The Mayor of Buckingham 2017/2019: The Mayor's Bear visits Bourton Meadow Nursery

I had simply the most charming time visiting the Bourton Meadow Academy Nursery last week. The Buckingham Mayor has a bear* and so it was appropriate to take him with me when I visited the nursery. The children were delightful and it seemed, a little in awe of their Mayor reading them a story. Here are some pics of my visit (thank you to Rebecca Jackson, one of the staff for these pics).

I had such a wonderful time, if there are any other nurseries that would like a visit from the Mayor to read them a story, please get in touch!

The book I read was The Chimpanzees Of Happytown by Giles Andreae and Guy Parker-Rees. It's a fabulous story which features a rather grumpy Mayor... (Thanks to Town Council officer, Nina Stockhill for loan of the book and for fixing up the visit in the first place.)

* But.. the Mayor's Bear... what is that all about? Here is a short history as compiled by Katharine McElligott, the Town Council's planning officer:

We organised a teddy bears’ picnic in 2007, intended to be on the Church grass, with a marionette show we booked occasionally for children’s events and the Community Fair to keep children occupied in the small hall while their parents took the weight off their feet and had tea and mince-pies. There was other children’s entertainment and games as well, organised by the (documented, safe) staff from Tumbletots on Bridge Street (now PK Kidszone?) with their equipment (hoops, skittles, and so on). We had a similar event in 2008 and 2009, the last with a Best-dressed Teddy competition, photos on file under Events.

Due to inclement weather we moved the whole event to Tumbletots (where we discovered the entrance lobby was the exact width of the marionette theatre, handily) and everyone had a super time. (Marionette Man could make his puppets do magic tricks, he was rather good).

However, the Mayor and Town Crier were to open proceedings in the usual manner, and Cllr Howard Mordue, the Mayor at the time, said that he couldn’t go to a Teddy Bear’s Picnic without a teddy bear. Cllr Ruth Newell produced a bear she’d won in a raffle, but her children were well into their teens by then, and it was sitting around doing not a lot. I bought a damask skirt which was going to be junked at the Willen Shop as the zip was broken and a square of red felt from Nimble Thimble, and added some oddments from my ribbon and lace bag and cobbled him up a costume. Russell Cross (the Town Crier) subsequently found the little Mayor pin for his hat, which he donated. Helen Hill from the Old Gaol also confirmed that the oddment of lace I used for the jabot was, in fact Buckingham lace (which I hadn’t known).

Howard went to the teddy bears picnic with the bear, which was joined by his Mouvaux partner (Mouv-ours). (Ours is French for bear, pronounced oors.) Brackley brought theirs to the next Mayormaking.