EXIT PURSUED BY A BEAR...

As a young man in my twenties, I developed a friendship with Michael Bond, the creator of Paddington Bear, who died Tuesday aged 91. We corresponded regularly and I spent time with him and his family at their then home in Haslemere.

Following a change in Michael's marital status, we lost touch for over 30 years until, in 2014, BBC Radio 2's Arts Show reunited us by sending me to talk to Michael about his new book, LOVE FROM PADDINGTON. As a small tribute to a gentle man with a real gift for storytelling, here's our last conversation...

BEAR NECESSITIES

Somewhere around forty-five years ago, I began a correspondence with Michael Bond, the creator of Paddington, which led to a friendship than ran across several years, during which time I used to visit and stay with Michael and his family.

I always loved the Paddington books: the small domestic misadventures of the marmalade-loving bear from Darkest Peru (each a single chapter in length) are perfectly pitched so as to engage and amuse the young listener (always allowing the child to be one jump ahead of the muddles blundered into by the accident prone Paddington) while providing plenty of good story-telling opportunities for the adult called upon to turn the pages!

Michael was always a generous encourager of my youthful ambitions to be a writer, but over the passing years, we eventually lost touch – until this week, when I had the opportunity of visiting my old friend and mentor to talk to him about his latest book – Love from Paddington – for tonight's Radio 2 Arts Show.

Paddington – famous for his polite manners, his ability to handle difficult situations with determination and difficult people by the use of one of his celebrated 'hard stares' – made his debut in A Bear  Called Paddington in 1958.

Although many other volumes followed, the new book is the first to be told in Paddington's own words – as he chronicles his exploits in a series of letters written from his home with the Brown of 32 Windsor Gardens to his Aunt Lucy who lives in the Home for Retired Bears in Lima...

With Love from Paddington is a nostalgic trip back to some of the young bear's most engaging escapades illustrated with a combination of pictures by Paddington's first artist, Peggy Fortnum and his current illustrator, R W Alley

You can hear my interview at 10:00 pm on the Radio 2 Arts Show with Suzy Klein sitting in for Claudia Winkleman.

PLATFORM POET

Blogging as I was a month or two back about Paddington reminded me that I've been meaning to blog about a long-overdue visit I made to another London railway terminus: the restored and renovated St Pancras International.

Often referred to as the 'Cathedral of the Railways', it combines William Henry Barlow's train shed, completed in 1868 (with an iron and glass roof that was, at the time, the largest single-span structure of its kind) and George Gilbert Scott's neo-Gothic masterpiece, the Midland Grand Hotel.

When, in the 1960s it looked as if St Pancras was doomed to be demolished, one of those who came to its defence was the Poet Laureate, Sir John Betjeman who told the bureaucrats planning to bring in the wrecking-ball that it would be a criminal folly to destroy a building whose name conjured up wondrous images of architecture and light in the mind of every Londoner.

"What he sees in his mind's eye," wrote Betjeman, "is that cluster of towers and pinnacles seen from Pentonville Hill and outlined against a foggy sunset, and the great arc of Barlow's train shed gaping to devour incoming engines, and the sudden burst of exuberant Gothic of the hotel seen from gloomy Judd Street."

Appropriate then that when the station was reopened following its multi-million pound restoration and redevelopment, that a statue of Sir John should take pride of place on the upper level of the station concourse.

Created by sculptor, Martin Jennings, it shows a larger-than-life Betjeman clutching his hat, his overcoat billowing out behind him as he looks up at that great, wide span of Barlow's roof.

Martin Jennings' work is a truly engaging tribute to a poet who could, by turn, be profound or trivial but who was always in touch with the vibrancy of history, people and places and who enthusiastically and unceasingly shared his passions for the poetry in everyday life.

You can read more about Betjeman and the saving and restoration of St Pancras in this 2007 article in The Independent.

Images © Brian Sibley, 2010 uploaded from my flickr Photostream.

A BEAR-FACED IMPERSONATION

Writing of Paddington the last month sent my mind back thirty years - heaven help me! - to watching Paddington Goes to the Movies, a delightful featurette-length episode of Film Fare's animated TV series based on Michael Bond's lovable (but trouble-prone) bear....

Like the rest of the stop-motion animated series, the film featured a three-dimensional Paddington puppet alongside a cast of drawn-and-cut-out humans with narrative and voices provided by one of the great storytellers of his age (and a not inconsiderable classic actor to boot) Sir Michael Hordern.

The 'special' tells how Paddington, caught in a rainstorm while shopping, tries to take shelter in the local Podium cinema where the 1952 musical, Singin' in the Rain is being screened...


Refused admission (not because he's a bear but on the grounds of age!), the impressionable bear takes a peep through an emergency exit, sees Gene Kelly's celebrated "singin' and dancin' in the rain" number...


...and immediately goes into his own homage homage performance of what is one of the best-loved and most recognisable sequences in cinema history...


For copyright reasons, I'm unable to show you the film on this blog, but - if you've never seen this delicious little gem - then follow the links below to watch it on YouTube...

Paddington Goes to the Movies - Part 1

Paddington Goes to the Movies - Part 2

And, on the subject of Singin' in the Rain pastiches, I just have to add the classic sketch by the great British comedy duo Morecambe and Wise who presented a 'rainless' version of the film's titular song-and-dance routine which featuring a loving recreation of the original set and (by Ernie) Kelly's choreography, but with only the Policeman (the hapless Eric, of course) getting wet...

Hope you have a fine - and rain-free - day, today!

UNBEARABLE OUTCOMES

On this gray morning when, after enduring weeks of electioneering, we find ourselves stuck with a hung parliament, there is much media talk about alliances and coalitions which is likely to prove pretty uncertain territory in the realm of politics since - like leopards changing spots and old dogs learning new tricks - it does not fit within the average British politician's comfort-zone.

However, the most surprising changes can occasionally take occur. For example - to lighten the mood and pick up on yesterday's reference to a certain savoury spread - I'd like to ask who would have thought that a particularly celebrated sandwich-fancier would have ever switched his allegiance from MARMALADE to MARMITE?

The next thing we'll hear is that Winnie-the-Pooh's given up honey!

"MANY PEOPLE THINK THAT MARMALADE IS NICER"

A few months back, I wrote about my love of marmalade - rivaled only by Master Paddington Brown - and my good friend (and occasional blog-post-comment-leaver) JEN sent us a jar of her absolutely excellent home-made Dundee Marmalade.


Someone once said, that "Oxford gave the world marmalade and a manner, Cambridge science and a sausage."

Now, whilst I'm not aware of ever having sampled a Cambridge sausage (though I am prepared to accept that they may be quite exceptional) I do know that Oxford-style marmalade is very good indeed, and has - until now - been my breakfast spread of choice!

However, having now tasted Jen's Dundee variety, I'm prepared to change my allegiance to the marmalade-makers of Scotland who (if Jen's recipe is anything to go by - and I'm sure that it is!) know just about all there is to know about turning out a mean jar of the orange stuff!

Essentially, I think, marmalade (whatever part of the British Isles it hails from) is one of the major comfort foods --- with attitude!

I adore its tongue-tingling combination of the sweet and the sharp and I think I understand what D H Lawrence was getting at when he wrote: "I got the blues thinking of the future, so I left off and made some marmalade. It's amazing how it cheers one up to shred oranges and scrub the floor."

There is, of course, only one caveat and that was expressed so eloquently in A A Milne's ditty about 'The King's Breakfast': "Marmalade is tasty if it's very thickly spread..."