English Historical Fiction Authors: The Real Christopher Robin and His Father The Real Christopher Robin and His Father by Stephanie Cowell “If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.” – Winnie-the-Pooh I discovered England through books as a child as most of us do, and of course the very earliest I recall were the enchanting poems and stories of a little boy called Christopher Robin and his small animal friends who lived forever in an enchanted forest. Somehow I came to memorize many of the poems. I can’t remember most telephone numbers, passwords, etc., but tucked in my head are these verses. It was only a few years ago I discovered that the real little boy spent many of his adult years wishing that his father had never written them. How did the books and poems come to be? A.A. Milne, his son and the bear A.A. Milne was an editor at Punch, and the successful author of many plays and novels when his son Christopher was born in August 1920. The first of the poems, Vespers, about a little boy saying his prayers, was written by the happily married Milne for his wife.

In the subsequent year he watched his tiny son with tender adoration and created more poems, persuading Punch artist E.H. Shepard to illustrate them. Their publisher hadn’t much faith in the project, called When We Were Very Young, but printed a small edition. Six weeks following, the poems of a little boy and his stuffed animals were famous. The first book was followed by the stories Winnie-the-Pooh, then another book of poems Now We Are Six and finally the last stories, The House at Pooh Corner. By this time the little boy’s world of mangy stuffed animals who had strong personalities, the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, sitting half way on the stair, Bad King John and so many other poems were known all over the English-speaking world. His fame at six was as great as the young Queen Elizabeth. (The fictional Hundred Acre Wood of the Pooh stories derives from the Five Hundred Acre Wood in Ashdown Forest in East Sussex.

Milne and his son who lived on its edge often went walking there.) The original stuffed animals in the NY Public Library Christopher was a happy little boy; he rather liked all the attention, the awed tourists who visited his home in East Sussex, stared at the wood and the bridge from which the child in the poems throws sticks. And then he went to school. There his true nature as a shy, stammering, quiet boy emerged, and of course the others immediately taunted him with, “Hello, Christopher Robin! Still saying yours prayers?” The boy was comfortable only with his father and unable to break away; boy and man found themselves increasingly isolated and trapped by the fame of the world A.A. Milne had created. The audience for A.A. Milne’s adult books and witty plays died away; his beloved wife abandoned him. Father and son drew closer. During World II, the sales of the books rose so steeply that the publisher found it difficult to obtain enough paper to print them. Years later I too discovered the books and truly believed in my heart that there was even in that moment a little boy playing all day in the forest, being cared for by his nanny, living in this enchanted place in England.

I knew that Christopher Robin lived in a far more enchanted place than me and was more loved. I wanted to knock on the door of a tree and be invited in for honey by Pooh. I wanted as loyal a friend as Piglet. (In fact when I began my second very happy marriage, my husband and I collected Pooh and Piglet Christmas ornaments; as my husband was then heavy and towered over me he was Pooh and I, very small and then rather slender, was Piglet.) But like Lewis Carroll’s Alice and J.M. Barrie’s Lost Boys, the real Christopher Robin could not easily shake off the identity created around him by his adoring father. By the time he was twenty-five, he was searching for himself; he tried unsuccessfully to write and failed at several other jobs until he married and opened a bookshop. He became bitter and communications between father and son almost ceased. The books continued to draw countless readers while A.A. Milne no longer had a career or a wife, and his son foundered.

Later Christopher wrote, “It seemed to me, almost, that my father had got to where he was by climbing upon my infant shoulders… he has left me with nothing but empty fame by being his son.” Not true at all: the poems were written out of great love. Some people can walk away from the world-wide fame which fell upon them as a five-year-old; others cannot. In his last years, A.A. Milne had mercifully reconciled with his wife but during his final crippling three-year-illness, Christopher visited him only twice. The little boy grows older When I look at Amazon ranking right now for the combined four Pooh books, it was about 5000. That is a very good rate for a new book; for one which first saw light a hundred years ago, it is miraculous. And heaven knows how many more are sold in bookshops and toy stores. Forbes magazine ranks Winnie-the-Pooh the most valuable fictional character; in 2002 Winnie the Pooh merchandising products alone had annual sales of more than $5.9 billion. Four books, a lonely aging father, a little boy grown up who could not quite find his way.

And all of us who love the stories and poems? What have they meant to us? Books go on to a life beyond life, as the poet Milton said. In the final Chapter of The House at Pooh Corner, the whole little world of woods and toys and the little boy are about to change for the boy is going off to school. “But wherever they go,” says the book,” and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on top of the Forest a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.” “I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart for so long. If we’re in each others' dreams, we can be together all the time,” writes A.A. Milne. He had no greater love than that for his little son. That love has not ceased to shine for nearly a century. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ About the author: Historical novelist Stephanie Cowell is the author of Nicholas Cooke, The Physician of London, The Players: a novel of the young Shakespeare, Marrying Mozart and Claude & Camille: a novel of Monet. She is the recipient of the American Book Award. Her work has been translated into nine languages.

