BACKCHAT has come across some bizarre stories in its time, but a recent tale from Co-op Travel will take some beating.
The story concerns Phileas Fogg, a brown bear glove puppet can you believe, who accompanies colleagues from Chestergate Co-op Travel in Stockport on every trip they take overseas.
The aim, we are told, is to clock up record mileage for a toy bear and enter it into the Guinness Book of Records.
Customers have to guess how many miles he will eventually cover in a competition to win holiday vouchers.
Any money raised is donated to charity.
To publicise this venture, the agency has sent a photograph of an agent with her hand shoved up the bear’s behind, which for reasons of public decency Backchat has chosen not to publish.
Phileas has already been to the US, Mexico, the Caribbean, Majorca and France andcollected postcards in the process.
Backchat only hopes that the Co-op does not not leave its ‘bear behind’ one day.