Living With Paddington

Once upon a time, on Christmas Eve, Michael Bond was on London’s Oxford Street looking for something small for his wife’s stocking. It started to snow and he found himself outside Selfridges.

“There was this one bear sitting on the shelf and I felt sorry for him,” recalls Bond.

That little bear inspired him to write A Bear Called Paddington, almost 60 years ago. Since then, 35 million Paddington books have been sold worldwide, and translated into 40 languages.

Bond has just written Love From Paddington, a book of letters from Paddington to his Aunt Lucy at the Home for Retired Bears in darkest Peru, and later this month, his creation takes to the silver screen.

Bond gave the film, entitled Paddington, his blessing because, while the bear’s appeared on stage and television over the years, a movie was “the one thing Paddington hadn’t done”. You sense that the 88-year-old, a former BBC cameraman, is excited for him.

“What’s nice about the film is that all the cast are in it because they like Paddington, they’ve all been brought up with him and there was a very nice atmosphere on set.”

Bond has a cameo – watch out for the gentleman in the restaurant at the beginning who waves as Paddington goes past in a black cab – and he’s happy with the choice of Ben Whishaw as the bear’s voice.

It was previously going to be Colin Firth, but it didn’t work out. “Colin agreed himself his voice wasn’t really suited, it was slightly too old.”

We’re ensconced in Bond’s cosy study on the ground floor of a beautiful old town house in Little Venice, just a stone’s throw from Paddington Station, which gave its name to the famous bear. It’s just as you’d imagine – floor to ceiling shelves stuffed with books, pictures of Paddington adorning the walls and a model from the first TV series watching over his walnut writing desk.

His wife Sue pops in with cups of tea on a Paddington tray, and I happily spend an hour listening to Bond’s stories of the adventures he and his bear have shared – like the time they were travelling Australia for a book signing tour. “Every time I got on a plane, I was invited to the flight deck, not because they wanted to see me. They would sit Paddington down and chat to him.

“On one occasion, the crew said, ‘Do you mind if Paddington stays up here, he wants to try landing the plane?’ I didn’t tell the other passengers...”

But he’s never quite made it to Paddington’s homeland, Peru.

“I was supposed to be going with Stephen Fry, who did a book about Paddington. I had inoculations, but one of them disagreed with me and I was banned from flying for a time.

“I picked Peru as I wanted somewhere that nobody went to, in those days people didn’t go on long journeys.”

Bond was born in 1926 in Newbury, Berkshire, and moved to Reading while still a baby. He survived an air raid in 1943 and later served in the Royal Air Force and the British Army during World War Two.

It was seeing labels on evacuees during the war that inspired the now-famous note around Paddington’s neck: Please look after this bear, thank you.

“Trains came into Reading full of evacuees – tiny tots with all their possessions in a small suitcase with a label round their neck. The label is important because it says ‘thank you’. Paddington is very polite. We live in an age where politeness has gone out the window.”

Undoubtedly the world is almost unrecognisable now from the one Paddington first arrived into.

Bond wrote the original book on a typewriter: “I didn’t intend to write a children’s book. I wrote to please myself. I sat down with a blank piece of paper in the typewriter and wondered what it would be like for a real bear coming to Paddington Station.”

And now, although he says he “wouldn’t be without” his computer, he is strictly “anti-email”.

“I think there’s far too much instant communication in the world. If someone sends you an email, they expect an instant reply and I think it’s good to sleep on it a little bit.”

I wonder if his love of letters comes from his father, who worked for the Post Office. Indeed, Bond admits there’s a lot of his father in Paddington.

“My father was a very polite man. He always wore a hat. Nobody wears hats these days, but Paddington’s still got his and he wouldn’t dream of not raising it.”

And like Paddington, his father would get into scrapes, including the time he turned the gas on in the kitchen to make tea and went off to find a match, leaving a young Bond in his pushchair.

“When he did strike the match, there was a terrific explosion!”

Bond is currently working on his next Paddington adventure and tries to write a little every day (“If I stopped writing, that might be it”). He does his best work at his rented flat in Paris, which he’s sadly got to move out of soon.

“Getting peace in this day and age is quite a valuable commodity.”

As if on cue, the phone interrupts him and I take this as a sign to bid Bond farewell.

l Love From Paddington by Michael Bond is published in hardback by HarperCollins Children’s Books, priced £12.99. Available now.

l Paddington is in cinemas on Friday, November 28.