Teddy Bears

When we arrived in England in 1953 we did what many new immigrants did, we moved in with family friends who had emigrated from India before us. Then, after 6 months, we bought our first home. My parents also bought a TV and radiogram within the first few months of settling into our home. Pretty forward thinking for those days.  There was only one TV channel and just three BBC radio channels. Back in those days a lot of the programming concerned people talking or maybe dramatic plays but very little pop.
One of the most popular radio shows was on Saturday morning for a couple hours of children’s favorites. Requests came in from children to hear tunes that they liked. I was recently watching a documentary on Eric Clapton and he mentioned being a child and listening to the same show. His early introduction to music. A favourite song that was constantly requested was one called The Teddy Bears Picnic it was done by Henry Hall. I remember it well from those Saturday mornings.   It also was a song we sang as a family in Calcutta. 

Even before Disney turned Winnie the Pooh into a worldwide money making machine, the simple but sweet philosophy of Winnie the Pooh was a big hit with the hippies and the love generation. I remember having a small paperback called the hums of pooh. In wide circulation again in the mid-sixties.  (I am pretty sure a friend showed it to me first. We shared its insights over many coffees.)
One of the original members of  Buffalo Springfield was singer-songwriter and later producer,  Jim Messina. When Springfield broke up Jim hooked up with Kenny Loggins  and as a duo, Loggins and Messina they had quite a few hits. They had a lovely one where they’re singing about Winnie the Pooh. It’s called the house at Pooh corner.

I loved reading when we were 6 by A.A.Milne to my daughter and my mother would sing "They're Changing Guards at Bucking Palace"...

(Christopher Robin Went Down with Alice,) to them also.

Teddy Bears Picnic - Henry Hall

House at Pooh Corner - Loggins & Messina

They're Changing Guards at Bucking Palace - Vera Lynn

        

OTIS REDDING

December 10, 1967 I was working my first serious full-time adult job in Oxford, England. I was an editor at the Clarendon Press, a part of  the OUP (Oxford University Press). The office was on Saint Giles, then an old road from the Woodstock & Banbury Road junction and the shopping district and at the edge of various colleges. I had a short two stop bus ride or about a half an hour walk from the office in order to get “home”.  I finished at five pm and walked to my bed sit on Chalfont Road, made a simple meal on my one-ring burner and put on the BBC News on the transistor radio.  I was shocked to hear of the death of the great Otis Redding in a plane crash in the US. Along with members of the Bar-Kays who were backing him on the tour. I actually cried. 
He was a great artist that all my friends and I admired. My friends and I went as a large group to see him, (and the whole revue,) in the great Stax-Volt Revue when it came to London. As I discovered later, The Beatles & Stones were in attendance too, as they were huge fans.

51 years later he is still admired around the world and his great posthumous number one hit, recorded  just days before he died (Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay remains a staple of radio in the 21st-century.