MEET Ken Carpenter – he’s the truck driver with a soft spot for cuddly bears.
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The 74-year-old Kootingal man is stopping traffic for all the right reasons, lining the front of his property fence with hundreds of soft toys he’s collected over the years.
It started when he would clean up old teddy bears and soft toys he’d find dumped during his days as a skip truck driver, donating them to hospitals and nursing homes.
“What was left of, we didn’t know what to do with so I said I’d start sticking them to our front fence (on Sandy Lane),” Mr Carpenter said of his Sandy Lane property.
“My daughter-in-law said, no you bloody won’t, but they’re there.
“But we added them and it’s expanded since.”
Five years on and he’s seen it all – from two-metre-long centipedes to baboons and unicorns – with strangers even dropping off bags of toys to add to his collection.
“There’s enough bad things going on in the world,” Mr Carpenter said.
“I just want to put a smile on someone’s face.