Why we should all be more like Paddington
Padding ton author Michael Bond’ s daughter has called for people to follow the famous bear’s example and show more kindness.
Bond, the creator of the marmalade -loving b ear, died in 2017 at the age of 91.
Karen Jank el said her father was disheartened by a more polarised world and waning empathy before he died.
“I think he found it all rather de pressing, and with passing time he hankered more and more for the world of his youth,” she said.
“We’re all going through the most terrible trauma at the moment[ with the pandemic] and I think if everybody could be more like Paddington we will probably come through a bit more unscathed.”
Ms Jankelw as speaking in the run-up to World Kindness Day, on Friday. A collection of quotes from the bear from Peru – How To Be More Paddington: A Book Of Kindness – has been published.
“Paddington as a character is very kind, very down to Earth,” Ms Jankel said. “He doesn't suffer fools. If he doesn’t like something, he was there with his hard st are. So it doesn’ t mean to say that you should be totally compliant.”
But she said he showed “kindness and thought for others”.
Because Bond, whose first Paddington book was published in 1958, “would think about whatever he said very carefully when he wrote ”, he was“bothered” by social media, Ms Jankel said.
But, citing the likes of Captain Sir Tom Moore’s charity efforts and clapping for the NHS, “it has reignited people's kindness and thought for others,” she added.