The Life and Times of the Real Winnie-the-Pooh

by Shirley Harrison

  Milne’s own talent was playing with words and the use of language. With humorous twists and simple, sometimes silly sentences and idiosyncratic banter, each story is a drama full of action, smiles and ‘Deep Thoughts’. Characters come alive and can be shared between adult and child.

  Humphrey Carpenter, in his book, Secret Gardens, suggests that Pooh’s world gives all children an unconscious understanding of human nature, which will remain with them forever.

  Shepard liked to draw from life and so he became a fairly regular visitor to the Milnes. His beloved wife Florence was very ill at this time, and he found the work therapeutic. One of these meetings was recorded by Dutton’s President, John Macrae, when he visited Mallord Street, in 1926. He described Moon sitting on the floor with Pooh and the other animals, largely unaware of the significance of what was happening. A.A. Milne was on the sofa reading aloud and Shepard was sketching away in his accustomed pencil.

  Milne himself described Macrae as an old man with a beard who insisted on saying ‘yessir’ and who flatteringly assured him that he went straight to the hearts of the people. ‘More likely to the heart of his banker’, Milne wrote tersely to his brother, Ken, afterwards (Ann Thwaite).

  On 24 December 1925, In Which We are Introduced to Winnie-the-Pooh and Some Bees, was published in the Evening News, with a front-page banner headline, ‘A CHILDREN’S STORY BY A.A. MILNE.’ It appeared in far larger print than the main news stories – ‘Great Storm Sweeps over Derbyshire’ and ‘Lord Cobham’s Mansion on Fire.’

  On Christmas Day, at 7.45 p.m on the wireless, the BBC offered a reading of the story by the well-known Actor-Manager, Donald Calthorp. This was the first interpretation of many – the best known probably being those by the growlyvoiced actor, Norman Shelley, on Children’s Hour, years later.

  It is alleged that Churchill (himself a Winnie, of course) was so impressed that he commissioned Shelley to impersonate his voice and record some of his wartime speeches for the radio, when he was otherwise occupied in trying to win the Second World War.

  Pooh must have been proud.

  The new story would shortly be followed in the magazine, Eve, by Pooh Goes Visiting And Gets Into A Tight Place. This tells of the day Pooh called on Rabbit and got stuck in the entrance hole of his burrow and how Rabbit used his legs inside as a towel rail while he waited for Pooh to slim down and eventually wriggle his way out into the Forest. There were eight more stories until the publication of Winnie-the-Pooh finally launched the career of its hero.

  The book, Winnie-the-Pooh, was published on 14 October 1926 and was dedicated rather gushingly to Daphne ‘because we love you’. She appears only once in any of the books – as Moon dutifully repeats ‘God Bless Mummy’ in Vespers and even then there is no illustration of her.

  This was Pooh’s big moment. Christopher Robin is there of course – but he has become the sensible growing-up boy in the background (as he was becoming in real life) to whom his friends from the Forest, who would never grow up, would turn when in trouble.

  Winnie-the-Pooh, the teddy bear, the romantic poet and philosopher, was now the hero. Thirty-two thousand copies of the book were immediately on sale in Britain and by the end of the year 150,000 copies had been sold in America, too.

  Pooh spent much of his new celebrity status down in Sussex but over the following years was often required for personal appearances in London. With Moon, he met the not-quite-yet-famous Enid Blyton who, at the age of 29, had already published a dozen books. She described Moon, in his little brown overall and a shock of corn-coloured hair carrying ‘an enormous teddy bear, which he informed me was Pooh. He looked around the room for something he might devour. His bright eyes fell upon his father’s fountain-pen and he immediately took it up and pulled it into as many pieces as possible.’

  Pooh watched the John O’London’s reporter, Claude F. Luke, being given the freedom of the brightly coloured nursery in Mallord Street.

  His later encounter, for a second time, in 1928, with American journalist, May Lamberton Becker was a bit rougher. As she sat in the Mallord Street nursery a ‘large brown bear’ came tumbling over her shoulder. In Daff’s Pooh voice, small and gruff, the bear said ‘Here, hold me up, I mustn’t miss this’. So she sat with Pooh’s face against hers watching Moon boxing his father who was protected by a yellow cushion.

