As members of the Followers of Rupert, the official fanbase of the little bear, arrive to take their seats for the pantomime, an air of excitement builds. Soon Bill Badger, Elephant Trunk, Algy Pug, and Rupert himself, will appear. “One year I remember a little boy came in with his mum and dad and sat there agog,” says Tony Griffin, 71, the man in charge. “He said, ‘magic’. And that’s what it was. It was magical.” The spell lasts for three days every summer – aside from this year due to the pandemic – when the Bridge House Theatre in Warwick is given over to the Followers’ annual get-together. It is a chance to meet old friends, swap collections and share meals, and even hobnob with the real-life equivalent of Rupert’s chums.
“It is like Enid Blyton wrote a Star Trek convention, with really nice people wearing red jumpers and drinking ginger beer,” explains writer and actor Adam Schumacher, 50, the director of the children’s pantomime.
“Everybody is so friendly and welcoming and it makes you proud to be British.”
The weekend is the highlight of the year for many of the fan club’s 1,000-strong members who hold Rupert Bear close to their hearts.
“I’ve been told we’re the most eclectic bunch of people I’ve ever met in my life – and we are!” says Warwick resident Tony.
“There are university professors, barristers, lawyers and doctors. We come from all walks of life.”
While members might lean towards an older demographic, there are many younger attendees too.
“I’ve made the most weird and wonderful friendships out of it,” says Tony’s daughter, Katie, 32, who aside from this year only missed the event when she had her daughter, Amelie, now four.
“I share a birthday with one member, John Swan, 72, setting a bond since I was eight years old, and as a child, I was penpals with other members,” she says.
Her brother Ben, 35, still comes too. Katie recalls running around the stately grounds of Wroxall Abbey in Warwickshire with him and other children in the days when the meet-ups attracted almost 700 members. “It was a key part of my childhood,” she says. “The friendships have lasted years and years. We have been to each other’s weddings.”
The Rupert play is one of the highlights of the Followers’ annual get-together (Image: Stephen Vent/OTFM Productions)
Retired primary school English teacher Mike Williams, 67, and his wife Gill, 58, have attended since the early 1990s, also bringing their two children for several years.
Mike became a member in 1987 after Gill, then his fiancee, knitted him a Rupert jumper at work and someone told her about the society.
He has established close friendships with half a dozen members since.
“We think of ourselves as an appreciation group where people have fun but can also hear interesting talks such as how the annuals are put together,” says Mike, a North Devon resident.
“Rupert is not my only interest but somehow it is one that involves many more people.”
Tony agrees. “We get together and we don’t really talk about Rupert but he’s the common denominator who brings us all together,” he says.
The festivities usually start on Thursday night over drinks in a nearby pub. Next morning the marketplace stalls are erected – you can even buy Rupert toilet roll I am told – before the haggling for rare memorabilia starts.
In the past, Rupert illustrators John Harold and Stuart Trotter have pulled up a chair to sign well-thumbed books, while guest speakers have given talks.
The get-together used to cover a single day but under Tony, it has grown to a three-day extravaganza featuring dances, bands and – nobody tell Podgy Pig – pig roasts.
More than a hundred people attended the last meet-up. “Sadly we lose a few members every year who go to the great Nutwood in the sky,” Tony says, although he remains upbeat.
“We are getting so many new people coming through and membership is really buoyant. Rupert is still loved and I hope he will be for many years to come.”
A life-sized Rupert Bear and his chums greet arrivals at the Followers’ weekend (Image: Christine Dobbs)
With coronavirus spoiling this year’s fun, the Followers were invited to a virtual version featuring old talks and never-before-seen archive footage.
“The older ones were able to see how young they were in those earlier days,” says John Beck, 77, the Followers’ secretary who compiles the newsletter three times a year.
“They were a lovely record of pleasant past times spent celebrating Rupert.”
He is a Nutwood guru who has copies of every original Rupert strip in the Daily and Sunday Express and compiles the Rupert Index, a comprehensive list of past publications now in its fourth edition.
John says the Followers are exactly like the Nutwood chums they adore. “Quite a few members have adopted, or been given, noms de plume of the characters,” he says.
John is the Wise Old Goat while his sub-editor, Pamela Stones, is Lily Duckling.
