Berkshire Road Big Ted Goes Viral in Colombia

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Big Ted in Berkshire Road who is famous in Henley for doing fun things and jobs outside his home has gone viral on the other side of the world in Colombia thanks to a local former resident Alex Diaz Martinez who now lives in Henley.  Over the last few weeks, he’s been sunbathing, scootering, ironing, washing windows and painting.

Alex explained, my 3 year old daughter Isabella loves to go and see Big Ted every day on our walks or on her scooter.  It’s the highlight of our day.  I think the first day we saw was Big Ted gardening and I sent it to my Mum and friends in Colombia including my friend Yalena Jácome.  Yalena is a newsreader in Colombia and has lots of followers on Instagram and she started posting the photos of Big Ted on her feed after I starting sending her the daily photos of him.  People soon became a big fan of Big Ted commenting – thanks for entertaining us, we look forward to seeing him every day, it makes us very happy.”

Alex then thought wouldn’t it be nice for the people in Colombia to see Big Ted dressed up specially for them and spoke to Polly the neighbour.  She explained, “Our house is being renovated at the moment so everything is in boxes but I found a Colombian ‘vueltiao’ sombrero, a handmade ‘mochila’ handbag made by Arhuaco tribe and a hammock.  I had to order the Colombian flag from Amazon.  Big Ted is dressed as a Colombian ‘Costeno’ (from the Colombian Caribbean coast).”

When Yalena posted the Colombian bear on Instagram, it got over 1600 likes and lots of comments.  Yalena posted, “Tell me if today’s Big Bear doesn’t make you happy as he does me. It has filled me with joy and nostalgia, how to prevent my eyes from watering (as the song says) this is a gift for you for your children for all the Colombians who follow me and especially for those friends who are far away somewhere else of the world facing this story alone or accompanied. Thank you to my great friend @alexdiazmartinez123 who has made our life happy with this idea from her neighbour, we share this #ositodecuarentena that makes us wait for him every day.”

One person commented, “He is divine, this is the best picture you have ever shared! Thanks so much.”

Alex adds, “The comments were unbelievable and they sent me a video which made me cry.  It’s a really lovely thing that they are doing for the children.  In Colombia the children are not allowed go outside.”