His sister was born then and she became my second human. We were constant companions. The mother altered the child’s old barricot gowns to fit me so I would be warmly swaddled for our visits to the park. The girl would push me back and forth on the swings (she was a little afraid to swing on them herself at this time) and hug me tight while she spun on the roundabout. We went to the zoo where, tucked into her pushchair, I gazed at some distant cousin bears and they gazed back at me. I was glad to be friend and comfort to this anxious little girl, but oh she was hard on my health…. First I lost one of my bright bead brown eyes in too vigorous a game. The mother kept the eye in her button box, meaning to mend me, I know. Then a tussle with her brother, tugged this way and that, resulted in an arm being pulled out of place, so much so that my straw threatened to spill out. The mother patched my wound with an old sheet but my shoulder was never the same again.

In time the little girl grew into a woman. She still suffered from night fears and secretly cuddled me in the small, lonely hours. I listened to all her hopes and fears and knew that I was much loved. In time, of course, we grew less close and I became more of a watcher than a participant in her life.

She was a troubled wanderer and I went in and out of packing cases more times than I wish to remember. She would say that it wasn’t truly home until Teddy had been unpacked and put in pride of place. Thankfully, she became more careful with her things, although one of my ears has never recovered from a gooey mess of medicine that spilled onto me during a sickly winter.

I’m an old bear now – I was made more than 60 years ago – and my paws and snout are sparse and worn. I never did have plush for fur and was always entirely the wrong colour. No toy historian will ever look at me and exclaim ‘Why, this bear is rare and terribly valuable’. Times were hard when I was made, and I was and am a very ordinary bear. I still have pride of place in a corner of her bedroom and sometimes she taps my nose affectionately as she passes. Now she’s about to take my photograph. I know I’m pretty battered looking, but we wartime bears are stoic, and I’ll try to look my best.

Graham Gnu’s real name was Wullie – Wullie Wildebeest – but he hated it. Wullie sounded so old-fashioned, so uncool. When he was a calf, the others would ask if he sat on a bucket and wore tackity boots. So when he was old enough, he picked the name Graham to fit his identity as a gnu – not as a wildebeest. His younger brother, who hero worshipped Wullie Graham, followed his lead and took the name George.

Graham and George were close, very close. They watched each others’ backs. Graham was fast on the gallop, but George’s sense of smell was so superior even for a gnu that he could raise the alarm when the South Side pride was half a mile away. Only George, it was said, could identify each lion by its individual smell.

The South Side pride was led by Big Jimmy. Sporting a magnificent black mane, he had a reputation to maintain. They all knew that roaring ‘Heh Jimmy’ at him even in jest wasn’t a good move unless they wanted a limp that would last a fortnight.

The girls were Phemie, Tracy and Senga. Phemie was getting a bit long in the tooth (when she breathed on you, the smell was enough to turn your stomach) but she was still the leader. She was Jimmy’s first choice for mating too but, as she’d told the other girls one day while

relaxing under a tree, this was a mixed blessing as Jimmy was a’ mane an’ nae bollocks. Tracy was Phemie’s daughter and her mother despaired of her ever making a kill on her own. Kids, you bring them up, you think that’s the job done and still they cannae kill a defenceless calf! Senga was the youngest and the most ambitious – she’d been known to stalk a full grown elephant until someone put her right.There were always half-grown cubs kicking around too – not totally up to the job yet but certainly quite enough to put a gnu off his grass.

Graham never wanted to be one of the herd. He was born into it, of course, streaming across the savannah at Hampden with ten thousand others, but his heart just wasn’t in it. He knew there could be more to life. The day he trimmed his straggly whiskers and slipped on a leather jacket was the day he knew there was no turning back.

He told George he was leaving the herd. He spoke of the family members they’d lost to rushing rivers (nobody in the family but him had bothered to learn to swim) and to predation by the South Side pride. He said there was a better life out there, beyond the Byres Road crossing. He didn’t expect that his brother would try to argue him out of it. It’s just how it is, Graham – we’re gnus – don’t fight it! Graham was gutted but he knew that a gnu had to do what a gnu has to do.

He turned and walked away from George. He stopped watching George’s back. And that’s when it happened.

The morning’s hot and the court is packed. Bovine, equine and feline scent glands are working overtime. At 10am precisely, The Honourable Lord Aquila leaves his chambers and enters the courtoom. Settling his ruffled feathers back into place, he fixes the room with a yellow-eyed glare. Quentin Quagga QC shifts uneasily under the beak’s gaze.

Good lord, it’s that idiot Quagga – thought he’d been disbarred. They say he’s doing this pro bono – friend of the deceased or some such nonsense thinks his Lordship. Ah, we’ve got Pardus, have we? He’ll give us some fireworks. Stout fellow – wouldn’t like to get in his way though.

Prosecuting Counsel Peter Pardus QC has casually draped his body along the back of the bench, only inches from a row of gazelle, who shrink back in their seats with terror-stricken eyes. Hmm pity I had breakfast at chambers – I quite fancy one of those right now he thinks.

Graham Gnu, the plaintiff, wears a zoot suit with very wide lapels and a check so loud the Court Reporter has to don sunglasses when looking his way. He’s wearing a Tagheuer watch on his left front hock. As it has no sunrise/sunset setting, it’s largely for show.

In front of him is a thick sheaf of papers which forms the basis for his case against Senga Leo, the youngest lioness of the South Side pride. He’s trying in vain to stop his lawyer, Quagga, from nervously snacking on the paperwork. I wish Quentin hadn’t worn that wig – it’s so small it must have been made for a Shetland pony he thinks.

Graham is here to see justice done for the murder of his brother George. He’ll never forgive himself for letting his attention wander that fateful day. But this time the lions have to pay, he vows.