Not everyone who attends the get-togethers was enthralled to be there at first. Caroline Dobbin, 67, said her daughter Christine, now 39, was horrified when she was dragged along from Belfast, at 13, with her mother to their first meeting in 1994.
“She thought it would be awful, full of freaks, but the funny thing is she came along and enjoyed it so much,” Caroline laughs.
“She liked the different age groups, the eccentric people, and that they all seemed so nice. I think that’s due to the love of Rupert – people are all so sweet.”
Christine helped put together this year’s online meeting. Tony believes there is a shared nostalgia for a gentler past uniting people.
“We yearn for the times when you could leave your front door open all day and you didn’t have to worry,” he says.
“Your children could go and play outside, there wasn’t as much traffic. They were wonderful days that seemed blissful.”
And Caroline came away from one meeting with more than memorabilia – she met her partner John Beck there.
His lively conversation over dinner caught her attention, although admittedly for the wrong reasons.
“He got on my nerves a little as he’s quite loud and I’m quiet,” she jokes. “But as the evening wore on, a few glasses of wine were involved and we got chatting.”
Young Rupert fan Denbigh was only five-months-old when he was in his first show (Image: Adam Schumacher)
Caroline, a widow, and John kept in touch by phone, finally meeting up in Beddgelert, in Wales, the home of Rupert illustrator Alfred Bestall, to see his Rupert Memorial Garden.
She moved over from Ireland to live closer to John in his home of Lewes, East Sussex. Now they have been together for 25 years.
“If I hadn’t come over for the Rupert convention, I never would have met John,” she says.
“If I hadn’t started collecting Rupert books when my son was a baby, we never would have met.”
She likes that her relationship with John is built on the foundations of their favourite bear.
“We have got that same love for him and there’s just something about that type of a person,” she says.
Adam Schumacher is another person who counts himself lucky to have found the Followers.
It happened in 2003 when his company OTFM Productions was asked to put on a show after another firm pulled out.
He had just six weeks to prepare – and no scenery – but armed with the existing costumes and character heads, and his students from the Stagecoach Theatre Arts Stratford-Upon-Avon, he hatched a plan.
“I had just got back from Ireland and put Celtic music to the rhyming couplets script that we recorded,” he says. “It leant itself perfectly as it had this old-worldly quality.”
The children took to it immediately. “The Followers loved it and said it was exactly what they wanted and it became the best thing we do all year, and the happiest,” Adam says.
Performers are generally aged between six and 11, with Rupert usually played by a youngster of eight or nine.
There are exceptions. “My little boy, Denbigh, was only five months when he was first in it,” Adam says. “He’s played a fairy and mermaid among other parts.”
Over the years, the show has become a real family affair. “I invent a story every year, and my wife Lauren will write the script as she’s good at rhyming couplets,” Adam says.
One stalwart is Maddy Williams who has been in almost every production.
“Her dad also plays PC Growler because he once made the mistake of saying ‘Do you need any help?’ when we were low on adult cast members,” laughs Adam.
Maddy, now grown up and in her early twenties, returns regularly and always plays Rosalie Pig. “I think she’s slightly obsessed with her,” Adam teases.
Rupert Bear enthusiasts can buy rare memorabilia from sellers at the marketplace (Image: Christine Dobbs)
He’s sad this year’s Centenary production couldn’t go ahead. Rehearsals start three weeks before the big showcase.
“The moment the children put on the heads they all start colliding with one another,” he laughs.
“There are only two tiny holes at the front so they only have peripheral vision, but they get used to it.”
Each 20-minute show has a message of friendship and finishes with a dance. Members often get “very emotional”, Adam says.
“One piece of music in particular, ‘Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Charms’ has become our personal Rupert theme tune and has introduced all 16 productions to date,” he says.
“In fact, the Followers of Rupert say that they know it’s truly their weekend when they hear it play. It speaks of friendship and loyalty, and truly transports you to days gone by where the sun always seemed to shine.”
Hopefully, next year will see its return, with another chance for Nutwood and its prized friendships to come alive again.
For a limited time, new or returning full members can receive a Rupert money box and five new postcards, free with £3.49 P&P. Visit followersofrupertbear.co.uk to find out more.
