I’m an arctophile – I collect teddy bears – well, to be honest, they collect me.
I can’t help it. If I see a bear looking miserable in a charity shop or on a stall in a flea market, I just have to rescue them – I’m the teddy-bear equivalent of the mad cat lady. 
Thing is, you see, a bear has to belong to someone. If they aren’t “someone’s bear” they start to lose their identity and get confused. Ideally they’ll be the adored friend of a small person who’ll take them everywhere, even if it is by the left hind leg so they spend most of their life upside-down – it doesn’t matter, they belong.
So when you see a bear that isn’t with someone, you can bet your life it’s a very sorry bear indeed.
I don’t have a collection – I run St. Ursula’s Orphanage for Homeless Bears (under my cover name of Rev. Mother Griselda Goldenpaws, Matron) Some come for a while and then go to a new person to belong to, some end up staying for good.
Often they need a little magic to bring them back to life because they’ve lost the will to belong. So I clean them up and find a new personality for them, dress them up and talk to them. I tell them who they are and where they are going and they gradually perk up and get all excited about belonging again.
Deakus (above) was a very hard case. He got the title of “Grumpiest Bear in the Whole Wide World” when he was brought home from a flea market. The expression on his face spoke volumes – and all of it swearwords.
So I sat him down and had a long chat with him and realised that his grumpiness came from the fact that he couldn’t see properly. Careful trimming with nail scissors and a pair of glasses made a huge improvement.
And recently we have had some new additions to the home, click on the link to meet Otterly Boofuls and Baggy Bear Cameron’s Soapbox: Ailsa’s new baby..
Love it – maybe when I get too old and bedraggled to belong to anybody I’ll take myself over to a flea market near you and hope you call by and get me 😀
You’ll be welcome any time. We don’t have any apes yet – hedgehogs, bunnies and a strange creature that is just called “cuddles” (no recognisable species) but no apes.
Oh Deakus is SO a Rasta! I have to confess to having rescued bears. My proudest moment is rescuing one long-distance via an emotional FB chat 🙂
Some of our residents have been re-homed through FB friends. They were so thrilled.
My daughter lost her Ted when she was three, dropped from the pushchair in town…I searched for ages to no avail. On the off chance I dropped a note into the local paper to ask for my phone number to go in the letters page in case anyone found Ted.
The paper came and did a front page story of daughter looking sad without Ted. The day the paper came out a lovely lady phoned. She’d picked up Ted, sad he was lost, washed him and sat him with a lovely group of other orphan bears. When she saw the story she knew he was wanted and couldn’t wait to give him back! The paper even did a return story with a gorgeous pic of daughter hugging Ted.
I’m so happy there are people like you and her about Ailsa!
How lovely! So you see, mad bear ladies like me do have our uses and even when we can’t find the original owners, we often find new ones.