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From Pooh to Paddington, Fozzie to Baloo, Rupert to Yogi, teddy bears have got their claws into us all ! A furry friend can offer comfort and security, help children develop emotional intelligence and social skills and adults a reminder of childhood.

My Heartbeat Bear’s parent company Be My Bear offers a range of memory bears which have a wide application from recording personalised messages for friends and families away from home to a recording of a loved one no longer with them. Be My Bear’s build your own bear kits are also much loved with children and the young at heart delighting in bringing their very own teddy bear to life complete with heart and birth certificate for the naming ceremony – a truly magical memorable experience. Our heartbeat bears also offer a treasured keepsake bearing a recording of baby’s heartbeat for excited parents-to-be to play before the arrival of their miracle bundle and soothe baby on arrival into the world.

Many celebrities have a special connection to teddy bears.  The Princess of Wales received a large Fynn Teddy bear for Prince George from the Steiff facility in Germany and Tom Cruise, another fan of Steiff Bears, gave daughter Suri a Steiff Westie teddy bear when she was born. King Charles still has the teddy bear he was given as a child and considers it a best friend, Gyles Brandreth has a large collection of teddy bears, including Steiff, Merrythought, Dean, and Hermann and Carol Vorderman still has the teddy bear she was given as a gift from her mother when she was three years old. 

Other celebrities who are attached to their teddy bears include former UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair who had a teddy bear called Lynton, Richard Briers who was bequeathed a family heirloom teddy, and Rowan Atkinson who had a Mr Bean knitted bear.

So, it came as no surprise to learn of the global interest in the upcoming auction of a 117 year old teddy bear who became the unexpected star of a 1980s TV drama.

Aloysius was made in 1910 and starred alongside Anthony Andrews and Jeremy Irons in the ITV adaptation of Brideshead Revisited. He featured so much he is used on the DVD cover and such is his status he is expected to draw a large number of international bidders to the auction by Special Auction Services (SAS) in Newbury next month. He is expected to raise – wait for it - £30,000!!

Aloysius was made in America in 1907 and given to the English actor Peter Bull, a bear collector in 1969 by a former grocer from Maine. The grocer was closing the shop in which the bear had sat on a shelf for more than 40 years. Peter Bull christened him Delicatessen or Deli for short in homage to his past and years later he was selected by the producer of Brideshead who was looking for a “large and rumpled toy” to play the part of Aloysius.

Brideshead author Evelyn Waugh was friendly with English poet laureate John Betjeman at Oxford University. Betjeman had been a lonely child and his teddy bear Archibald Ormsby-Gore, or Archie, became his lifelong companion and went everywhere with him, including Oxford University where they both enjoyed partying. Waugh had Archie in mind when he wrote his novel and gave one of the central characters Lord Sebastian Flyte, a bear called Aloysius.

Betjeman also wrote and illustrated a story for children called Archie and the Strict Baptists that fictionalized Archie's adventures at Betjeman's family homes. 

Aloysius’ current home is the Teddy Bears of Witney shop, in Oxford where his owner and vendor Ian Pout said his legendary image "seems to be as strong as ever and is much loved and much known all over the English-speaking world".

Mr Pout has been collecting the soft toys memorabilia since before 1985 when he opened the shop. Other highlights of his collection going under the hammer include Happy, a rare large-eyed brown tipped Steiff teddy bear from 1926, and a handwritten letter from 1971 by Ernest H Shepard, the artist most famous for illustrating the characters in the Winnie-the-Pooh books. In the note he explains that the model for Pooh bear in the books was actually his son’s Steiff bear Growler.

The guide price of £30,00 seems eye watering, but it’s nothing compared to the holder of the Guiness Book of Records title, a teddy bear made by luxury brand Louis Vuitton and Steiff which sold for over $182,550 making it the most expensive teddy bear ever sold. The teddy bear, which measured 17 inches high, was sold in October 2000 at a charity event by auction house Christie's in Monaco.

 

Closer to home, Be My Bear and My Heartbeat teddy bears and other animals can be bought from under a tenner and will still be a