Michael bond was born in Newbury , Berkshire, in January 1926. Educated at Presentation College, Reading ,he served in both the Royal Air Force and the Middlesex Regiment of the British Army during the Second World War.

He first began writing in 1945 when he was in the Army . His first short story sold to a magazine  called London Opinion and he received a cheque for seven guineas as his free. From then on, he decided that he wanted to be a writer.

He never thought of writing for children but, after producing  a number of short stories and radio plays , his agent suggested that he adapt a television play for children.

His first book, A BEAR CALLED PADDINGTON, was published by William Collins and Sons (now Harper Collins Publishers) in 1958. Michael Bond recalls how the book came out:

"I bought a small toy bear one Christmas Eve. I saw it left on the shelf of a London store and I felt sorry of it. I took it home for a present for my wife Brenda and named it Paddington, because we were living near Paddington station at the time. I wrote some stories about the bear. more for fun than with the idea of having them published. After ten years, I found that I had a book on my hands. It wasn’t written specifically for children. but I think I put into it the kind of things that I liked reading  about when I was young."

In 1965, after producing several Paddington titles, Michael Bond retired from his Job as a television cameraman with the BBC, a Job he had held for many years , in order to write fulltime. Of Paddington himself, Michael Bond says:

The great advantage of having a bear as a central character is that he can combine the innocence of a child with the sophistication of an adult. Paddington’s  not the sort of bear who would ever go to the moon- he has his paws too firmly  on the ground for that. He gets involved in everyday situations. He has a strong sense of right and wrong  and doesn`t take kindly  to the red-tape bureaucracy of the sillier rules and regulations with which we humans surround ourselves. As a bear, he gets away with things. Paddington is humanised, but he couldn’t possibly be `human`. It just wouldn’t work."

The Paddington books have sold over thirty million copies worldwide and have been translated into nearly thirty different languages. Michael Bond continues:

"I am constantly surprised by all these translations because I thought that Paddington was essentially an English character. Obviously Paddington-type situations happen to people all over the world."

With his extraordinary flair for developing characters, Michael Bond has also created the children's television classic 'The Herbs', books about a highly unusual guinea-pig called 'Olga da Polga', for adults, 'Monsieur Pamplemousse', peripatetic detective and gastronome par excellence, with his faithful hound, Pommes Frites.

In total, he has written nearly 150 books, including his autobiography, ‘BEARS AND FOREBEARS' published in the UK by Harper Collins.

In July 1997 was awarded the OBE for his services to children's literature. He is married with two grown-up children and lives not far from Paddington station, in London's Little Venice.

Official Paddington-Site: Paddington Bear - The Official Website 

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