As I promised in my last post, today I’m going to tell you more about me and Mum and how she came to bring me to Yorkshire in the summer of 1997. As I was only very young at that time, I couldn’t remember everything that happened then and so I’d to ask her to remind me of some of it. And do you know what she said? She said I wasn’t always a Little Bear!!
I was really upset about that as I can’t remember being anything else, but Mum said I started off as a big roll of furry fabric.
That was cut up into hundreds of identical bear bodies, bear heads, bear arms, bear legs and bear ears. Then hundreds of bear feet and bear hands were cut out of some smooth fabric in a darker colour.
And, though I was well on the way to being a Little Bear by that time, I still needed sewing thread to hold me together, plus four plastic joints so that I could move my arms and legs, two shiny glass eyes, some brown embroidery thread for my nose and mouth, some black embroidery thread for my claws and, finally, some stuffing to make me nice and firm so that I could stand up if I wanted to.
Eventually all the bits were assembled in the right order, however, and – along with several hundred others – I became a Little Bear.
Unfortunately one thing we didn’t know at the time was that we were all in a factory. That meant that, before we had chance to say hello to each other, let alone have any adventures, we were being packed in cardboard boxes and sent on our way, to make room for the next lot of Little Bears.
Along with all the other Little Bears in my box, I’d been given a shiny blue sash on which were written the words, “NAMHO Conference 1997 – Darley Dale”.
At that time I’d no idea where that was. I didn’t even know where we were setting off from. But I hoped it wasn’t far as it was a bit of a squash in the box, even though I’d managed to get myself in a corner at the front.
I thought that would give me a good view, but then someone put a lid on the box and I couldn’t see a thing. In fact it was so dark that I couldn’t even see the other bears who were in there with me and it wasn’t long before I was fast asleep.
I don’t know how long or how far we travelled then, as I lost all sense of time and distance, but when I finally woke up I realised we’d stopped moving, though I still didn’t know where we were. Then someone took the lid off the box and, after I’d blinked my eyes a couple of times to get used to the light again, I saw that we’d been placed on a large table in the middle of a big room.
Then I saw a sign with the words “NAMHO Conference 1997 – Darley Dale” written on it – just like it said on our sashes – and realised we must have reached our destination, though I’d no idea of where Darley Dale was or of what was going to happen next. Back then, I didn’t even know that NAMHO was the National Association of Mining History Organisations and – to be honest – I was a little bit worried.
But gradually I worked out that Darley Dale was in Derbyshire and the conference was being run by members of the Peak District Mines Historical Society, centred at nearby Matlock Bath.
I also worked out that we were using the conference facilities of St Elphin’s School.
Then I spied another sign in front of the box me and the other bears were in. This one said, “£1 each” and I realised we were going to be sold as souvenirs of the event. And that’s when I decided that I’d do my best to go to someone who’d be kind and look after me properly. I started looking at all the people who were coming into the room to register at the table, but at first I couldn’t see anyone I really liked the look of.
Then Mum walked into the room and I knew straight away that she was the one I wanted to be with. To attract her attention, I put my arm up and for a moment our eyes met. Then, as she started to walk away, I heard her say that, if I was still there on Sunday when they left, she’d buy me.
I didn’t know what to do. I was so pleased that she’d noticed me – but scared someone else might buy me before Sunday and maybe take me home as a present for their dog. And so I stared after her and willed her to turn around – and, as you’ll have guessed, she did just that. Clutching a £1 coin, she came back to the desk and bought me. Then, before either of us thought of a name for me, Mum’s partner said I looked like a Wilf and so Wilf I became.
Later that afternoon, she saw a label on my leg that said I’d come from Indonesia. She told me that that was a long long way away and that, as I’d probably travelled on a container ship, I might have been at sea for six or seven weeks or even more, depending on how many ports the ship had visited on the journey.
And, as I snuggled up to her, she promised that nothing like that would ever happen to me again. She’d take me to live with her in Yorkshire, we’d have lots of adventures and we’d always be together – and, twenty-five years later, we still are.
Follow my next blog: 202. WHITSUNTIDE HOLIDAYS
22/05/2022
Wilf the bear-faced blogger 