Lord Mayor is a World Record Breaker
On the 20th May 2009, 1,112 children from Bradford Moor and Byron Primary Schools and the official Mascot for the Lord Mayor’s Appeal, Brad Bear, helped the Lord Mayor, Councillor John Godward, to launch his Charity Appeal for Little Heroes and Bradford and District Senior Power and to break the World Record for the Longest Chain of Children and Soft Toys. Lending support was Gerard Benson, Bradford’s Poet Laureate and we apologise to Gerard for pinching his wonderful poem ‘Teddy Bear’ and for us substituting ‘yellow’ for ‘Mayoral’ to suit our Civic Bear!
The Teddy Bear
We have a Mayoral teddy bear.
His eyes are buttons and they stare.
He wears a hat to hide his hair.
(You’ve never seen a bear with hair?
You’ve never seen our teddy bear.)
Our teddy bear’s a dancing bear.
He frisks and frolics everywhere.
You leave him here, you find him there.
For instance, leave him on a chair,
You’ll find him on the bottom stair;
Though if you leave him on the stair
You’ll find him on your bed, that’s where.
He is an aggravating bear.
Then sometimes, like a forest bear
He can fierce, and then beware!
For you will tremble and your hair
Will stand on end, to see him stare,
Or hear him growl. You would not dare
To quarrel with our teddy bear.
I’m very sure I would not care
To try, for like a grizzly bear,
He’s at his fiercest in his lair
(Whether on shelf or box or chair
Or where he’s chucked by Aunty Claire)
And then there’s nothing that can scare
Our gallant Mayoral teddy bear.
But mostly he is pretty fair.
He likes to sing a bearish air
Or dance the bear-dance, debonair,
Or simply sleep, our teddy bear.
Gerard Benson, Poet Laureate of Bradford
