A behind the scenes look

When you think of Teddy Bear Making Supplies, the name Beary Cheap is well known throughout Australia, New Zealand & most bear making nations. Our road to becoming the countries largest & most respected Mail Order Teddy Bear Supply businesses makes interesting reading.

It was on a trip to England's Lake District that we discovered the world of Collectable Teddy Bears where gorgeous little bears dressed in harris tweed jackets, winter woolies and tiny hiking boots called Lakeland Bears stood in the shop windows just begging to be bought. When we arrived home we bought our first piece of mohair & created our first Jumbuck Bear.

He was a sad little bear but we were hooked and so began our 10 year adventure with the teddy bear....

We soon discovered that there was a small army of bear makers out there, so we decided to import a small shipment of mohair from England& see if we could supply the fabric to others who so desperately wanted it. We came up with the name Beary Cheap as mohair had a reputation for being expensive & we were determined to make it more accessible to the average person. After all, Bear Making was a fun hobby & we wanted as many people as possible to discover how rewarding & addictive it was.

Once we had placed a few ads & approached some potential customers, we were surprised at the number of bear makers who contacted us in the early days. It was also reassuring that we had found a niche in the market on which we could expand. We were determined to provide mohair at an affordable price & a service that would keep them coming back. After all, we hadn't called ourselves Beary Cheap for nothing.

If you lived in the suburbs, this was a foreseeable dream, but as we lived in the bush on an extremely remote 75 acre property approx 30kms from the nearest country town (Mudgee) this was going to be a challenging task. Not only were we isolated, we had no mains power (only a small solar system to supply us with electricity), 20kms of dirt (unsealed) road to contend with every day on our mail run to town & a small house that was fast being overrun with rolls of fabric. Also, as we were a remote property our mail was only delivered twice a week (3kms from the house)!

Our other main obstacle was the Meroo Creek which flowed across the road to our property & had been known to rise 6mtrs after heavy rains. The experience of being flooded in for up to a week had been somewhat of a novelty in the past. We had developed a system using a bow & arrow to set up a flying fox across the swollen river so our neigbours could keep us supplied with food and drink. We now had a business to run and it was no longer amusing, we prayed for dry weather, so our business wouldn't grind to a halt!

It was almost laughable that we were going to attempt a Mail Order Business under these conditions. We couldn't have chosen a least likely place to succeed, but this was where we lived & we were going to give it our best shot. The newly formed Beary Cheap was operating from a lounge room, bedroom & an old truck body at the bottom of the garden. At this stage we were also hand-dyeing mohair as this broadened our range quite substantially without a lot of capital outlay. The dyeing process was quite comical, we bought an old gas copper from a 2nd hand shop, put it in our wood shed (& spent hours hand dyeing fabric) in 8 colors each in 3 pile lengths! This was a time consuming exercise, but our clothesline was a picture of colour & the customers kept coming back for more!

We soon realized we had created a monster. We were working from dawn till dusk 7 days a week. We processed orders every day & made up sample packs on the weekends. Needless to say our previously pampered veggie garden was full of weeds & totally neglected. Our closest neighbours thought we had gone totally mad giving up our life of country solitude for the constant ringing of phones, & trips to the post office. We knew at this point that our lives had changed & there was no going back, the bear makers of Australia needed us & we were determined to give them what they wanted. As anticipated, the Meroo Creek rose & flooded us in on numerous occasions. Explaining to customers that we couldn't post their order due to the floodwaters was a little embarrassing, but most were understanding & even a little amused. We were definitely not amused when the creek rose just hours before we were due to trade at the big Bear Show in Sydney. We spent the night wide awake, fully dressed, with our trusty utility packed & ready to go before the waters rose too high & we were unable to make the 4 hour drive to Sydney. We ended up leaving at 3am and it is still our most memorable show to this day.

It wasn't long before our old truck body was bulging at the seams & we needed to gain extra room fast. It is a well known fact that nothing happens fast in the country, so our plans to build an extension on our house to accommodate our new family of fabric rolls was going to be a slow process. However with help from neighbours & lots of hard work, we soon had a large room from which to work & life became a little easier. We now had proper racks for our fabric, a large cutting table & the rest of our house went back to its intended purpose.

It had taken a few years of perseverance, but our hard work was starting to pay off and the name Beary Cheap was becoming familiar in bear making circles. We had also formed a strong relationship with the Helmbold family in Germany & had become their Australian agent for selling their world renown mohair fabric. We were sourcing goods from all over the world & they were arriving at our little country house. It was truly amazing.
Life was still difficult in a lot of ways. No one would deliver goods to our door so we had to drive into town on the dirt road (all 20kms of it) to pick up all sorts of things. Derek still has visions of Cindy coming along the road with four 250kg bales of polyflock strapped to the back of the Ute which looked like it might tip over at any moment.

We also had the irritation of not having proper power. Three times a day one of us had to remember to turn the solar panels towards the sun, so that we had plenty of power. If we forgot, or we had cloudy days, our computer wouldn't work & we were unable to invoice our orders.
Of course some things won't run at all on solar power so whenever we needed to photocopy one of us had to rush up to the shed & fire up the generator... & the list goes on...We also still had the responsibilities of life in the country including our potty calves to feed at regular intervals..... It was all a constant battle but we managed to keep smiling.

Seven years ago we made the big decision to leave the country & move to the Gold Coast. Things are much more organized these days, Beary Cheap has a lovely new warehouse, 240 volt power & no flooding creeks, everything is delivered & picked up from our door. In case you're wondering, no we don't miss the isolation & turning the solar panels, well perhaps just a tiny bit...  may be more than just a bit.

However we take none of our modern conveniences for granted, so next time you place an order from Beary Cheap, remember this business was built from very humble beginnings.
You can contact Beary Cheap on

Ph 07 5520 3455 Fax 07 5520 3411