Me and My Teddy Bear

'I suppose,' said Andy yesterday, 'that I'd better go to the attic and start sorting through my 'stuff.'

He said the word 'stuff ' with the kind of emotional, heart-wrenching fondness one might use to emphasise the words 'the love of my life'. My own heart gave a little hoppity-skip. I knew how difficult this task would be for him. Because most of his 'stuff ' was related to Doctor Who and science fiction, a collection he's been amassing for nearly 30 years now.

I admit I have trouble getting to grips with understanding this 'attachment to a collection of things' malarkey. I've never really collected anything, you see. I went through a spate, when Prince Charles and Diana Spencer got engaged and married in 1981, of collecting everything to do with the Royal nuptials. I filled about 20 scrap books with newspaper and magazine cuttings, collected souvenir editions etc etc and I suppose, reached the closest point I've ever come in my life to obsession. But I was only 16 then, and by the time I was 17, the whole lot had been despatched to the bin because I woke one morning and couldn't see the point of having these things.

I have certain items I am attached to, of course. I have a little box of memories - Chris's first shoes, Heather's first bonnet, their christening gown. A couple of cards they made for me when they were at primary school. And my wedding dress and tiara. And all the letters and cards Andy has sent me over the last nearly 8 years since we first met. And until last weekend, my four foot teddy bear.

As a child, I never had a teddy bear. I don't remember missing not having a teddy bear. Perhaps the lack of teddy bear is the cause of my unsentimental nature. I don't know, but on my eighteenth birthday my Nanny... (who wasn't my real nanny; she was my Mum's nanny - my Mum grew up with 3 brothers and 2 sisters so they had a nanny, like in the film Nanny McPhee which is on telly later today...am I rambling? Shut up Denise)... gave me this teddy bear. He was big, she said, to make up for 18 years of not having a teddy bear.

Well, this bear, whom I called Sam, has been with me ever since. In two months time, I shall be 44 and he shall be a mere stripling at 26. Last weekend we did a boot fayre. (Me and Andy, not me and the Bear, that would be stupid). For the couple of weeks b.b.f (before boot fayre) I'd been building myself up to say goodbye to Sam and selling him. The house we are (hopefully) moving to is small and we're going to need all the room we can get. I determined I wasn't going to sell him for less than £20 and that the people who wanted to buy him would have to look 'right' and not seem the kind of people who would jump on him, vandalise him, or let their dog wee up his leg.

At the boot fayre, everyone who passed by our stall commented on Sam. In fact, if I had a pound for everyone who said 'Oooh, look at the size of that bear, isn't he lovely?' I would have made about £400 and could have brought him his own shed to live in.

I was hoping some kind of community group might pass by and buy him for a mascot. Or some nice people with nice children and a big house. But although many people enquired after him, no-one laid out their cash. So home he came.

And he 's been standing in my writing room staring reproachfully at me ever since.

So perhaps a strand of sentimental attachment was holding him to me. Perhaps he and I are due to live out our lives together.

I popped my head into the attic yesterday, after Andy had been up there for a couple of hours. Little piles of Doctor Who stuff were starting to accumulate.

'I think,' said Andy,' that you may need to take this stuff away quickly, before I change my mind.'
'You don't have to get rid of any of it,' I said, as my hubbie was looking a little forlorn and angsty.
'No,' said Andy, 'I do. I suppose I could sell some of it at a boot fayre or on e-bay.'
'Yes,' I said. 'There are bound to be masses of...'
'...other Doctor Who idiots out there who'll buy it?' Andy finished.
'That's not what I was going to say,' I said, because in truth I wasn't. 'But yes, it's the kind of stuff that will go to a good home.'

It's hard letting go of things that have outlived their purpose. But sometimes, if you're lucky, those things won't let go of you.