He’s already lodged an objection to the appointment of Peter Pardus for the Defence. He’ll terrorise the prosecution witnesses into saying anything he wants them to say – everyone knows a leopard never changes its spots. Graham knows too that Aquila likes Pardus – there’s even been talk of them lunching together on breast of dik-dik.

The defendant, Senga, has dressed demurely for her time in court, eyes lowered, paws together. She looks like such a nice pussycat comes the whisper from the public gallery, where groups of ladies in summer frocks have spread the contents of their picnic hampers. They’re making a day of it and, although they wouldn’t dare admit it to each other, they’re hoping for some blood before teatime.

Senga is surrounded by the members of her pride (a visiting auntie is babysitting the cubs). Even Big Jimmy’s here, although he looks bored already. She’s more nervous than she cares to admit and however hard she tries to control it, her tail is twitching furiously.

Aquila makes a final adjustment to his second-best wig. His wigs are all custom made from the fur of small mammals, as befits a beak at the height of his profession, but this one’s making him itch. He really must speak to his wigmaker, he thinks. And if there isn’t live rabbit for luncheon, he’s not going to be happy.

As a final surge of skittish equine teenagers rush in, noisily packing themselves into the public benches, the call is given to close the courtroom doors. Gnu v Leo is underway.

You can take that definition and run with it if you like. You can tell yourself that such familiar names as Einstein, Van Gogh and Beethoven were all bipolar, that you’re in good company. But how bipolar disorder works in the life of an ordinary human being is something else.

You may be called over-dramatic from an early age. Over-emotional, too prone to wearing your heart on your sleeve. Over-sensitive and cursed/blessed with an over-vivid imagination.

But as an adult, when the switch in your brain (set permanently on a random fluctuating pattern) is on Up, people will describe you as charming, vivacious and charismatic. They applaud your talent. You are a high functioning member of society with great communication skills. You possess a brain that’s sharp as a tack and that’s simply stuffed with creative ideas. You’re a risk taker, courageous and bold. Although some will find you a little intimidating or fast-paced, you’re generally well-liked and people see nothing abnormal in your behaviour.

Perceptive people, however, may notice that you have an edge of desperation. And they’d be right, for underneath, there is indeed a desperation to hang onto the Up, to keep the creativity, the sharpness. A desperation to finish projects that you started with such immense enthusiasm before the switch moves to Down. A desperation not to let people down who you care about. And a desperation not to let people see how your inner life really is.

Being Up is, quite literally, an intoxicating experience. Passions and ideas flood into your brain and you live in a brightly coloured world where every new idea is the one. Sometimes you can’t keep up with what your brain’s throwing at you and even your speech centre becomes garbled. It’s a runaway train but it’s damned exhilarating. Up’s darker side though is Signore Agitato, when the train’s come off the tracks and you’re trying to control those racing thoughts by sheer willpower.

In an effort to become more balanced, you try every medical treatment the world of psychiatry knows. None makes a significant difference, although the side effects increasingly debilitate you. You undergo long periods of therapeutic counselling and find a deeper understanding of your condition. Applied to your everyday life, that understanding changes nothing much. Eventually, you give up and go it alone.

You wrestle with the question of disclosure. You know deep down it’s a lose lose situation. If you tell people about your condition, chances are they’ll be sceptical ‘everyone has mood swings, what’s so different about you?’ or downright judgemental (see the opening paragraph). They may argue that you’re not bipolar, you just suffer from ‘a little depression now and then.’ Most of all, they’ll be damned uncomfortable with your disclosure and many may decide to give you a wide berth from now on. Accordingly, you spend your life alternating between telling people and keeping it a dark, deadly secret.

The largely hidden world of Down is a bleak one. Your previously sharp brain has grown a fleece of ewe’s wool and the world of colours has turned to a blurry grey. You’re physically exhausted and your motivation to even get out of bed is minimal. You sometimes remember that you do have meaningful talents and skills but as these completely vanish in Down, you can’t believe in the veracity of this and downgrade them to meaningless.


In an attempt to escape this blackness, you indulge in self-destructive behaviour. Anything all-consuming will do – booze, drugs, compulsive eating, gambling, sex. These incapacitate you in various ways so that you are at least distracted from the black hell of depression. But they will also drive away even more people in your life.

You make excuses for missed deadlines and meetings. Then eventually you simply cut off the phone and don’t reply to your emails. No lie would be convincing enough. And even if you could convince people, there’s no way of telling when you’re going to be Up again and functioning.

Over time, the Ups will be more and more shortlived and perhaps more extreme and the Downs more sustained. The Ups become a desperate race to accomplish things before the Down hits. It’s at this stage that disappointed friends will begin to drift away, unable to cope with the unremitting rollercoaster ride. They’ll go in search of more normal company. Who can blame them?

Now you find it hard to plan a life, because the pattern is so random. If you promise to be somewhere on a certain day three months hence, where will your mood be by then? Your confidence plummets and you stop trusting your own instincts. Was this or that decision made when you were overly manic? Severely depressed?

Anxiety starts to tag alongside Signore Agitato. The normal filters that allow you to function begin to rust up and your world grows smaller and smaller. You fear that you have become less and less socially acceptable and that perhaps it’s best not to inflict yourself on others.

If you’re lucky, you’ll have around you at this stage loving, understanding and supportive family and friends who are in it for the long haul. This can be crucial to how the life of someone with bipolar disorder pans out.

But from everything I’ve told you, you can see just how corrosive a condition it is. It’s hardly surprising then that people who are bipolar will more likely than not lead a solitary life. That they will often be hospitalised at least once. And that they will have a high suicide rate. It doesn’t seem like such a good payoff for a few fleeting moments of high creativity and charisma.