EXCITEMENT will be unBEARable as thousands of teddies bear down on Blackpool Zoo this Sunday (July 13).

For the zoo, celebrating its 25th anniversary, is attempting to get into the Guinness Book of Records by staging the world's largest teddy bear's picnic.

To beat Dublin Zoo's record of 34,000 bears it is inviting everyone to bring their own teddies along - a minimum of four and a maximum of 20.

To help things along, zoo admission prices will be cut to just £1 each and 50p per bear (or £3.50 for five to 20 bears), with free parking.

But that's not all, for Britain's most famous bear, Blackpool-born Sooty, will arrive on his own bright-red Sooty Express, laid on by Richard Branson's Virgin empire.

The train will bring children and their bears from London to celebrate Sooty's 50th birthday, helped along by celebrity entertainers.

And the Army can't bear to be left out - two army chefs are making an attempt at the world's biggest jelly record - a 7,700-gallon monster wobbling out of a 24ft-wide inflatable swimming pool.

To add to the drama, a daredevil team of Territorial Army freefall parachutists will be dropping down with the world's most travelled teddy bears.

These 12 bears, sent out on a Teddy Trek by the Boys and Girls Welfare Society a year ago, have clocked up more than 50,000 miles each.

But the star performer is expected to be Blackpool tourism department's own bear, Rocky, who has travelled 350,000 miles, some of it on Concorde with stars like Eddie Murphy and Rolling Stone Keith Richards, and visited places like Bangkok and the Great Wall of China.

Any injured bears will be cared for by the Territorial Army field hospital, ready with bandages and eye-patches.

The whole extravaganza is aimed at raising money for the Boys and Girls Welfare Society.

Anyone wanting to take their bears along must make sure that their toys are proper teddies - koalas, pandas or puppets are not allowed.

They can pre-register their entries at Blackpool Tourism Dept, 1 Clifton Sreet, or register at the zoo on the day. The event opens at 11am.

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