The Enchanted Places

by Christopher Milne

  They came in a single large envelope. There must have been dozens of them, all in their different childish hands, a batch from the girls in Form 3A, a batch from the girls in Form 4B . . . Some in pencil, some in pen, some with pictures, some without; and accompanying them, introducing them, explaining them, excusing them, putting in a word on their behalf, a letter from the Head-mistress, Miss Craig. It only needed a single letter back to make all these girls happy, for Miss Craig would read it out to them and each would feel it was a letter to her personally in answer to the one that she herself had written.

  ‘But what shall I say, Nanny?’

  ‘I’ll help you, dear. We’ll think it out together. It doesn’t have to be very long. I’m sure they’ll be delighted with it.’

  And so I wrote. And they replied. And I wrote again. And sometimes, as I mentioned earlier, I said it with primroses; and once I nearly said it with a Bible. Miss Craig, Farm Street Girls’ School, Hockley, Birmingham: the only address that I have not written to for over forty-five years that I can still recall.

  Then there were the reporters. I imagine that here the door was guarded with extra vigilance. But two got through and one even managed a few brief words. The first, disguised perhaps as a Nanny, joined the Nanny spectators at Macpherson’s gymnasium as they watched their small charges, marching, running, jumping and climbing. I may have been bad at marching but I was good at climbing, and this was what she noticed. Her words – when later I read them – were music in my ears; I glowed with pride. She had heard a tinkling sound coming from high up in the roof, she had looked up and seen me clinging to one of the ropes that hung from the ceiling, ringing the bell to prove that I had reached the top. And now she was telling the world that this was the sort of thing that Christopher Robin could do. O kind reporter, if you are yet alive and read this, may I thank you for the still remembered pleasure your words brought me.

  The other reporter met me at Cotchford on the path that, running through the kitchen garden, led from the house to the lane. She was coming down it, having just arrived and for some reason using what was really the tradesmen’s entrance. I was going up it on my way to find Hannah. She stopped in the middle of the path so that I couldn’t get by, smiled and said ‘Good morning’. Then she produced a watch that she had been carrying, told me that she had found it lying on the ground, and asked if it were mine. I looked at it. It was a cheap, toy watch, the sort of thing that might have come out of a cracker, now rather dirty and battered. I answered, and went on my way, and she continued down towards the house and towards the interview that she had arranged with my father.

  Some weeks later we saw the magazine in which her interview appeared. It was a longish one, but only the first paragraph was of any interest to me. In it she described our meeting on the path and the question she had put. And she gave my answer. And her words seared themselves indelibly into my memory. Was it my watch? ‘Yes, it is,’ she made me reply. ‘It’s a good sort of watch but it doesn’t quite go.’ I read this paragraph with amazement, indignation and rage. It was one of those moments, familiar to all of us, when illusion is shattered. There had been the occasion when, as we walked to school, Anne had destroyed my belief in Father Christmas. Now came the destruction of my faith that what people wrote about you was true. From that day on I never managed to feel quite the same about journalists: they had lost my confidence. And if now I am less polite, less co-operative towards them than they might wish, here is where it all started; here with this miserable woman, who made me quote one of my father’s poems (‘The Engineer’, which, in any case, is not really about me at all), when what I actually said was: ‘No. It probably belongs to our gardener’s daughter.’

  Then there was the play. This was adapted from the story of Eeyore’s birthday. Because I was in it, and because I would naturally be taking the part of me, Owl (who appears in the story) had to become Christopher Robin (who doesn’t). I still find this a little difficult to explain. I had to explain it to Mr Gibbs, the headmaster of my day school in London, when he wanted to stage the same little play: and it was a long time before I could be quite certain that he had my meaning and wasn’t going to make me dress up in feathers.

  Eeyore’s Birthday with Christopher Robin playing the part of himself, Robert as Pooh, Ann4 as Eeyore and Veronica as Piglet. A single public performance only; part of a ‘charity matinee’. I cannot remember, if indeed I ever knew, what else the audience was to get for its money. Our little bit was all that mattered to us. We rehearsed it and rehearsed it, then did it, then went home. With my father a playwright and Ann’s mother an actress we could at least claim that we were professionally produced even if our acting was amateur and the leading player’s only previous connection with the stage had been in the part of Sir Andrew Aguecheek. If any memory of this little play survives anywhere today, it will be a memory of Piglet. For it was she who stole the show; Piglet, the smallest and youngest of us all; Piglet, with her sing-song, slightly cold-in-the-nose voice (just like her mother’s); Piglet, pink-faced and adorable; Piglet, aged four.

  ‘Yes, but I’m afraid – I’m very soory, Eeyore – but when I were running along to bring it to you, I fell down . . .’

  But unfortunately the balloon didn’t always burst and Piglet was left rolling about on top of it, pinching it, punching it, getting crosser and crosser, pinker and pinker. It was her Nanny, the ever-watchful, closely attending ‘Bun’, who knew the answer and produced it from behind her white apron. ‘Here, Veronica, use this pin.’ And so she did; and though at some rehearsals the explosion was disconcertingly premature, and though her appearance on stage, dashing across the floor, large balloon clasped to tummy, was always attended with some anxiety, on the great afternoon the timing was perfect. And I can remember not only my feeling of relief but also my admiration at the competent way she disposed of the pin once its duty had been done. With a graceful flick of the wrist she sent it slamming over the boards to the feet of Bun waiting in the wings.

