Bears Here and There

It was on my first Christmas which I could enjoy (being born in December) that I got my first toy bear, later renamed Mr. Bogey, as a present. So, he was born in 1939, he'll be soon 64.
I lost it once in the early nineteen-forties on top of the hill Svábhegy, my father turned round at home when we found Bogey missing, went back and returned with him. Much later, on a stroll with my wife near the place, years seventy, we revived the old terrible and sinister event, already smiling. The place, oh, it was a thistle-grown, jolty spot at a ditch edged with deep grass. That's how a tow-and-sawdust-stuffed bear and nature grow together.
Bogey survived the siege of the town, and I fail to remember if I cuddled him a lot or not. Mother knitted him a tiny waistcoat as his side was too worn. In my late teens I began to feel ashamed of my wonderful, classic but, honestly, unimposing bear. For many years he slept with mother. Then my marriage in 1967 brought back the prestige of bears. My wife had a job with Applied Arts Enterprise, and made the acquaintance of Mrs. Kucsera, an artist of many crafts and a warm-hearted designer and sewer of toy bears. That's how my Bogey had to share his distinguished place in an armchair with Dömi (nickname for Demetrius), my future Arch-Bear. And with a lot of others. It took some time before they became (let's understate it with due modesty) a legend. The beginning was rather troublesome.
After two volumes of poetry, besides all modernism and eternality (hhmm!), and after my booklet written halfway for children and halfway for grownups, yet wholly for anyone, Bears Here and There - was it possible that bears (by then together with the heartily embraced poor Australian koala bears) enter "serious" literature? It was possible. To my great embarrassment.
Since I am writing this for grownups and professionals, let me add it with a somewhat sour sneer: all I wrote after the two poetic volumes, my poems and prose for adults and children had little appeal for the elected that make school books. The so-called postmodernism was no more inclined to realize that details and niceties can be, just in the spirit of their own (post-modern) tenets, extremely relevant.
I am going to write about our birds (from 1977 to this day) another time, here let it suffice that, from the arrival of the second bear on, things were easier. A little audience took shape around me (us); now I can write about the museums of the Ruhr region or Irish poets as well as about Dömi and Bogey and the others. Nay, they are constant main characters of my life. With the two Koala football leagues, and their matches that I have played together with my wife since 1972 (34 years in the calendar!)
My finest story about bears? It happened in London. I wanted to buy a small pullover as a present. I was at a loss with size. English size figures baffled me. Shall I phone home? No, a waste of money. I was rambling on, and then the dull, rainy winter morning was lit up by the offer of a shop-window. Bear magazines! English, American. I added and subtracted . and found that with the pullover I might mistake the size, while two of each magazine would make a safely valuable buy. And I did accordingly. The bear on the cover of one of those bear-monthlies, printed on fine glossy paper, got the name Zachariah, and he, beside the old bronze bear couple inherited from my grandparents and a short-lived sparrow, is a titulary member of my favourite team.

Dezső Tandori

From the books for children and young people by Dezső Tandori

Bears Here and There (with two later, enlarged editions).
Several books of poetry with bears and koalas (even for adults: The Ceiling and the Floor).
Several books of prose, among others: The Bird-shy Badminton Ball, Bearfoot and Pals, plus Hold on to Your Teddy still waiting for a publisher (since 1988!).
Five or six radio plays for young people.
Lots of books on birds. (I don't enumerate them here by titles, as most of my adult books contain birds and bears in a considerable proportion, but I can not give exact figures, only about the championships. My Chief Bear, for instance, has won several gold medals on different tournaments. And I haven't yet written this book, about the tournaments. I have a pen friend with whom I correspond exclusively about tournaments, though we do not neglect other concerns of life, either. I disbelieve that the vicinity of bears may lead anyone to barren phsychics. ('scuse! D.T.)