The bear with one eye and one floppy ear, was found abandoned at Bristol Airport, in a bag together with a black and white photograph of two little girls and the antique toy. On the back of the photo it was written: ‘With dearest love and kisses to our darling Daddie from your loving little daughters Dora and Glyn.’
The date the picture was taken was confirmed after they discovered a second message on the postcard: ‘taken on Baby’s birthday March 4th 1918, one year and five-months-old.’
Staff at Bristol Airport have been trying to trace down the owner of the bear and they have finally identified ‘Daddie’ as Nicholas James Baker, who died during the First World War in Baghdad and was buried with full military honours.
The picture was taken just a month before ‘Daddie’ died. The two little girls have been identified as Dora and Glyn Baker from Abergavenny, South Wales and they were the ones who were writing a postcard to their dad, the same postcard that was found in the bag.
Although they managed to find the family, the airport staff haven’t yet succeeded in contacting any living relatives and they are hoping that someone who knows the Baker family will come forward and claim the lost teddy.
‘We gained a lot of interest once we went out with the story we had found the bear,” said Jacqui Mills, an airport spokeswoman.
According to Ms Mills, historians and ancestral forums have offered to help. With all the information they had, they managed to identify the two girls and find out who their father was; the only thing that keeps the bear away from his owner is that nobody has come forward to claim him. ‘We would love to find them and reunite them with this lovely bear,’ said Mills.
When the experts noticed the studio name on the photo, they tracked down the studio and found out the picture was taken in Wales, where Dora and Glyn are from, the Mail Online reports.
BBC Antiques Roadshow expert, Hilary Kaye, said the one-eyed teddy bear was made by Farnells, a British manufacturer and that Winnie the Pooh was inspired from that same type.
Staff at Bristol Airport spent 14 months looking through lists of passenger names and flight records, as they tried to find the two girls mentioned on the back of the postcard.