  Then there was the gramophone record. My father had already made one. His was a reading from chapter 3 of Winnie the Pooh. ‘The Piglet lived in a very grand house . . .’ He had a dry, monotonous voice. No ups and downs. If you had commented on this he would have said that the words spoke for themselves. If they were good words (and they were good words because he had chosen them) they spoke well and didn’t need any acting, any special straining for effect on the part of the reader. Partly this was true, and certainly too little expression is far better than too much; but partly my father just did have a rather dry, quiet, toneless voice, and couldn’t help it. My mother was the family’s reader. And when it was my turn to make a gramophone record it was on her that I modelled myself.

  My pieces were from the poems, three of them were sung, one was recited. Fraser-Simson, who had written the music, was going to accompany me on the piano; and his wife, Cicely, being a singer, would help me make the best of what voice I then had. For I was only about seven years old at the time. I had only just left ‘On the grassy banks’; solos and descants in school chapel were still four years away.

  So, after some preliminary rehearsals in the drawing-room at Mallord Street under my mother, we went round, my father, my mother and I, to the Fraser-Simsons’ house for a final practice before going on to the H.M.V. studio.

  Fraser-Simson was a rather fierce-looking man with a great grey moustache. His name was Harold but we knew him only as F-S. Cicely was much younger and gay and pretty and I liked her. But best of all I liked Henry Woggins, their spaniel. And so while the grown-ups were having their grown-up talk sitting in elegant chairs, Henry Woggins and I were on the floor and I was telling him all about what was going to happen.

  ‘Well, Christopher, are you ready? Shall we try the first one?’ I got up, feeling a little dry in the mouth, and F-S. walked over to his piano. The introductory bars . . . a deep breath, and Cicely brought me in:

  There are lots and lots of people who are always asking things
,

  Like dates and pounds and ounces . . .

  I reached the end and waited.

  ‘Well done. That was very nice . . . Just one or two little points . . . I think it might be nice if you could manage a slightly Poohish voice when he answers: “Well, I say sixpence . . .” Then the music says “and the names of fun-ny kings”, but I’d like you to sing it like this . . . And then here you’ll want to take a really deep breath to last you through to the end of the line . . . Shall we just try it once more?’

  I liked being taught by Cicely. I tried again, remembering the things she had told me. ‘That’s much better.’ Then I went through the other two songs. Of course I didn’t have to sing them perfectly. I was a small boy, not a professional. A little wobbling on the long notes, a little breathlessness at the end of the line wouldn’t matter, might indeed add to the charm . . . Anyway, time was getting on. We were due at the studio at half past three, the six of us. For Henry Woggins would be coming too, of course. He had never been to a recording studio before and so it would be a little alarming for him. But luckily I was going to be there to look after him. If he felt nervous at all, I would be there to stroke his ears. I did so hope that he would behave nicely so that I could feel proud of him. It was quite a responsibility for me . . .

  We got ourselves ready. We climbed into the car. We arrived. We were greeted and introduced. We were ushered along passages. We reached the studio door. The door was opened and we filed in, my mother and Cicely, my father and F-S. This was the great moment. From now on Henry Woggins would be on his own. Come on, it’s our turn now. I stooped down to give him a reassuring pat.

  ‘Enter well,’ I said. And to my great relief he did.

  The pageant was at Kidbrooke Park on the edge of Ashdown Forest. The theme was ‘Ashdown Forest through the Centuries’ – or something similar. The setting was a circular, saucer-like field lying within a crescent of trees. In the middle of the crescent was a gap where a track, coming from behind the trees on the right, swung out into the open, crossed a broad, flat wooden bridge, and so entered the stage. And down the track and over the bridge came Boadicea and the ancient Britons, came Henry VIII and his courtiers, came Anne Boleyn to her trial. Down the track galloped the Excise Men, the hooves of their horses echoing on the planks of the bridge. But the witch came in through the trees on the left, limping, ragged, white hair flying, long stick in hand. She was seized and bound and carried off to be burned at the stake. And as she went she pointed to the castle that could be dimly seen among the trees, raised her stick and cursed . . .

  So the pageant went its memorable way, and I see it now like an ancient ciné film, much faded and blurred and with many breaks, but with here and there a sequence as vivid as the day it was shot. On it went through the centuries until we had reached the present. Ashdown Forest today. This is my bit. After the splendours and the drama of the past, the simplicity of the present. A tiny child coming down through the trees, quite alone, but carrying something. What is it? His toys. Yes, of course, his famous toys! Slowly the child makes his way over the grass towards the far side. Half way across he drops something, doesn’t notice at once, walks on a few paces, then stops and looks back. Yes, it was Eeyore. It would be Eeyore! He goes back, picks him up, and continues his long journey. And now he is in among the trees and out of sight. A pause. Look, now he’s coming back. Not carrying anything this time. Back into the field again. But this time he is not alone. Behind him come the animals, grown larger, walking one behind the other. Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger, Kanga . . . In the middle of the field the child stops and holds up his hand. One by one the others come up, form a circle round him and sit down . . . This is Ashdown Forest today, where a boy and his bear will always be playing . . .

