Amid all the noisy hatred, a polite reminder of the value of manners

TheRe were not many words on the luggage label around Paddington Bear’s neck but they set out his stall splendidly. They began with the word ‘Please’ and ended with ‘Thank you’.

The words in between – ‘look after this bear’ – spoke to children about taking care of their toys, particularly teddies.

But they spoke to the man who wrote them, Paddington’s creator Michael Bond, of the evacuee children arriving at Reading railway station en route to temporary homes during the Second World War.

A little politeness went a long way in Paddington’s case, of course, and he was given a comfortable berth with the Brown family.

Affable

But even in my days of watching children’s TV the bumbling bear in the duffle coat with the marmalade sandwiches under his hat seemed mildly dated – the product of a middle-class, english imagination which had imbued the character with eccentricities from rather closer to home than Paddington’s native Peru.

At a time when the kids from Grange hill were getting into drugs and Blue Peter presenters were getting into the tabloids, what did an unfailingly affable teddy bear really have to say to young people?

Plenty, it turns out, and as Britain remembers Bond – who died this week at the age of 91 – it is a pity we didn’t listen more closely.

‘People don’t care about manners and being polite any more,’ lamented the writer in an interview last year. ‘I was speaking to someone the other day who said they see politeness as a weakness. I think that is simply awful. Paddington is polite and has excellent manners.’

Bond based the character on his father who, winningly, always wore a hat – even at the beach – so that he would have something to raise at a passer-by.

Compare this inbuilt civility to the reflex contempt with which much of British life is lived today.

Turn on the telly for a bit of music at the weekend and find philosopher pop stars who say ‘F*** the Tories’ to their audiences as readily as ‘hello Glastonbury!’

Indeed, the expression is so ubiquitous at such gatherings it is almost a breach of etiquette for the virtue-signalling celeb NOT to trot it out.

Just ask Channel 4 News anchor Jon Snow, 69, a clever man who was allegedly overheard bellowing those very words at Glastonbury while posing with the righton, selfie-seeking shavers.

Tune in to the State Opening of Parliament and find Jeremy Corbyn walking wordlessly alongside Theresa May to the Lords, too contemptuous to engage, too furious about What The Tories have Done To This Country – or, at least, too intent on looking that way.

Listen to the ever-irritated Nicola Sturgeon who graciously respects referendum results only for as long as it takes her to say she does, and wants people to believe that parties who seek to form governments after winning more votes than any others at general elections must be ‘clinging to power’.

Mr Corbyn used the same line – unperturbed by the fact it is so hare-brained that trying it out on the public is in itself an act of discourtesy.

I could stomach much more of the hard Left and even of Nationalism if it were not for the righteous fury which drives it and incites its followers to be rude to any and all who disagree with them.

Certainly, some events require reactions rather stronger than Paddington’s trademark disapproving stare. The anger of those affected by the Grenfell Tower tragedy is entirely commensurate with the criminally negligent circumstances in which at least 80 people died.

We cannot simply stare down terrorism or say ‘tsk tsk’ to racism.

But the principal drivers of 21st century rage on these islands are much more nuanced issues: Brexit, the independence referendum parts one and two, austerity, fracking, tuition fees…

And here we may do well to reflect on the sights and sounds at Reading railway station which inspired the creation of a well-mannered bear called Paddington. These were children clutching little suitcases on the platform as they tried to figure out the next stages of their journey.

There was nothing nuanced about their circumstances. They were fleeing for their lives, leaving homes which, in the months ahead, may or may not be flattened by hitler’s Luftwaffe.

It seems curious that the self-effacing Paddington Bear should emerge from as desperate a tableau as this while, from peacetime and relative prosperity, spring inflated egos despoiling public life with their boorish rectitude.

Painful

The Glasgow-born broadcaster Andrew Marr blames Twitter for the intemperate ‘maniacs’ whose ceaseless vitriol would lead the visiting alien to conclude Britain was in the midst of a civil war.

By contrast, those he meets in public are ‘courteous and intelligent’.

I’d like to believe there is still some truth in that. But Twitter is merely the latest platform for attention-seekers to be painful in public. Almost 20 years of reality TV shows thriving on conflict suggests we’ve been going down this road for a while.

If Mr Marr is even part right, though, how sinister of public figures such as Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell to play to the mob by promoting rage over reason. how impolite to the rest of us.

If there are quiet moments at the bathroom mirror, men such as he should road-test the Paddington stare. If nothing else, it would afford them much-needed thinking time.