A RETIRED Gwent police officer will be reunited with an antique teddy bear found at Bristol Airport, following an appeal to find its owner.

It was reported in December how staff at Bristol Airport made an appeal to relatives of the Baker family, in the Abergavenny area, to get in touch and claim the bear that was found in the departure lounge in 2012, along with a photograph dated 1918.

The children pictured in the photograph came from South Wales and were named as Dora and Glyn on the back in a note to ‘our darling Daddie’ written by their father Nicholas Glyn Baker.

The owner, Robert Glyn Baker, who is the son of Glyn Baker and lives in Cyprus, spotted his bear after his former wife sent a newspaper cutting of the appeal.

Mr Baker is the son of Glyn Baker, born in 1916, pictured with his sister in the photograph. Glyn married the late Elsie Evelyn Norman.

His older sister, the late Dora, lived in Plymouth for much of her life after marrying a naval officer. The couple did not have any children.

Mr Baker’s grandfather Nicholas was a baker by trade, but was stationed in Baghdad during the First World War, where he later died from malaria in 1917.

The gobsmacked dad-of-one was shocked when he realised his bear was still there.

He said: “I thought it was lost forever. I was convinced it had been destroyed.”

“I’m an only child and my auntie Dora didn’t have any children so I am the only one that could have got the bear.

“It’s the sentimental value really. Like a fool I left it in the airport.”

Airport spokeswoman, Jacqui Mills, said: “The bear has obviously been well-loved over nearly 100 years.

“Finding out the father in the photograph served in Iraq during the First World War and received the picture of his family shortly before his death, really brings these items to life. The little bear has been on an amazing journey and we are now making plans for his flight home.”