Paddington to meet fans at London’s Paddington Station

Published on 7 February 2017

If you’re planning a trip via Paddington Station this Friday, 10 February, then come and meet Paddington!^TM. The nation’s favourite marmalade-loving bear from Peru, and mascot of children’s charity Action Medical Research, will be appearing at intervals throughout the day in ‘The Lawn’ area of the iconic London station.

Paddington will be joined by volunteers from the Fast Track Civil Service who will be giving out balloons and activity sheets for children and collecting donations for Action Medical Research, Paddington’s favourite UK charity.

The fun will be happening as part of Network Rail’s #LovePaddington event, celebrating the new look historic Paddington Station and further improvements to come as part of the Railway Upgrade Plan.

UK-wide children’s charity Action Medical Research celebrated 40 years with Paddington Bear^TM as its official mascot in 2016. Paddington has been at the heart of fundraising for the charity ever since his creator, Michael Bond, met Action’s founder Duncan Guthrie back in 1976 and his friendly face has helped to attract thousands of new supporters who together have raised millions of pounds to help babies and children.

For 65 years Action Medical Research has been saving and changing children’s lives and has spent more than £115 million funding medical breakthroughs, including helping to introduce the first polio vaccines in the UK, discovering the importance of taking folic acid before and during pregnancy to prevent spina bifida, developing the use of ultrasound in pregnancy and testing the rubella vaccine.

The charity is currently funding research into conditions including prematurity, epilepsy, meningitis, cerebral palsy, brain cancer and some rare and distressing conditions.

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For high-res images of Paddington sharing a marmalade sandwich with some young friends, please click on the links below:

https://www.action.org.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/press/paddington_bear_and_sandwiches_1.jpg

https://www.action.org.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/press/paddington_bear_and_sandwiches_2.jpg

https://www.action.org.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/press/paddington_bear_and_sandwiches_4.jpg

NOTES FOR EDITORS:

About Paddington:

For almost 60 years, British-born writer Michael Bond has been entertaining children and families all over the world with his stories about Paddington, the bear from Darkest Peru famous for his love of marmalade. Since the first book, A Bear Called Paddington, was published by HarperCollins in 1958, a further 13 full-length novels and countless other formats have been published. Paddington’s adventures have been adapted several times for television and at the end of 2014 Paddington made his debut onto the big screen. A second Paddington movie, Paddington 2, is set to launch 10 November, 2017. In recognition of Paddington’s extraordinary popularity and success, Michael Bond was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) from the Queen for services to children’s literature in 1997 and a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 2015.

Today, there are over 150 titles available in 40 languages and in more than 100 countries, book sales are in excess of 35 million. The Paddington DVD was the fastest and strongest selling DVD of 2015 in the UK. Paddington has a growing online presence with over 600 thousand Facebook fans and over 20 thousand Twitter followers.

In 2016 the Paddington brand was purchased by Vivendi.

Follow Paddington on Twitter at @paddingtonbear
Like Paddington’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/PaddingtonBear/

For more information on Action Medical Research, contact Toni Slater, Interim Fundraising Communications Officer, on:
T: 01403 327480
E: tslater@action.org.uk
W: action.org.uk

Follow us on Twitter at @actionmedres and @amr_events
Like our Facebook page at facebook.com/actionmedres
Follow us at pinterest/actionmedres

Action Medical Research is a leading UK-wide charity saving and changing children’s lives through medical research. For 65 years we’ve helped pioneer ways to prevent disease and develop treatments benefiting millions of people. Our research has helped to beat polio in the UK, develop ultrasound, fight meningitis and prevent stillbirths. But we urgently need to develop more new treatments and cures for sick babies and children and we can’t do it without you.

Join our fight for little lives today.

Charity reg. nos 208701 and SC039284.

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