Bearly Believable

Gabrielle Designs Bears

Read more about Gabrielle Designs on the official Paddington Bear website, including details on how to identify an original Gabrielle Paddington.

For Christmas each year, I made a soft toy to sit on the top of the children's stockings...1971's choice of toy changed all our lives dramatically, and with such swiftness that we hardly realised what was happening. A friend recommended that I buy a book for the children entitled 'A Bear Called Paddington', by Michael Bond. It was all about a delightful little bear called Paddington, and was illustrated by Peggy Fortnum. The illustrations were only simple pen and ink sketches, but the movements and character that this lady managed to convey were charming. Jeremy and Joanna loved the stories. They contained everything a child wants in a book: a bear, marmalade, sticky buns, ice cream, glue, soap suds, together with a character that epitomised what every adult admires: innocence, vulnerability, kindness, humour, politeness, and an unshakeable love and loyalty towards his friends. My problem of what to make for the children's stocking in 1971 was solved when I read Michael's book. I bought a couple of yards of fur fabric from Doncaster market, and with bits of felt left over from the tea cosies, together with some glass eyes and plastic noses, set about designing the bear...

Jacket text for Bearly Believable

"A heart-warming, inspirational tale of a woman trying to run a business while having me as a son."
- Jeremy Clarkson

"Originally made one Christmas as a present for Shirley's and her husband Eddie's children Jeremy and Joanna, the bear remains a classic of its kind - one which still gives me pleasure whenever I see it - and it served as a kind of yardstick when judging other products. Some things, like Concorde and the Jaguar XK120, look right from the word go. It was created with love and it was born with that indefinable something known as star quality. You either have it or you don't."
- Michael Bond, author of the Paddington Bear stories

'Bearly Believable' is the hilarious story of how Shirley Clarkson grew her company, Gabrielle Designs, from a tiny spare-room business selling tea cosies in Doncaster into an international business shipping Paddington Bears all over the world ... and then watched it collapse.

With no business experience, no capital, just £100 of backing, and a copy of Michael Bond's book for inspiration, Shirley came up with the original - now classic - Paddington. Manufacturing from a collection of ramshackle farm buildings, she was hit by a wave of orders from retailers, as the world went Paddington-crazy. From Tokyo to Sydney to San Francisco, everybody wanted him.

As sales skyrocketed, Shirley and her husband Eddie experienced the giddy feeling of success, then the stresses of growth. Turnover leapt to a million a year, Gabrielle Designs was hailed as a British success story, and Shirley was invited to meet the Queen on her visit to Doncaster Mansion House. Meanwhile, storm clouds gathered. The workforce went on strike, 50,000 bears had to be recalled because of faulty eyes, Eddie was ill in bed for a year, and the pipes at the factory burst. Shirley employed a professional manager to rescue the situation - who turned out to be illiterate, dishonest, and incompetent. The '70s moved on, the craze faded, and the tide went out on Paddington as fast as it had come in.

Shirley tells her rollercoaster story with warmth, modesty and a blunt Yorkshire wit. For fans of Paddington, her book provides a delightful insight into how a simple bear became a worldwide icon; for students of business, it provides lessons in how to create a business and, more particularly, how not to run one; for those who appreciate tales of triumph and adversity, it is packed with more ups and downs than Paddington's paw in a jar of marmalade.

Chapter headings for Bearly Believable

Foreword by Michael Bond

Introduction

Chapter One - My War
Chapter Two - Growing Up
Chapter Three - Eddie
Chapter Four - My French Connection
Chapter Five - Our Acorn
Chapter Six - Our Sapling
Chapter Seven - Our Oak Tree
Chapter Eight - Highs and Lows
Chapter Nine - Our Graham
Chapter Ten - Sailing into Troubled Waters
Chapter Eleven - Disney and Other Disasters
Chapter Twelve - My Sad Years
Chapter Thirteen - Jekyll and Hyde
Chapter Fourteen - The Collapse of Gabrielle
Chapter Fifteen - Reflections

About Shirley Clarkson

Shirley Clarkson is a 73-year-old tour-de-force who continues to live life to the full. As well as creating the physical Paddington Bear from Michael Bond's stories, she also produced TV presenter Jeremy and corporate lawyer Joanna who, in turn, have provided Shirley with five grandchildren. Her family, friends, and tennis are now Shirley's greatest sources of pleasure.

More about Shirley Clarkson