Grandchild takes WW2 soldier's bear to every parade

A teddy bear that accompanied a soldier to war has been taken to every Remembrance parade for 14 years in his granddaughter's pocket.

Thomas Horn, from Watford, was serving with the Suffolk Regiment 2nd Battalion in India and was in his mid-20s when World War Two broke out.

His granddaughter, Nicola Christy, 57, from March in Cambridgeshire, said he always had the tiny red bear with him, including during the Burma Campaign.

He gave the bear to her when she was about nine years old and it accompanies her to every parade - for her to "remember him this way".

The bear is about four inches (10cm) tall, Mrs Christy said.

She admitted it was now "very tatty... and its eyes are long gone".

She thinks "Granddad Horn" as he was known, was given the bear by his wife Elsie before being deployed to India.

"The 2nd Battalion was in India when war broke out," she said.

"He took part in the Burma Campaign and the fighting in the Arakan and at Imphal in March 1944.

"At the end of the war the battalion was stationed in Lahore and he was demobilised to the Army Reserve (class Z) on 19 March 1946 as a corporal."

Mrs Christy does not remember playing with the bear very much as a child and said it lives in her jewellery box "and only comes out at Remembrance".

She began taking part in parades through the town 14 years ago, as a cub leader.

"I've paraded every year in some form or other - this year as the wife of the mayor of March," she said.

"The bear is always there in my pocket - it's my way of remembering my grandparents."

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