The surprising true origin of Paddington Bear, after Queen Elizabeth video

nypost.com:

kicked off the Platinum Party at the Palace tribute concert outside Buckingham Palace.But many viewers might not have known the real origins of the ursine celebrity who hails from “darkest Peru” — yet was actually inspired by Jewish refugee children.Author Michael Bond, who passed away in 2017 at the age of 91, decided to write a book about an orphaned cub sent to England after spotting a toy bear alone on a shelf at Selfridge’s department store on Christmas Eve in 1956.“It looked rather forlorn,” he told The Sunday Telegraph, so he purchased the bear as a stocking stuffer for his wife and began to write a story about it.

Less than two weeks later, he had a completed novel which was sold for 75 pounds.Bond revealed that while writing the first book, “A Bear Called Paddington,” he was partly inspired by vivid memories he had of seeing Jewish refugee children pass through the train station in his hometown of London, on their way to London from Nazi-dominated Europe ahead of World War II.The Kindertransport was an organized rescue effort that saw nearly 10,000 predominantly Jewish children from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland settled in British foster homes and farms.

Often they were the only members of their families who survived the Holocaust.“They all had a label round their neck with their name and address on and a little case or package containing all their treasured possessions.

So Paddington, in a sense, was a refugee, and I do think that there’s no sadder sight than refugees,” he told The Guardian in 2014.In the first book, the Brown family finds a bear at Paddington railway station in London, sitting on a battered suitcase with a note attached to his coat that reads: “Please look after this bear.