Starsky, Hutch and Huggy Bears

It was after listening to Silver Lady by David Soul in a restaurant the other day, that I was mulling over the names children (or more accurately in most cases, their parents) give to their favourite anthropomorphic toys.

Our eldest’s soft companion of choice was a small Kermit the Frog (known affectionately as Kermy or Mr K, depending on circumstance), complete with pointed ruff and dangly limbs. Our youngest, however, chooses to eschew all expensive soft toys in favour of a crappy little penguin which was given away with boxes of Persil when they were promoting the film Happy Feet. This bedtime cohort of choice is called – somewhat unimaginatively – Mr Penguin. Our nephew’s much beaten and eaten companion meanwhile, is called Gerry the Giraffe.

Some thirty-something years ago, my own little furry chum was called Jaffa – a small orange bear. My sister’s, bizarrely, was called David Soul, named after an affection for the lusciously-bouffanted actor from Starsky & Hutch.

Jaffa has sadly long since been lost, as has Kermy (documented elsewhere in this blog), and it’s possible that Mr Penguin and Gerry will one day follow, though strangely, David Soul still inhabits a place in my sister’s house as well as her heart. Now in his late thirties, he requires handling with the utmost care as his threadbare skin is excessively fragile and his foamy innards are in constant danger of spilling forth in an unsavoury manner.

Co-incidentally, the real David Soul is now equally decrepit, but to my knowledge doesn’t live in my sister’s house. Or does he? No-one’s seen him for years; he could be tucked away in the attic subsisting on bugs, dew and sporadic displays of regressive affection. Or perhaps he’s kept in a hutch of some sort? No, that would be too ironic.