An interview with Bernard Baxter, bear extraordinaire.
Bernard, tell us about how you came to live with Jane and Malcolm:
We-e-elll, there I was stuck in this box.
I’d been minding my own business (as bears do) when I was grabbed by the scruff of the neck and shoved in with all these… cuddly toys!
It was truly awful. They weren’t my kind of toys at all. I’d better say no more on that.
Okay. Can you remember seeing Jane and Malcolm for the first time?
Yes! I was in this box in a charity shop! Actually, we were outside the shop as it was a sunny day. This man was looking around, and I was pleading with him with my eyes. He looked like my kind of man (though he did need a good shave and a decent hair cut).
And it worked. he caught my eye! I didn’t think he would, but he did!! I’m so glad it was him, because some loud, screechy young children had poked about in the box earlier, and I’d had to do my very best not to catch their eye at all. I put on my very sternest bear face, and it worked. They chose the green and purple snake, and the bright orange monkey which left the rest of us with a little bit more leg room.
The man pulled me out of the box (hurrah!), put me under his arm, like I was his best friend, and called over to his special friend. She gave me one look, rolled her eyes and said “Oh no! Not another one!”, which annoyed me a bit as there is only one of me. But I swallowed my pride, before it could get in the way, and sent her my best bear gaze ever.
And she caught it, and came over and smiled!
That was it! I knew then that they were mine!
What happened next?
We all introduced ourselves, I told them I was Bernard, and they said ‘how nice to meet you Bernard, we are Malcolm and Jane’. I felt a warm glow of friendship, the kind when you feel at home and know things are going to be alright!
Malcolm took me proudly under his arm and we walked up Castle Douglas High Street to a very nice shop called ‘Designs’. I liked it there. We went downstairs to the cafe, and I got my own chair! Jane even took a photo of me sitting in it as I waited for my lunch.
I could tell she was impressed by my ‘elbows off the table’ etiquette!
A few people looked over and smiled. They could tell that we were a good match. Our kind of people understand.
Thank you Bernard, we’ll leave it there for now.
[Bernard’s eyes had glazed over and he had a warm, contented smile on his little bear face. A little snore came from somewhere deep inside his little bear body.]
To be continued…
Read a wee bit more about this very special bear here.
