WARREN PEACE, WHO, WHERE & WHEN……
A few years ago,
IMPS club member and soon to be married at this years War and Peace
Show, Mr. Nick Crowhurst sent Rex Cadman a drawing of a bear dressed in
camouflage driving a Jeep. Nick was an amateur cartoonist who was just
doodling. For a while the bear just laid around in files. Back in 1998
it was decided to try and giver the bear more input and Rex contacted
Nick to ask if he could do the bear in different positions, turning
left, turning right and marching etc. Nick duly obliged. Once again the
new drawings sat around for a while. The general feeling in the office
was he was right for our image but what do we do with him.
By sheer
coincidence The War and Peace Collection was in need of a new low
loader driver. Luckily for us Paul Shea was recommended. Paul started
working for War and Peace in 1999. His first task was to move all the
vehicles home to their respective owners after the 1999 show. During
this time we also discovered that Paul had hidden talents. He
understood and liked computers and as The War and Peace office was just
starting to go hi tech it wasn't long before the low loader was parked
outside and Paul found himself driving a desk.
For those of you
who have visited the War and Peace office even with all good intent
paperwork flies in all directions and on one of those great cleanup
days Paul Shea came across the pictures of the bear. "What are we doing
with these" he asked. Hopefully we are going to incorporate him in The
War and Peace Show, but at the present we don't know how. Was the
reply. Once again the bear was filed away.
Some weeks later
Paul came into the office with the "I've got a great idea" look on his
face. According to Paul the idea had come to him in the middle of the
night, most of us have more important things to think about whilst we
sleep, but regardless of that. Paul had been selling his house through
an estate agent whose name was Warren Price. The story goes whilst in a
deep sleep, Paul sat up and shouted out loud "WARREN PRICE" -"WARREN
PEACE", That's a great name for that bear. Walt Disney has Mickey
Mouse, McDonalds have Ronald McDonald and KFC have the Colonel. So why
shouldn't we have Warren Peace the bear.
In 2000 Warren
was quietly launched on the unsuspecting military vehicle world. Warren
Peace stickers started to appear on sign boards at the show. Looking
back he must have been popular as any sign with Warren on disappeared.
By 2001 Warren had crept onto the web site, and after the 2001 show
Warren 's popularity started to really grow as children and families
began looking for badges, balloons and stickers as give-aways. He's
ended up being quite a hit with the kids. All we have to do now is
persuade him to turn up at War and Peace in person.
More information coming soon please check the website for updates!
War
and Peace Show 2002