The fundamental decency of teddy bears should encourage reflection. They know how you treat the weak. You can’t escape a bear’s benign but probing gaze - particularly in the UK Supreme Court café, where the souvenir bears wait to graft themselves onto a suitable buyer. Unless, as Lord Neuberger mentions in the foreword of this book, they get half-inched by a passing VIP. That’s OK, these bears are soft power wherever they go.

As someone who occasionally draws from the court’s public seats, I get asked questions. This picture book (a children’s book for adults and vice versa) is a tangential way of answering some of them. At the beginning, the bears’ quest for judicial diversity makes them the victims of a graffiti campaign by some unkind heraldic beasts. I wouldn’t take that too seriously though.

For more conventional information, please consult the court’s literature, most of it free and some of it in several languages, and its comprehensive website.

They said it

“A charming guide for adults and children alike” – Joshua Rozenberg

“Filled with adorable artwork” – Estates Gazette

“Clever, funny, informative” – Ann McAllister, Judge

“Quirky yet serious… You laugh out loud and you learn a lot.” – Elizabeth Taylor and Phillip Taylor, barristers

Available from the UK Supreme Court, Avizandum, Blackwell's (Oxford), Daunt Books (Chelsea, Holland Park, Marylebone), Heffers, Heywood Hill, John Sandoe, Wildy & Sons, Amazon and me http://www.isobelwilliams.org.uk at £6.95 + postage if charged.

Coda

Each night your childhood bear, whether or not it still exists, in the loft or landfill or as disassembled molecules, seeks a wan comfort in crooning an old pop ballad to itself while it thinks of you. It likes Ray Davies’s demo version best.

 I go to sleep

 Sleep

 And imagine that

 You’re there

 With me