. A bear, courteous if accident prone, arrives in London as a stowaway and is taken in by a kindly family who quickly accept him as one of their own. And this, give or take a fondness for marmalade sandwiches and hard stares, has been enough to install Paddington as perhaps the UK’s most loved fictional character.
He’s certainly hard to escape. Aside from the 29 Paddington books written by Bond, there have been spin-off books, TV shows, toys, statues, various stints as mascots for chocolate, Marmite and marmalade, commemorative stamps and coins. He’s been illustrated and animated in countless ways. In 2021, the film Paddington 2 became the best-reviewed movie of all time, toppling Citizen Kane. Nicolas Cage and Pedro Pascal sobbed over the film’s perfection during 2022’s The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
And then, of course, there is Paddington’s link to the Queen. After his appearance during the Platinum Party at the Palace last year, where he sincerely thanked the Queen for her service, he became the unofficial emblem for her death. Mourners left stuffed Paddington toys and marmalade sandwiches at the gates of Buckingham Palace in remembrance, in such quantities that they were asked to stop. The BBC cleared the decks to show both Paddington films on the weekend of her funeral. This isn’t the sort of thing that happens to, say, Postman Pat.
“Paddington doesn’t have a mean bone in his body,” says RW Alley, the longest-serving of Paddington’s illustrators. “That’s the reason he has endured. That and the fact that he is an outsider. He’s got a suitcase. He’s always trying to fit in. He’s a fish out of water, which is an odd metaphor for a bear, but a trait so central to childhood. There aren’t that many children’s characters who act with such thoughtfulness.”
Paddington came about, it is said, when Bond, then a BBC cameraman, found a solitary bear on a shelf in a shop on Christmas Eve. Inspired by memories of child evacuees during the second world war, he bought the bear as a gift for his wife, and wrote A Bear Named Paddington in 10 days. In subsequent stories Paddington would use the tube, visit France, appear on a quizshow, attempt bodybuilding and get called as a witness in the Royal Courts of Justice.
“Michael took everything that came into his life, and gave it to Paddington,” Alley says. “He basically said to him ‘What do you think about this?’ You know, he imagined Paddington in these situations.” Key to Paddington’s success, Alley suggests, is his placement in the real world.
“Paddington didn’t age and [his adoptive family] the Browns didn’t age, but the world is modern in every book. Michael wasn’t interested in writing a character that was going to live in a sheltered world, like Winnie-the-Pooh. The premise of the stories is always ‘Here’s an outsider who is commenting on what he finds in the world’. That’s why specific places like Portobello Road, are so important to the stories. They’re the anchors. There’s the Brown’s house, too, which is really based on a house in Notting Hill.” Which house? “Michael showed me which house it was, but we never revealed the location,” Alley says. “Mainly because he was concerned for the people who were living there.”
Another reason for his endurance is just how robustly Paddington stands up to reinterpretation. Alley has been the sole illustrator of the Paddington books since 1997, but previously the character was illustrated in novels by Peggy Fortnum, picture books by Fred Banbery and David McKee and newspaper comic strips by Ivor Wood. If you’re in your 40s or 50s, you might remember Paddington as a stop-motion character. If you’re American, you might remember him as the star of a slightly regrettable Hanna-Barbera cartoon – where he was joined by, gasp, an American cousin. Today’s preschoolers will know Paddington primarily as the star of a new Netflix animation.
And on the reinvention goes. County Hall in London will soon play host to the first immersive Paddington experience, produced by The Path Entertainment Group: a sprawling multi-room story where visitors will work with Paddington to hold the Marmalade Day festival. Details are being kept firmly under wraps, but Tom Maller, director of the experience, says that the key to its success will be its ability to tie together all of Paddington’s past identities. “We’ve been quite creative with how we realised Paddington,” he says. “We’re working with some incredible voice artists and performers who can physically embody Paddington, but we’re also working with some of the most skilled visual digital designers as well. Each room will offer a tribute to a different part of Paddington. Audiences will feel that they can escape and fall into Paddington’s world, which is lovely.”
Both Maller and Alley are at pains to point out that, as much as the character can absorb all his various forms, their work is first and foremost a tribute to the memory of Bond. “Paddington has been represented visually in so many different ways, but he’s always Paddington,” says Alley. “I think that’s a tribute to Michael Bond. I mean, he was an absolutely wonderful writer. I don’t think he gets credit for his ability to just write the exact proper thing in the shortest possible way.”
“Michael Bond bought that toy bear and took it home to his wife because he felt sorry for it, as if the bear had feelings,” marvels Mallard. “The whole thing came from this one spark of imagination.” Sixty five years later, that spark is burning stronger than ever.
A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond (HarperCollins, £14.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
