Have a heartwarming story because why not. It’s a reunion story. I love reunions. I’m like Shakespeare in that way (and no other) – he was always staging separations so that he could stage reunions in Act 5. Cymbeline, for instance; there are so many reunions at the end of that play you have no idea who half the reunited characters are, but you soak your hanky just the same.
This reunion is a little girl and her stuffed friend Roar, whom she accidentally left on a train from York to London. Someone named Lauren found Roar at King’s Cross and posted pictures on Twitter.
She took a lot of pictures of Roar having adventures while waiting to be found, and they’re very funny and touching. Check them out for yourself. Having tea, at a pub, at the panto, at a hotel, on a morning walk on the quay in Newcastle, on the train back to London.
The Twitter saga worked and the little girl who lost Roar, who was devastated, is now happy again. Heartwarming eh? Go ahead, laugh; I don’t care.
Update: I forgot to mention: the tweet before the Roar series is an RT of Robin Ince. It all makes sense.
While it’s a nice story, why didn’t she take it to the “lost and found” office? They surely have them in Britain and that’s probably the first place the parents called after they noticed they’d lost the bear on the train.
She found him on a train out of Kings Cross going to Scotland. The train staff told her he’d end up in lost property in Inverness if they took him off her – since the train had arrived in Kings Cross from York there was no way the owner would be checking the lost property office there.
She did actually take him back to London to hand him in at Kings Cross lost property, but it is closed on weekends. In any case, he was spotted online and claimed by his owner’s family before she had a chance to hand him in, and is now on his way back home (which has saved them a trip to London from York and the fee for reclaiming an item from lost property).
Ah, ok, that explains things.
I’ve seen many lost teddies and the like in my Twitter TL, and as a result retweeted same. I’ve often wondered what eventually became of those worn-out enchanting souls. Did they ever find their owners. So in light of that unknown-ness… it is so heartening to read the positive travails of Roar. Indeed – Roar’s shabbiness and its little owners’ lovableness of him reminds me in a way of the protagonist in The Velveteen Rabbit (or How Toys Become Real) — which is a children’s novel written in 1922 by Margery Williams and beautifully illustrated by William Nicholson. It chronicles the story of a stuffed rabbit and his quest to become real through the love of his owner. Thanks to Lauren for her tremendous sensitivity in the way she presented the travails of Roar. He was safe in her hands, that’s for sure, and not destined to doom and gloom at the Scottish Highlands lost property office.
Aw. Knowing how much these teddy bears and similar animals can mean to the children
they belong tothey’re friends with, this was a real heartwarmer (and a big thank you to those people helping out in such search-and-rescue operations – you have no idea how many tears and heartbreak you’re saving for the children – and parents!! – involved!). Thanks, Ophelia!Twitter used for good – now that can’t be bad? Unusual perhaps.
Is that a bear? Looks like a lion to me.
Indeed, Ibis3, the owners confirmed that Roar is a lion, not a bear.
There’s a Teddy Bear Lost and Found Facebook page, BTW.
That is just darling. The Grommet has a bear like that named George. He went missing for a week and the poor boy was devastated. Glad the story has a happy ending!
Maybe Roar self-identifies as bear.
It was Pieter ^ who posted the story on Facebook yesterday so that’s how I found out about it.
I left my constant companion panda at home once when we went on a family vacation. It was just separation, not loss, but it was misery just the same. I think someone mailed it to us, but I’m not sure.
The trip on which Roar got lost was a surprise trip to London – so that means the surprise trip was kind of ruined because poor little Phoebe was crying the whole time.
rq – I think “belong to” is much more right than “friends with.” Not in the slavery sense, of course; the other sense.
It’s interesting, what a profound connection it is.
I tweeted at Lauren last night that she should make a little book out of it. I hope she does. The pictures of Roar’s weekend in Newcastle are just too sweet and funny and poignant to be ephemeral.
I maintain a strong ownership relation with Honey, a bear given to me when I was three months old. Honey is a very old bear by now and doesn’t do much traveling.
My panda ended up being just the skin, with no stuffing and very little fuzz left. I still have my brother’s earless green rabbit though. I think. Somewhere.
My mother tossed all my stuffed animals one day (unbeknownst to me) when I was about 13. She’s not a very sentimental person.
Ibis: She might still have consulted you first. These “small” things can be important. Much better to have made such decisions oneself. IMHO.
Ophelia – I would agree with you, except if you asked my kids right now, at the age they are, they’d say “friends with”. 😉 Which sort of speaks to the profoundness of the connection, I suppose. They give so much comfort and security for inanimate things, though when I was little, I had suspicions that my animals were alive… And there’s Calvin and Hobbes… And my favourite teddy bear picture, ever.
(But my old tiger is stuck in Canada, it travelled (half) the world with me years ago, holes in its belly and all… Poor thing.)