Paddington Bear was illustrated by 6 artists, the first was Peggy Fortnum in 1958, followed by Freddy Banbury in the 1970’s who’s vintage drawing inspired this mural, other artists include Ivor Wood -1975, David McKee in the 1980’s with Barry Macey, and RW Alley in the 1990’s. ( Source: The Guardian – Link above)
Artists Charleen Morris and Jake Combe painted a mural of Paddington Bear in the stairway to the old Settlement Cinema area, the present Foreshore Padang. Wearing his iconic blue hat, he sits at a bench at Paddington Station with an old, battered suitcase beside him wearing a tag around his neck that reads ‘Please look after this bear.’ Christmas Island is very far away from London’s
Paddington Station. None of Paddington’s adventures take place on Christmas Island and the author is not known to have ever travelled here. So why commission a mural of such a quintessentially British book character on the Island?
Paddington made his debut in A Bear Called Paddington in 1958, the same year Christmas Island became part of Australia away from Singapore.
In the book Mr and Mrs Brown came across the bear as he sat at Paddington
station and asked him where he was from and what he was doing. “I’m from Darkest Peru. I’m not really supposed to be here – I’m a stowaway!” He went on to explain that he came in a lifeboat and sustained himself on marmalade sandwiches that he packed. “Bears like marmalade,” he informed Mr and Mrs Brown. When they read the label on his coat reading “Please look after this bear. Thank you,” the Browns gave him the name ‘Paddington’ after the train station they met him in and promptly took him into the family where his
adventures in Britain began.
Link to Christmas Island Newsletter – The Islander Issue767– 2022 https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VZwoyBq6EkLveWEHfFy5MB6hscjYjDTx
In an interview with the UK’s Telegraph in 2017 the author Michael Bond said that during the Second World War, he saw Jewish refugee children passing through London’s Reading Station, arriving in Britain escaping from the Nazi
horrors of Europe. Mr. Bond, touched by what he saw, recalled those memories 20 years later when he began his story of Paddington Bear.
He was searching for writing inspiration and simply wrote the words: “Mr. and Mrs. Brown first met Paddington on a railway platform…”
“They all had a label round their neck with their name and address on and a little case or package containing all their treasured possessions,” Bond said in the interview with The Telegraph before his death in 2017. “So Paddington, in a sense, was a refugee, and I do think that there’s no sadder sight than refugees.”
Paddington Bear – known for his blue overcoat, bright red hat, and that simple hand-written tag that said “Please look after this bear. Thank you,” embodies the experience of many refugee children. His battered suitcase is an
emblem of his own status as an unwanted stowaway. “We took in some Jewish children who often sat in front of the fire every evening, quietly crying because they had no idea what had happened to their parents, and neither did we at the time. It’s the reason why Paddington arrived with the label around his neck”.
Michael Bond died in 2017 aged 91. The epitaph on his gravestone reads “Please look after this bear. Thank you.” The suitcase that accompanies Paddington in the Christmas Island mural is covered with flags from Iraq, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Syria and other places from which refugees have come to Christmas Island to look for safety. Since the 2000s, tens of thousands of displaced persons came in boats to Christmas Island with famously
Tharnicaa and Kopika Murugappan being the last two children to have sought asylum.
Please look after all the young Bears from all around the world who have to flee persecution, conflict and war.
Chris Su – Governance and Policy officer Shire of Christmas Island