  And so the pageant ends; and while Christopher Robin and his animals are having their picnic, those who had tramped the Forest in bygone days reappear in a great procession, down the track, over the bridge and round the field, Ancient Britons, Knights in Armour, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, the witch, the Excise Men . . . and as the tail of the column passes him Christopher Robin stands up. The picnic is over. Time to go home. Come on. And he and his animals tag on to the end of the line, round the field and out through the trees . . .

  That was the pageant. I was about nine years old at the time and it was immensely exciting to be in it. Exciting without being frightening. For there was nothing to be nervous about, nothing to go wrong. It was not like acting in a play or making a gramophone record when your voice might go funny. It was exciting doing my bit, exciting watching all the other bits and exciting to feel that I was part of it all, me and Henry VIII . . . So although I was to come on last I was able to enjoy all the earlier scenes. I could watch them from the front, or I could wander around the back. And sometimes, wandering round the back, I would come upon groups of Courtiers waiting their turn to go on. And once I came upon the witch. She was sitting under a tree, glasses on her nose, reading a newspaper; and she was smoking a pipe. It gave me quite a little shock. I never expected to see a witch smoking a pipe.

  Then, as the centuries rolled towards the present, I collected my toys together and Nanny and I made our way to the place where I was to come on. Got everything?

  ‘Got your handkerchief?’

  ‘Yes, Nanny.’ I cleared my throat.

  ‘Do you want to blow your nose?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’ I cleared my throat again.

  ‘You’re not getting a cold, I hope.’ Nanny looked at me anxiously.

  ‘No, I’m all right.’ I cleared my throat once more. Then, feeling an explanation was called for:

  ‘I’m always husky at pageants.’

  14. The Busy Backson

  On 15 January 1929 – the only date that has survived from my childhood unforgotten – wearing my new, bright red blazer and my bright red, rather large and loose-fitting peaked cap, with my hair of a length which, if not exactly boyish, was at least no longer girlish, at half past eight in the morning and accompanied by Nanny, I climbed onto a number 11 bus at the corner of Church Street, bound for Sloane Square and my first day at Gibbs. Four hours later I was home again and in my father’s library, telling him all about it, telling him about the thing that had impressed and amazed me most.

  ‘We have to call Mr Gibbs “Sir”.’

  ‘Sir’ was what Gertrude called my father, what servants called their masters, what people who worked called the people they worked for, not what boys like me had to call anybody, surely. I expected my father to be as amazed and indignant as I was, and was even more amazed when he wasn’t. Gently he explained to me that schoolboys did address schoolmasters as ‘Sir’, that he had done so when he was a boy and that now I must. Gently he reassured me . . . And thus we reached a small landmark in our lives. For me it marked the full realization of the newness and strangeness of the world I had just entered; for my father the first of many opportunities to help me on my way through it.

  Gibbs was – indeed it still is – a boys’ day school. It was then at the bottom of Sloane Street and Mr C. H. Gibbs was its headmaster. It took boys from the age of about six to the age of thirteen. I arrived at eight-and-a-half, stayed for four terms, then went on to boarding school. Gibbs for me was therefore a bridge between kindergarten and prep school, between Miss Walters and Boxgrove, between Plasticine and raffia on the one hand and Latin declensions and simultaneous equations on the other. It was a bridge between childhood and boyhood, between the nursery world of Nanny and the drawing-room world of my parents, between the years in which I could identify myself with the Christopher Robin in the books and the years spent trying to escape from him. And since my arrival at Gibbs also marks the halfway point in this book, it is perhaps a good moment to pause and look back.

  At Gibbs I was still living in the nursery. Nanny was still very much at the centre of my life. She took me there every morning and was waiting in the hall to take me home at the end of the day. She came to the lantern lect
ures we had every Tuesday afternoon and helped me with the essays I had to write about them the following weekend. She prompted me with:

  Lars Porsena of Cluseum, by the nine gods he swore . . .

  and

  I stood tiptoe upon a little hill . . .

  She read me The Heroes of Asgard and Great Expectations. And, perhaps most important of all, she accompanied me on my visits to James Greig, the ironmonger in Sloane Square. For among the many new things I was learning at my new school – mensa and amo, the dates of George I, the shape of North America: none of them in later life to prove particularly useful – was one that was worth more than all the others put together. Once a week I did carpentry. Once a week I sawed and chiselled and sand-papered; and so once a week (or thereabouts) I told Nanny what it was I wanted and together we went to James Greig to get it. Nanny did the asking (she was better at asking than I was) and I searched in my trouser pockets for the money. With Nanny’s help and encouragement I became a carpenter, with my own private carpenter’s shop in the attic at Cotchford. And I have remained a carpenter ever since.