Humphrey, the beloved bear from Craft Corner and the Bear’s Den, has found a new home at Rotherham Hospice.

His owners, Dawn and Keith Topliss, who have been his guardians for almost 30 years, decided to donate Humphrey to the Hospice’s Sunbeams children’s bereavement service so that he can bring joy to a new generation of children.

Having opened Craft Corner and the Bear’s Den in the Imperial Buildings in 1995, they acquired Humphrey a few years later when a couple of bear collectors called Mr and Mrs Boynton asked if they’d like a large bear for their bear shop.

“They’d won him on a raffle but had no children or grandchildren to pass him onto,” says Dawn. “They said he was a large bear, but I didn’t realise how big until I went to collect him. I had to strap him into the front seat of my car with the seatbelt on and every time I stopped at traffic lights on the way home, people would be looking at him in disbelief or waving at him.”

Humphrey became an instant hit with Craft Corner’s customers, gaining quite the fan club of both children and adults alike.

At the Imperial Buildings, the bear shop was separate from the craft side and Humphrey was placed on the steps interlinking both shops. Children would come and sit with him while their parents browsed the shop.

Many a time, these children would come back as adults to have their photo with him years later.

When they moved to Riverside Precinct, Humphrey went with them. Dawn and Keith made space for him in the window but didn’t realise the cheeky chap’s bottom was pressed up against the glass.

“People would come in the shop when they’d walked past from the old Tesco just to see who the bottom belonged to!” Dawn says.

As the shop’s mascot, Humphrey went through the ups and downs alongside his owners. In 2010, when they had a fire in the Riverside shop, it looked like his time was sadly up.

However, the fire brigade rescued the big bear from the flames, putting him upstairs out of harm’s way.  

His coat was full of smoke but, save for a couple of scorch marks on his head, he was relatively unscathed. They took him home to clean him up, with Dawn unpicking him and taking out all his stuffing so that he could have a good bath.

After a cycle in the washing machine, and being hung on the washing line to dry, he was restuffed and ready to go back to the shop.

“We had lots of people phoning the shop when they heard about the fire just to check on Humphrey. Everybody loved him,” says Keith.

When they moved to their final home on High Street, Humphrey went with them again. One of their shop assistants, Rebecca, offered to carry him through town. But Dawn says she wasn’t much bigger than Humphrey so it looked like he’d taken himself off for a walk through Minster Gardens.

Dawn and Keith closed the shop in 2020 and since then Humphrey has been sitting in their conservatory at home. This year, they decided it was time to find him a new home after 27 years.

“We didn’t know what to do with him as the thought of parting with him after all this time was hard,” says Keith. “When we had the shop we always fundraised for Rotherham Hospice and any change customers told us to keep we’d donate to them too. Humphrey going to the hospice felt like the right place.”

Humphrey has now found his new home within the hospice’s Sunbeams service which offers bereavement support sessions to children and young people. The children love to play with him or use his big cuddly self as a beanbag.

The hospice team said: “We’re so grateful to Dawn and Keith for thinking of us and for their kindness in donating Humphrey. It’s such a lovely gesture and really reflects the care and thought they’ve always shown. Acts like this mean a lot to our Sunbeams service and the families we support.”