  Ms Becker had sent Moon a rather magnificent Red Indian headdress after their first meeting. She was thanked effusively by Daff who assured her ‘He does look such a duck going out in it.’ She sympathised with the problem of a bear who, she believed, had almost overnight changed the name of a household institution – when all the teddy bears in America became Pooh-bears.

  Chapter Eleven

  Pooh is the Spur

  IN THE AUTUMN OF 1926 Moon had another part to play. He also became Christopher Milne and started morning school at Miss Walters' establishment in Tite Street, Chelsea, with little Piglet in his pocket. His companions were Anne Darlington and the two daughters of Denis McKail.

  He was unconsciously and naturally moving away from Pooh as the map of Africa on his bedroom wall took his imagination out across the world. He had always loved beetles and creepy crawlies – one of the most popular poems in Now We Are Six was about his beetle Alexander, who escaped from his matchbox and ran away. Now Christopher Robin, the schoolboy, was discovering grown up Natural History and Science.

  As he explained in The Enchanted Places he was quite unaware of the extraordinary effect his father’s books were having. ‘Throw a stone into a pool of water and you make a splash … Pooh made a big splash and the ripples travelled a long way. But a child has small horizons and they soon passed over the edge of mine and out of sight.’

  Moon with Pooh and the new Piglet in his pocket still enjoyed walks with Anne and Jumbo in the afternoon after school – only now there was a certain amount of finger-pointing. They all preferred the freedom of Sussex where they were hardly known at all and the few people who had heard of Pooh didn’t care anyway.

  Letters poured in – some of which Pooh answered himself. As he said, his spelling was ‘wobbly’. It was good spelling but it ‘wobbled’. It was Owl who advised him that some things are best doing nothing about. The Milnes adopted his advice and the pile of correspondence and begging letters which they decided to ignore was given the label ‘Wol’.

  There were the inevitable requests from commercial companies such as Pear’s Soap. They wanted Pooh (and Moon) to support their internationally famous Bubbles advertisment. Wolsey wanted support for children’s woollen underwear. They did not get it!

  Those who did eventually benefit from Pooh’s fame and Blue’s natural generosity were charities such as The Royal Literary Fund, the Authors’ Pension Fund, The Children’s Country Holiday Fund and Toc H. He could never quite get used to the idea that he was rich.

  He was also personally generous, especially to the family of his beloved brother, Ken. Ken had, from childhood, been overshadowed by his younger brother. He, too, had wanted to write and did contribute to Punch from time to time but never with the same spectacular success.

  Now Pooh had dashed his hopes for ever. He was ill and struggling financially but maybe the explosive international response to Winnie-the-Pooh could provide some compensation. It gave Blue the resources to support Ken’s wife Maud, and he helped too, with the children’s education and his brother’s medical expenses.

  He never let his newly-found wealth go to his head, fearing always that it might end. Although his tastes were simple he could at least now afford to indulge a few whims – taxis, wine, golf balls, theatres and fancy lingerie for Daff.

  He was pleased too, that his elderly father, J.V. Milne, was ecstatic at his son’s success, reading all his reviews and checking sales figures. Blue wrote to Ken, ‘father seems so happy and excited that he makes me feel ashamed of not having made him happy before.’

  August 1927 was spent entirely in the country. It was a deckchair-in-the-garden
sort of summer. The next book of verse, Now We Are Six, was due for publication in October and several stories for what Milne had claimed would be the last book, The House at Pooh Corner, were also ready. But most of his time was spent writing a new play, The Fourth Wall, an ingenious detective story with a twist.

  In 1927 Shepard’s wife Florence died after a long and very happy marriage. The Pooh commissions became a solace and a distraction for him at a very sad time.

  Moon had chickenpox in December and had to miss his singing role in the school Christmas concert. So Daff came up with an idea. Why not let Moon make his debut as a performer? Early in 1928 she suggested that he should record some of Pooh’s Hums and other songs from When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six .

  Daff approached HMV and they eagerly leapt on her idea. The Milnes’ neighbour was H. Fraser-Simson, known as ‘F-S’, whom Moon thought was a ‘rather fierce-looking man, with a great grey moustache.’ He had already set some of the songs to music. First there was a rehearsal in Mallord Street, followed by some coaching in the Fraser-Simson house with the composer’s wife, Cicely. Moon said she was younger and prettier than her husband and he liked being coached by her. She encouraged him to try a ‘Poohish’ voice when singing and to take deep breaths in the right places.

