Polar, The Titanic Bear -- by Daisy Spedden -- published by Little, Brown and Company.

Some years ago, a hunt through a dusty old steamer trunk in a Long Island attic revealed a booklet written more than 80 years earlier by Daisy Corning Stone Spedden as a Christmas gift for her young son Douglas.

Leighton Coleman III, the searcher through the trunk, and great-great nephew of the accomplished diarist and photographer Mrs. Spedden, realised that this rare insight into the Edwardian world, climaxed by the incredible, true account of their doomed voyage on the Titanic would make a delightful children's book.

Entitled "My Story'', the original booklet documented the little boy's life and adventures through the perspective of his teddy bear, whom he christened Polar. Manufactured by Sieff of Germany, this was no no ordinary bear; he owned several sets of clothing, his own miniature furniture, and always accompanied his young master on the wealthy family's many trips abroad.

In 1912 the Speddens made the fateful decision to return home on the fabulous new liner, the RMS Titanic on its maiden voyage to New York. Mrs. Spedden's moving account of their subsequent rescue just before the huge ship shuddered out of sight beneath the freezing, dark sea, forms the most riveting part of the story. In a brief, but sharply evocative passage, Mrs. Spedden captures the dreadful splendour of the following morning when, still bobbing about the ocean in a lifeboat, Douglas wakes up, sees the enormous icebergs still towering around them and exclaims, "Oh, look at the beautiful North Pole with no Santa Claus on it!''. Polar, meanwhile, tucked under `Master's' arm as they were lowered into the lifeboat had, to his mounting horror, apparently been abandoned when Douglas was eventually hauled to safety aboard the Carpathia .

Fortunately, when the lifeboat was later also pulled up on deck, Polar was found and reunited with Douglas.

Given the public's apparently endless fascination with that disaster, this unique, personal narrative doubtless goes a very long way in explaining the book's success. Since its publication in 1994, `Polar, The Titanic Bear' has been translated and released in six countries and has won Canada's Silver Birch Award for children's literature.

Beautifully illustrated with watercolours by Laurie McGaw, family photographs, postcards (and even a facsimile of the Marconi telegram sent by Mr. Spedden to assure relatives of their rescue), this unusual little book should be of special interest to local readers of all ages. There is a strong Bermuda connection, as the Spedden family, like so many of their wealthy contemporaries, made regular winter visits to the Island and, in fact, were related to the Darrell family. Mention is made in the text of one of those visits, accompanied by a photograph of Douglas and his mother (rigged out in Edwardian bathing gear), taken on Elbow Beach in March, 1911.

Mr. Coleman provides an epilogue which provides an intriguing insight into what was undoubtedly a rarefied world: until the onset of the First World War, a very tiny proportion of society (of which the Speddens were among the wealthiest) lived in quiet splendour, waited on by servants answering to every whim. Unlike many of their sort, whose children were almost invisible, the Speddens' son was obviously the focus of their lives. Unusually, he (and Polar) accompanied them everywhere in their seemingly endless pursuit of pleasure. It should be noted that after their dramatic rescue from the Titanic , Daisy Spedden earned the gratitude of many for her kindness and practical care of other survivors, including the steerage passengers. Although they continued on their world travels after that event, she wrote that after Titanic "all the values of (our) life changed, and the daily incidents, which once seemed of such importance to us, dwindled into mere trivialities''.

Unfortunately, the Titanic presaged an even greater disaster for the Speddens: just three years after his dramatic rescue, nine-year-old Douglas was killed in the very first automobile accident in the State of Maine. Daisy stopped writing her fascinating family diaries -- and no more mention was ever made of Polar, the delightful bear who, all these years later, has brought a bitter-sweet story into the leading ranks of children's literature.

"Polar, The Titanic Bear'' is now on sale at The Book Mart.

PATRICIA CALNAN AN EDWARDIAN HOLIDAY -- A photograph of Douglas and his mother, Daisy Spedden, taken on Elbow Beach in 1911, is one of the illustrations in the children's book, "Polar, The Titanic Bear''.

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