Rememberwhen?

We begin with our cuddly friends that we held onto on cold nights and in moments of uncertainty and grief. They gave us a sense of protection that warmed our hearts. The ones I have compiled are ones before my own baby steps. This collection is where we start our journey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teddy is the first stuffed animal in this collection. He is the first one that I can remember, even as a child I remember him being old. Teddy is a physical reminder of the purest innocence of life where you are not conscience but still crave comfort and love. On the archiving front, finding a name, model, or any information about this teddy has been difficult. The tag (surprisingly intact) says ‘Somerset Quality Soft Toys’ I can see many teddies of a similar ilk online but none that actually closely resemble the one I have. Image searches also reveal nothing either. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winnie the Pooh without his red shirt is a stuffed toy that I can remember since forever just like the Teddy. He did have a red shirt of that I am certain but it is completely lost to time. It is emblematic of an older persons cynicism that I noticed while surveying this item that before we could even form memories Disney were already marketing to us at such a young age. Regardless of the cynicism, Winnie the Pooh as a brand is a mainstay of many people’s childhoods even today. The characters are iconic and instantly recognisable to everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This entry in the archive I find rather fascinating, for one, it is my first entry with relevant data regarding the archived piece and not just my own writings of my ownership. Secondly, this Tigger was both a stuffed animal and a ‘toy’, in the sense you could put batteries into it and by pressing a button on his paw he would speak voice lines from some of the movies. Unfortunately, Tigger’s voice is gone. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see that in the archiving process so early I see how playthings evolve subtly. The item looks and feels like a stuffed animal, though it plants the seeds of later playthings and how they function.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Along with the Tigger plush I owned this tiger plush made by Kellytoys, who are still making stuffed animals today. It’s a floppy kind of plushy and I believe that it is why it was one of my favourites when I was young it wasn’t heavy and was easy to move around.

 

 

 

 

This plush is similar to the Tigger plush, having a voice box that does not currently work, I cannot find information on to what the voice box actually says/does. One imagines it is probably some voice lines and maybe a bark.

Another entry where it’s level of genericness is great, as a stuffed animal but for archiving makes it difficult to find exact information due to the lack of serial numbers, and image searches bringing up other Gromit teddies (all but this one).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I do in fact remember this one and it’s origin. I have supplied exact data of the Panda as a product. Firstly, I remember seeing it on a Christmas morning when I was seven years old, it was beside a few playstation games and the sort. I remember thinking having a stuffed animal at that age was fine as long as it wasn’t really small, I don’ really know what my logic was there. Having exact information on the Panda has made me realise that there is many listings for it on eBay, Etsy etc. Ironic, as I have confirmed with my mother that she did buy it off eBay at the time also, so this has come a little bit full circle in a way, because I was confused as to how a stuffed animal from the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington D.C made it’s way to Waterford.

Thus, this ends this entry of the archive, the stuffed animals serve as the first taste of playthings in early life and is a major building block. Unfortunately, it remains hardest to archive, they are harder to identify than my other archiving endeavours. The other factor is that many of these are 20 years old thus, there are items I just simply cannot find or source unless I break down the walls in my house. Later entries provide more detailed identifiers to the archive, though this page was a necessity in order to set the stage for this archive.