Until 2011, there was in the UK a wonderful organization called Good Bears of the World, devoted to giving comforting teddy bears to children and adults who were sick or in distrress. One of their methods of fundraising was through the sale of merchandise; one item of merchandise was a tea towel adorned with drawings of members’ bears. Our bears Ted and Fraser featured on the tea towel, this is their picture as it appeared there, and this is Ted’s story as it was told in a booklet that accompanied the tea towel.
Hello, my name is Ted. You can see me on the tea towel with my best friend Fraser. We live in a house in a place called Sinfin, on the outskirts of Derby, with our humans, Glyn and Jenny, and a lot of other bears and quite a few hippos and other assorted creatures.
Fraser came to live here before I did. Apparently, Jenny was buying a coat and Fraser was sitting on the counter in a little cardboard armchair, looking quite adorable, and he just had to come home with them. The shop was House of Fraser, of course; Fraser is very happy to have a shop named after him!
Jenny’s Mum, who we call the H.G. (H.G. stands for Head Gardener, by the way) was with them at the time and Fraser went with them for several visits to the H.G. She really liked Fraser and, since her own bear Edward was now a bit too old and delicate for really serious hugging and was living with Glyn and Jenny in honourable semi-retirement, they had the idea of giving the H.G. a bear to keep her company when she moved to a new home in Liverpool. Glyn diligently hug-tested bears in lots of shops until he found just the right one and that was me. The H.G. was delighted with me and I really liked her; we got on tremendously well together. She gave me my name. ‘He is Ted,’ she said, ‘not Edward, not Theodore, just Ted.’ And Ted I have been ever since.
I really enjoyed my time with the H.G. Sadly, she is no longer with us and I have come to live with Glyn and Jenny. I was very sad at first, but Fraser took me under his kindly paw and we became the best of friends. I think we two are just a bit special in our house. All the inhabitants are loved, but most of them tend to have their own places and stay there. Fraser and I follow our humans around the house, coming down into the living room at breakfast time and going back upstairs at night. We are always on hand to give a great big hug.
Fraser and I are very close, in fact you can say we are inseparable; I suppose that is why we BOTH had to be on the tea towel!