  Then Moon and Pooh were driven by the composer and his dog, Henry Woggins, to the studio. There he sang, in his beautifully articulate and surprisingly confident treble, a selection of songs including Buckingham Palace and Vespers.

  Even in the family there were those who thought the whole idea too sickly for words and the boys at school made Christopher’s life a misery. Years later even his cousin Angela allowed her own children to hang the record in a tree and take pot shots at it.

  At home, the next exciting venture was a play taken from the forthcoming book The House at Pooh Corner. Eeyore’s Birthday was written of course by Blue and acted by Moon and some friends for just one performance. It told the tragic tale of how Pooh, discovering that it was poor Eeyore’s birthday and that nobody had brought him a present, decided to rescue the situation. He went home to fetch a (very small) pot of his favourite ‘hunny’ and met Piglet on the way who said HE would give Eeyore a balloon. But on the way back Pooh forgot what he was doing and as it was a very hot day he felt it was time for a little something. So he ate the honey. Right down to the bottom of the pot. Still, as Eeyore said, it was especially useful because Piglet had fallen over – BANG – on the way and burst his balloon. Now he had a ‘useful Pot’ to put things in and a ‘useful Thing’ to put in the pot!

  The House at Pooh Corner was published here and in America in October 1928. The sales were phenomenal. Pooh had been told that there would be no more books about him: ‘But I do not know if he has quite taken it in’, wrote Daff. ‘Look’, she said, ‘Pooh’s crying.’

  Blue’s beloved brother Ken died in May 1929. He was only 48. Blue could not face going to his funeral but was spotted standing alone, in the shade of the trees, among the graves on the edge of the graveyard.

  Pooh’s star turn came that year in July in Sussex when he and Moon, in the presence of Royalty, took part in a spectacular event telling the story of Ashdown Forest.

  An impressive assembly of special guests was there, including guest of honour, HRH The Duchess of York, future Queen herself and mother of Queen Elizabeth II. Rudyard Kipling was there with Vita Sackville-West, Earl De La Warr and, of course, A.A. Milne.

  The local paper enthusiastically devoted two full pages over ten columns to the four-day event. ‘The Pageant of Ashdown Forest’ was a spectacular telling of the history of Pooh Country from 475 A.D. concluding, of course, with Pooh himself.

  The Pageant, which attracted several thousand visitors, was staged in the glorious grounds of Kidbrooke Park, Forest Row, not far from Hartfield. This was then the home of the Hambro banking family. Today the mansion is home to Michael Hall School and headquarters of the Rudolph Steiner organisation.

  Hannah Symons from Cotchford Lane was to play Eeyore on her hands and feet. Another friend, Rosemary Weaver (who met them both originally at the local nursery school) was chosen as Pooh ‘because I was fat. But it was very disappointing – there was no hunny on my pot’. ‘It was a sweltering day and I had a hot stinky skin to wear,’ said Tigger. ‘It was murder!’ Piglet was in a pink stockinette jump suit. ‘It was exhausting in that heat’, recalled Hannah.

  Moon played himself as the real Christopher Robin, carrying the real Pooh, the real Eeyore (who was dropped by mistake) and the real Kanga, Roo and Tigger.

  There is a puzzle. A photograph snapped by a by-stander at the time shows Moon holding ‘Poglet’ – not Piglet, the little creature drawn by Shepard who eventually went with Pooh to New York. The original Piglet had survived his dog-biting ordeal but was, presumably, left out of the Pageant. Maybe he was considered a bit shabby to meet with Royalty.

  Moon solemnly led the human ‘animals’ across the lawns to gather in the centre of the ground for a picnic, while a long procession of picturesque historical characters circled the field. There were ancient Britons, knights, witches, excise men, kings and queens.

  It was all very exciting – Winnie-the-Pooh and Henry VIII, side by side, to recreate the story of Ashdown Forest for the future Queen of England!

  In July 2009 Hannah (now Mrs Rooth) and Rosemary (now Mrs Foster), chauffeured by their sons, accepted an invitation to a ‘Hunny Tea Party’ in the garden at Cotchford Farm, where the present owners, Alastair and Harriet Johns were hosting a unique gathering with their son, Alexander.

