Bear before. Bear after.

Sophie-daughter thought I had thrown her favourite bear away. He was made for me before my birth so that makes him - as old as the Dead Sea Scrolls really, and equally precious! When I found him in a plastic bag at the bottom of a pile of junk I was appalled to see how he had degraded. Never a top-of-the-range bear - this was the end of the war (second - please!) after all, and the family didn't have much money but he had leather upper arms and paws, and a real sheepskin face which had become all moth-eaten and ghastly. I felt terrible; as though I'd neglected an elderly relative! I knew I'd never be able to make him better but my ex's wife (my sister-in-law?) is amazing at all things detailed and fiddly, has enormous patience, and by dint of taking a bit from one place and putting it in another, matching faded shades of fur, and using some spare trousering, he was reincarnated in time for Easter (appropriately enough.) There was a touching reunion.