My two loyal blog readers will be thrilled to know that I’ve seen the first two statues in the Paddington series. The top photo is from the Cathedral Close in Norwich and the bottom photo is from Chester. They’re part of a series of 24 locations around the country where these statues have been placed and they certainly seem to be popular with the Norwich one having a little queue of people waiting to take a photo. They’re marking the release of the third instalment of the Paddington Bear film series which was released at the end of 2024 and they appear to be a clever way of marketing that film. One of the statues was vandalised in Newbury and Daniel Heath and William Lawrence have been arrested and charged with damaging it. It’s one of those pernicious crimes that causes upset to a local community and children, but as something far more positive, it’s rather lovely to see the happiness that they engender.

The locations are:

Ashby
Birmingham
Bury St Edmunds
Cardiff
Chester
County Mayo
Edinburgh
John O’ Groats
Lanark
Land’s End
Liverpool
London Paddington
London Westfield
Manchester
Newbury
Newtownards
Norwich
Penrith
Peterborough
Reading
Salisbury
Southampton
Sunderland
York

And now I suppose I’ll end up traipsing around looking for some more to suit my completionist tendencies.