BEAR WITH ME

At the risk of sounding like Sir John Betjeman on a bad day, I'd like, today, to celebrate a childhood teddy-bear called Dan, who disappeared from my life nearly seventy years ago but haunts my memories still. 
Unlike most teddy bears, Dan was not a rotund, roly-poly fellow but, instead, rather a scrawny chap whose resemblance to a bear was approximate at best. 
His arms and legs were unnaturally long and his face wore a permanently worried look.
As I recall, he was clad in navy corduroy dungarees and, even in his youthful days, looked decidedly scruffy. 
I doubt he was a hand-me-down, since I was the eldest child in my family, although perhaps I inherited him from an older cousin.
Whatever his provenance, he was very dear to me.
Sadly, no images of Dan exist. The photograph below is of a rather over-weight Dan-lookalike.

   










 


 







FLAWS

That old plaid shirt with ragged sleeve,
scarred work boots like a tomcat’s nose,
the ragged blue jeans, worse for wear,
and straw-hat with its missing straws,
are dearer to me, I believe,
than wardrobes full of brand-new clothes:
the perfect-new does not compare
to things we love despite their flaws.