An annual Teddy Bear Picnic for research

The Teddy Bear's Picnic in Lister Park is an annual event for the families in Bradford.

In the UK's Bradford Lister Park parents and would be parents attend the annual Teddy Bears Picnic.  Why?  The Parents and the children give a yearly sample of blood

 towards the research behind finding out why illness blights so many lives within Bradgford.  Bradford having some of the most deprivves communities within the UK.  

Between 1996 and 2003, the number of children dying in Bradford before they reached their first birthday was almost double the average for England and Wales. This corresponds with levels of childhood illness which are higher than usual, along with much higher rates of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, obesity, asthma and eczema in the city's population as a whole.

The research project, known as Born in Bradford, is looking at every aspect of a child's development to try to get an idea of how factors like environment, education, diet, ethnicity and genes interact together to affect our health. Parents give blood and saliva samples, babies are measured and weighed and their progress will be tracked across the years.


Now once a year everyone participating attends a Teddy Bears Picnic.  What a great use of the Day.

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British Bear now Olympic merchandise

The decline of British toy manufacturing does not seem to have harmed the UK toy industry as a whole as people still want toys. Plush toys including Teddies) grew at 39% in 2010 / 2011.

Behind this growth has been an advertising drive that heralds "Creativity, resilience and relevance" all playingtheir part in helping the toy industry to weather the past two years" .. " Now the toy industry 

The classic teddy bear has been given an Olympic twist

 needs to maintain its focus on producing toys with great play value at affordable prices,"  states Christine Nicolls [Chariman of the British Toy and Hobby Association]

Toys inspired by blockbuster films proved particularly popular in 2010, with characters from Toy Story 3 bringing in the most revenue.


The trend for fashionable soft toys has led many businesses to take advantage of the 2011 Royal Wedding and the 2012 Olympics.

Official London 2012 merchandise will contribute approximately £80m to the staging of the games and will no doubt generate huge amounts of publicity for the companies involved.

Merrythought is one of the businesses supplying 2012 products and Mr Holmes hopes it will mean "we can make Merrythought products available to a slightly wider and more discerning audience'' and keep the company going for another 80 years.

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Reference BBC news

Is 55 PB the first teddy bear ?

On July 26th 2011 BBC News Frances Cronin  asks  "Is the 55pb the first Teddy bear? 

• A replica of 55 PB teddy bear is on display at the Steiff museum
• But its status as first bear is hotly disputed
• The name Teddy Bear comes from former US President Theodore Roosevelt.
• On a bear-hunting trip in Mississippi in 1902 Roosevelt was offered a stunned, lassoed bear to shoot but he refused
• This was depicted in a cartoon in the Washington Post, which inspired Russian immigrant toy maker Morris Michtom
• He created a bear to put in his toy shop window in Brooklyn and called it Teddy's Bear
• Richard Steiff registered his design in July 1903. There is evidence of a sample being sent over to the US late 1902/early 1903 but it would have taken a while to design and make
• The US bear appeared towards the end of November 1902 so the timing is very tight, possibly even simultaneous

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