The teddies that put Tambo on the map

Stephanie Gardiner | January 23, 2023

If Australia’s fortunes rode on a sheep’s back, then the outback town of Tambo’s luck turned on a teddy.

The first Tambo Teddy was cut from sheepskin, stuffed with wool and sold in early 1993 as part of a project to raise the profile of the tiny town in central Queensland and support the struggling wool industry.

The company is celebrating 30 years since its first bear, named Macfarlane Mary, was sold to the local police sergeant.

Since then, 68,000 teddies have found homes around Australia and overseas, becoming fluffy friends to royal babies and putting the town of 400 on the map.

Alison Shaw and Tammy Johnson took over Tambo Teddies from three local founders in 2014, when much of Queensland was gripped by drought.

“We had a meeting with the accountant and he said ‘you girls are game’,” Ms Shaw told AAP, with a laugh.

The pair quickly tripled the company’s revenue by employing more people to sew the bears, taking the business online and creating new creatures like koalas, echidnas, lambs and working dogs.

They set up a sewing hub in Toowoomba which employs eight people, many of them migrants and refugees.

“It’s quite aligned with our story; we started out of adversity and these people have come from countries where they have been displaced,” Ms Shaw said.

The teddies are named after sheep and cattle stations in the region like Atlam, Lisnalee and Cheero Downs.

The Queensland government gave Prince George a bear named Baneda Bob during the royal visit in 2014, and Denmark’s Prince Christian received Tambo Station Donaldson when he was born in 2005.

Each teddy – royal or not – takes about 90 minutes to make and is unique, depending on who sews it and what part of the sheepskin is used.

“Sometimes they’re silky soft, other times they are a bit prickly, or they’ve got the beautiful crimp on them,” Ms Shaw said.

“They’re all individuals.”

Tambo Teddy’s founders Helen Sargood, Charm Ryrie and Mary Sutherland came up with the idea at a government-run workshop on rural industries, Ms Shaw said.

Their original purpose of the venture lives on, as do the regional communities its teddies represent.

“Tambo does punch above its weight, as do a lot of these little outback towns,” Ms Shaw said.

“We all have something to offer.”