Why we all still love Paddington Bear

New childrens characters seem to pop up almost daily on one of the many cartoon channels aimed specially at younger audiences but many are forgotten in a few months as the next big thing takes over. Some characters though have a timeless quality and remain popular from one generation to generation to the next - Paddington Bear in one of those!

The creation of British author Michael Bond in the childrens book ‘A Bear called Paddington’ which was first published in 1958 Paddington Bear is now as much a symbol of Great Britain itself as black cabs and Buckingham Palace! From deepest, darkest Peru Paddington Bear is instantly recognisable from his outfit of red hat, red wellington boots and blue duffle coat (as well as his love of marmalade sandwiches of course!)

Since that first book children the world over have enjoyed reading about the adventures of Paddington Bear in London-in fact Paddington stories have been translated into 30 languages and over 35 million Paddington Bear books have been sold worldwide. Two block buster feature films have also been made.

So why is Paddington everyone’s favourite bear……? Is it because he’s always polite – addressing people as "Mr", "Mrs" and "Miss", and incredibly kind hearted, though he inflicts hard stares on those who incur his disapproval or because of his endless capacity for innocently getting into trouble, while trying so hard to get things right.

Click on the images below to view our range of Paddington Bear Toys: