‘Why am I so furtive about wanting a new teddy bear?'

This week’s columnist: Gabrielle Mullarkey

My teddy bear Randolph is no more. Let me say straight off that I’ve never been a sentimental collector of soft toys, nor the kind of kid who sat exams with their lucky gonk on display.

But years later, when I was living abroad and on my own, I won Randolph in a raffle. He came pre-christened with his moniker on a bow around his neck.

To my surprise, we bonded immediately, possibly because he reminded me of an ex I’d left back in Blighty – large, fluffy, glassy-eyed, and rather strong and silent.

Randolph accompanied me on further adventures and eventually, back to Blighty, and in the mysterious way of these things, he came to reside in the back of a wardrobe in a relative’s home, where I never doubted he was safely, if dustily, intact.