  All of the guests were making a nostalgic return and several had travelled long distances for the reunion with friends: others were the Hartfield villagers, like Les Hallett, or their families who had worked for the Milnes. All had stories to tell and memories to share.

  Pete Tasker, in his smart military blazer, son of gardener George, had grown up in the old farm house at the top of the drive. He was born in 1930 just after Moon had left for boarding school. He brought with him from Devon a teddy bear which Blue had given to his Dad as a present for the new baby – much as Pooh himself had arrived in Mallord Street after Moon was born. The bear, named ‘Billy’, after Billy Moon, sat on the dresser in Cotchford beside pictures of his cousin Pooh on Poohsticks Bridge.

  Pete and elegant Dawn granddaughter of Mrs Jacques, met for the first time since they were very young. His old pal, Tommy Mitchell, from the garage was there, as was Tom Belton with his brother Bill. Bill was known to Daff as ‘Mr Rabbit Man’ because he used to shoot rabbits for her in the garden.

  They swapped an endless riot of tales about their youth in Hartfield over honey sandwiches, strawberry scones and lemon-drizzle cake.

  There was the time when Moon went up to the garage to buy some cartridges for his pistol. He had fired the gun at home and the bullet had jammed, so there was a loud explosion and blood spattered all over his hand. Tommy told how his Dad helped the boy enlarge the hole in the barrel so that the cartridge would slip in more easily and then, how he went outside and fired the bullet through a notice saying ‘private’.

  But it was clear, as the memories flooded back, that those select few who knew the Milnes well or had worked for them as a family were generously warm. Daff’s demeanour and sense of style may have been out of place and misunderstood down in the village but her staff were loyal and remained with her for years. Mrs Wilson was with them throughout their time at Cotchford and only left at the age of over 80 to marry. She ruled the household roost (refusing always to serve coffee after dinner); George Tasker worked on their garden until he died. Words like ‘gentleman’ and ‘kindly’ were heard frequently at that tea party.

  They all remembered too, Moon’s teddy bear, but apart from Hannah and Rosemary they were mostly too busy or too young to read the books as they appeared and they certainly didn’t play ‘Poohsticks’. Only Hannah and Rosemary really cherished their personal link with that furry ‘Personage’ from their childhood
who was to become a national institution.

  And where were Pooh and the animals from the nursery while all this was happening so many years later, in their name? For that part of the story we shall have to retrace our footsteps.

  Before the Pageant, Christopher left Miss Walters’ establishment and graduated to a boys’ day school at the bottom of Sloane Street run by Mr C.H. Gibbs. It was, he said later, a bridge between childhood and boyhood for him and that Pooh was moving into the shadows. He was living in two worlds – one still, but less often, with Pooh and Nou. In the other he was on his own.

  He was bought his first pair of football boots and, in January 1929, wearing the uniform of bright red blazer and bright red peaked cap, his hair now cut boyishly short, he took the number 11 bus with Nou to start his new life. It was still Nou who was at the centre of his day. It was she who went to the school’s lantern lectures on Tuesday afternoons and was waiting for him when it was time to go home. It was she who took him to James Greig’s shop in Sloane Square to buy tools and sandpaper for carpentry lessons.

  But Mr Gibbs was merely a stepping stone to the next huge step in the boy’s life. First, there had been only Nou and Pooh but when Moon was nine and sent off to boarding school, Olive Rand retired to marry her long-suffering fiancé and become Olive Brockwell. Moon begged her not to go. ‘Marry me’, he pleaded.

  His nanny’s departure was to leave the way for Blue, at last, to feel his way gently towards a much closer friendship with his son, since now there was no competition. It was not until she had left finally that Moon, who had become painfully shy, developed a stutter. He turned instead to his father ‘adoring him as I had adored Nanny so that he, too, became almost a part of me. His knowledge, his opinions, his beliefs could be passed on to me and I would eagerly accept them as my own.’

  In May 1930 he started boarding school at Boxgrove, near Guildford. With his smart new leather bag with his name on, he set off with his father (never his mother), driven as usual by Burnside. Sitting silently in the car it was always the same; doing The Times crossword and then looking straight ahead when the time came to say ‘Goodbye’. He said that school was all right when he got there but home was so much nicer.