Paddington bear writer series#
Paddington bear writer tv#

“A lot of the children had luggage labels ’round their necks with their names and addresses on them.” Paddington was a stand-in for these kids, displaced children shuffling toward an unknown future, wearing tags with addresses they couldn’t read. “I can remember trainloads of refugees coming down from London,” Bond told The Telegraph before his death in 2017. He based his hero’s backstory on families displaced during World War II.

Paddington bear writer series#

When Bond first published his Paddington book series in 1958, he fully intended his protagonist to be an immigrant and a refugee. I wasn’t projecting these thoughts onto Paddington so much as detecting the frequency through which his creator, Michael Bond, had transmitted his stories.

I was certain this bear would know what it’s like to cry your way through customs or to miss your friends and family terribly. After all, Peru was the top hat on Chile’s skinny body our countries were neighbors. This was something I felt Paddington understood. My family continued to visit Chile for long stretches, but on either side of the equator I felt out of place. By then my English had melted away like a Life Saver all that was left was the vague flavor of a language I had once known. I was about 4 years old when we returned to the U.S. But political unrest and a military coup made it clear that America was both the safer option and the one where my father could find work. My mother was from Chile, my father was from the U.S., and they originally planned to stay in my mother’s homeland. In my early childhood, I boomeranged between North and South America. It was then that I understood our kinship. Bears like marmalade.” The Browns, moved by his story (and by a little sign he wore that read Please look after this bear. “I’m not really supposed to be here at all. “Darkest Peru,” was his whispered answer. Brown said, asking the classic immigrant question. I had watched the show several times before I caught the first episode exploring Paddington’s past.

I saw myself as the bear-bumbling through the day as politely as possible trying, and failing, to grasp the basics of London life. But I didn’t see myself as the family’s blonde, bobby-socked daughter. In the series, Paddington lived in Windsor Gardens with the Brown family, which included two siblings named Jonathan and Judy.

The show’s stop-motion-animation style placed the rotund 3-D teddy bear in a paper-cutout London, and the shuffling theme song seemed to echo the protagonist’s waddle.

Paddington bear writer tv#

Paddington was already a TV star, and his program was part of my regular lineup. At 8 years old, I was a latchkey kid watching after-school shows in the suburbs of Virginia. It’s been more than two decades since Paddington and I first met. border and families being separated-offering a powerful, if at times limited, look at the difficulties of leaving one’s homeland and being a stranger in a new place. His tale feels particularly timely-against the backdrop of undocumented children being detained at the U.S. More recently, Paddington’s immigrant status has moved from a thread in the books and in the animated series to a focal point in the 20 movies. Though Paddington has starred in dozens of books, TV shows, and films, his origins were revealed in his very first story, A Bear Called Paddington, published 60 years ago this month. He is, after all, an immigrant from Latin America it’s what brought us together. “Te ves guapo,” I said, brushing lint off his hat. “Hello, friend,” I said, picking up a Paddington Bear plush toy from the duty-free bin. We ran into each other at Heathrow Airport last year.