Mine is a picture of my original 1986 Pudsey Bear soft toy brandishing a Beolink 1000.
Long story, but my home town of Pudsey (in Leeds, West Yorkshire) was also the home town of the artist who designed Pudsey Bear for the BBC. Now us Pudsarians are a proud lot, and when she was asked if she wanted to name the yellow bear she'd been commissioned to design as the Children in Need mascot, she had no hesitation in plumping for the name of the town where she grew up.
I've been exiled in Sheffield for the past 10 years, and as I've worn my fierce civic pride on my sleeve during this time, people have continually bought me Pudsey bear presents as a kind of sop to my yearnings for a return to my home town. So much has this been the case, that I now not only have an original Pudsey Bear soft toy from the first year of Childern in Need to look after my remote controls, but I also have a Pudsey Bear apron, cake tin, cookie cutter, sandwich box, key ring, assorted badges, and (rather unusually) drinking straw. The themed products rather amused my friends in Sheffield, and proved a handy reminder of where I was from should anyone forget, but as I've recently moved back to the promised land, I'm now starting to feel like it might be a bit of overkill given that most Pudsarians don't really care that much about Pudsey Bear! We used to have a bush near the entrance to Pudsey Park sculpted into the form of Pudsey Bear by the council, but it was unfortunately located very close to one of the rougher pubs in the area, and I seem to recall that Pudsey's nose made a handy recepticle for a pint pot whilst some of the locals relieved themselves over Pudsey's feet after a few pints of Stella and dust up in The Park pub opposite.................
