Sue Pearson's

This was my first teddy bear. He is known as “Grandma’s bear” because he belonged to my Grandmother who made his waistcoat with silver buttons.

When we moved house many years ago he went missing, and I was so worried and could not believe that I had lost my family bear. He was missing for several years , and then one day I went up into the attic and looked in an old trunk and there wrapped up in tissue paper was my bear.It was after finding him that  I bought him his little wing chair and also his pocket watch.

He sits in my workroom  with all my other bears for company. We photographed him in the garden among the hostas and ferns.

The bear on the right is a French bear, called Hugo, made by a company called FADAP. He would have been made in the 1920’s and has the very distictive nose stitching used by this company. This one has nice blonde mohair, but many of them are made from poor quality fabrics, especially after World War II, but I think French bears have a special charm.

The bear on the left is probably German or Austrian and made around in the 1950’s.  Bears like this are hard to identify, though he could easily be a Petz bear, made in Austria.

They are both hiding in our Victorian cast iron urn at the bottom of our garden from our terriers.

These are our two naughty Norfolk terriers, that are being watched by two of my bears looking down on them from a large urn.

The little girl on the left is Jessica, a new addition to our family,  who is  very lively and 18 months old and the boy is Hamish who is 6 and an angel.

The bear on the right is a gorgeous large French bear called Hugo, the one on the left is a German bear called Harry, they were resting in the garden before being called up for duty in my shop.

My name is Sue Pearson and I have collected and sold teddy bears for more years than I care to remember. I have written books and travelled to many parts of the world meeting a great variety of interesting teddy people.

My son Jasper and I are very happy in our new shop in Lewes, it has been very exciting getting it all together finding lovely old antique pieces to display our bears. Very importantly finding some comfy chairs for our customers to relax while deciding on their new bear, and enjoying a cup of coffee.

Our shop has a lovely old world atmosphere and in my next blog I will tell you about our exciting historical discovery.

We have been very busy through the summer, it has been so nice to welcome many of our regular collectors and also meeting new customers. The resident of Lewes have made us and our bears very welcome!