STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The writer who created Paddington Bear has died. Michael Bond was behind the well-mannered-but-accident-prone bear.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
In 1958, readers first discovered the bear sitting on his suitcase at a London train station, having smuggled himself from, quote, "deepest, darkest Peru."
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Reading) I'm not really supposed to be here at all. I'm a stowaway. I came all the way in a lifeboat, and I ate marmalade. Bears like marmalade.
INSKEEP: Of course.
MARTIN: That's a reading from the first book in Michael Bond's series. Paddington and his adopted family later starred in a TV series and a movie.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PADDINGTON")
HUGH BONNEVILLE: (As Henry Brown) You need a proper guardian.
BEN WHISHAW: (As Paddington) What's that?
SALLY HAWKINS: (As Mary Brown) It's a grown-up who takes you into their home, looks after you.
WHISHAW: (As Paddington) Like you?
HAWKINS: (As Mary Brown) Yes, well, I suppose so.
INSKEEP: Paddington's creator was a veteran of World War II. He was in Cairo when he wrote his first story in 1945. In later years, he was working as a BBC cameraman when he thought of Paddington.
MARTIN: He was inspired by a single stuffed bear for sale in a store. A few years before his death at 91, Bond said Paddington's story resonates in a time of refugee crises.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MICHAEL BOND: Paddington in a way is a refugee. And I think his label saying please look after this bear is a very important ingredient.
MARTIN: Author Michael Bond did look after that bear through 14 Paddington books.
(SOUNDBITE OF BOYFRIENDS' "SIZE TEN SHUFFLE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.