It’s a happy happy birthday to everyone’s favourite marmalade-loving bear Paddington and to celebrate special collectible stamps are set to be released by the Royal Mail. The beloved bear will appear on ten special stamps in Paddington’s very first stamp set dedicated to himself.
Six of the stamps in the main set feature images taken from Ivor Wood’s strip cartoons of Paddington which were originally published in the London Evening News paper in the late 1970’s. The other four stamps are images from Paddington’s BBC television series which was also designed and directed by Wood in 1976.
The Peruvian bear first appeared in a children’s book called A Bear Called Paddington in October 1958 and went on to feature in twenty more books written by the British author Michael Bond. The beloved children’s books tell the tale of the bear adopted by the Brown family in London after arriving in the train station that Paddington is named after.
Paddington has become canonised in British literary history and has also gone on to star in three hit films; Paddington, Paddington 2, and Paddington in Peru which is set to hit theatres in 2024. Paddington even made an appearance in a comic sketch during Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum celebrations starring alongside the Queen herself.
Whilst Paddington did appear on stamps to celebrate 60 years of children’s television in 2014, he was featured alongside Peppa Pig, Bob the Builder and Shaun the Sheep, so this special release will mark the very first set of stamps dedicated just to everyone’s favourite bear.
David Gold, director of external affairs and policy at Royal Mail, said he hoped the stamps will “brighten up the day of anyone receiving mail with a touch of Paddington’s charm”.
The stamps are available for pre-order and will go on sale on September 5 on the Royal Mail website.