Emily Coleman was distraught when her favourite teddy bear was lost on a family shopping trip.

The two-year-old feared Ted Teds, her constant companion from the age of six weeks, had been lost forever.

She cried herself to sleep for two nights, worrying where in Uckfield the ragged brown teddy could be.

But she could hardly contain her delight yesterday, when Ted Teds was returned to her - by a woman who works for a charity that rescues real bears.

Emily's mum Claire said: "It's unbelievable, you couldn't have written a more fitting ending like that."

Alison Day, from Five Ashes, near Crowborough, spotted Ted Teds sitting on a kerb at the side of Regency Close, near Uckfield High Street, when she left work on Wednesday afternoon.

Mrs Day, a fund-raiser for International Animal Rescue, instinctively picked it up.

She said it would be impossible for anyone who worked for the Uckfield-based charity, which rescues dancing bears in India, to leave it where it was.

She said: "It was a very sad little bear, it was raining and he was soaked through. It looked like he had been splashed by one or two cars driving through puddles."

Emily had noticed Ted Teds was missing earlier that day when the family returned from the shopping trip to their home in Hunters Way, Uckfield.

Mrs Coleman went back to the shops to ask if anyone had seen the teddy but there was no sign of him.

She said it must have dropped out of Emily's pushchair while she was sleeping as they walked home.

At bedtime Emily asked for her teddy and told her mum she wanted to cuddle it.

She cried when she realised she could not see him.

Emily's dad Paul said the bear had become ragged because she never went anywhere without it.

On Thursday the distraught toddler helped her mum to make a poster asking for help to find the bear.

It said: "I've lost my Ted Teds, if you have seen him, or have even found him please phone my mummy and daddy.

"I miss my Ted Teds lots and lots."

They put posters on lamp posts and in shop windows but heard nothing for another day.

Mrs Day had taken Ted Teds home to clean him up. She told her colleagues what had happened the following morning and later that day one of her workmates spotted one of the posters.

On Friday morning, Mrs Day phoned the Coleman family to arrange the happy reunion.

Mrs Coleman said: "It's wonderful. Emily was so upset because she thought he might be gone forever.

"Now she's a happy little girl again, just in time for Christmas."