Stephanie is currently finishing two novels, one on the love story of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, and the second about the year Shakespeare wrote Hamlet and all the troubles he had! Her website is Posted by Stephanie Cowell at 8:33 PM 'I knew Christopher Robin – the real Christopher Robin' 'I knew Christopher Robin – the real Christopher Robin' AA Milne with his son Christopher Robin Credit: PA Gyles Brandreth 14 October 2016 • 7:00am AA Milne's son came to hate his portrayal in the Winnie the Pooh books, but that wasn't the end of the story. In this article from 19 October 1998, Gyles Brandreth gives an account of his late-life friendship with Christopher Robin Milne The other day, on a television programme in America, I was introduced as "a guy with a true claim to fame – he once shook the hand that held the paw of Winnie the Pooh ". Yes, I knew Christopher Robin, the real Christopher Robin, the most famous small boy in literature. We first met about 18 years ago when I was writing a musical play about his father, AA Milne .

I made the pilgrimage to Dartmouth in Devon where Christopher, then about 60, and his wife, Lesley, owned and ran a bookshop and cared for their severely disabled, grown-up daughter, Clare. Christopher – slim, a little bent, owlish glasses, tweed jacket – was not at all as I had expected. I had been told I would find him painfully shy, distant, introspective, diffident about his parents, reluctant to talk about Pooh. He surprised me at once. He was consciously charming, courteous, kindly, gentle but forthcoming, amusing, amused. He said: "Of course we must talk about Pooh." He had a mischievous twinkle. "It's been something of a love-hate relationship down the years, but it's all right now." "Now we are sixty," I said. He laughed. "Yes, believe it or not, I can look at those four books without flinching. I'm quite fond of them really." Pooh bear: the original stuffed bear that author AA Milne gave his son Christopher Robin in 1921 Credit: Richard Drew/AP "Those four books" dominated his life.

The first, When We Were Very Young, was published in November 1924, dedicated to "Christopher Robin Milne", just turned four; the last, The House at Pooh Corner, was published in October 1928. Within eight weeks, the first collection of verses had sold more than 50,000 copies; by the time the last book appeared, each title was selling several hundred thousand worldwide. From the outset, they were a phenomenal commercial success and – with the notorious exception of Dorothy Parker who took against them in the New Yorker – they were acclaimed. In 1929, the Professor of Modern English Literature at London University declared: "Of books and authors whose work will be alive a hundred years hence, the two certainties are Conrad and AA Milne's House at Pooh Corner." Until he was about eight or nine, Christopher "quite liked being famous". He corresponded with his fans, he made public appearances, he even made a record. "It was exciting and made me feel grand and important." His attitude changed markedly when he went away to boarding school. He was teased and bullied and learnt to hate the boy in the book called Christopher Robin.

Until then, life had been divided between London – a comfortable house in Chelsea – and the country – Cotchford Farm, near Hartfield in Sussex, on the edge of Ashdown Forest, territory Pooh and co would make world-famous. Mrs Milne dressed her boy not as other boys of the time, as he would have liked, but "girlishly", with "golden tresses" and "curious clothes" – exactly as he appears in Ernest Shepard's drawings. The centre of his universe had been his nanny, Olive Rand. "For over eight years, apart from her fortnight's holiday every September, we had not been out of each other's sight for more than a few hours at a time." AA Milne was either at the Garrick Club or at his desk. "Some people are good with children. Others are not. It is a gift. You either have it or you don't. My father didn't." The House at Pooh Corner: Cotchford Farm, Sussex, where AA Milne lived there with his wife and son Christopher Robin.

Credit: Rii Schroer Christopher came to believe that, because his father could not play with his small son and didn't know how or where to begin, he created "a dream son" on the page instead. And it was only when the children's books were behind him, when Nanny was no longer in the way, that father and son began to know one another. Their friendship lasted nine years, the years of Christopher's adolescence. What did they do together? "The Times crossword and algebra and Euclid." Then came "the inevitable parting" in 1938, when Christopher was 18 and went to Cambridge, then to war, then back to Cambridge to finish his degree. It was after the war, when Christopher was in his mid- to late twenties that his resentment of his father came to a head. He tried several jobs (including one in the lampshade department at Peter Jones), but failed to find a niche and held his parents somehow responsible for his plight.

He came to believe that his father "had got where he was by climbing on my infant shoulders, that he had filched from me my good name and had left me with nothing but the empty fame of being his son." AA Milne with his son Christopher Robin Milne and Pooh Bear in 1926 Credit: Alamy This was Christopher's worst period, when he was bitter, resentful, a man "with a household name but no role in life". Meeting his future wife in the spring of 1948 saved him, but it distanced him from his parents still further. Lesley was a cousin on his mother's side, but Lesley's father and Christopher's mother hadn't spoken to one another for 30 years. The cousins were married and, soon after, set off for Devon to start their life as booksellers. Christopher's mother, "who always hit the nail on the head no matter whose fingers were in the way", was amazed. "You're going to have to meet Pooh fans all the time!" she said. The decision to move was an odd one, but it worked.

The marriage, the bookshop, Christopher's own success as a writer (he wrote three volumes of autobiography) all helped him to come to terms with who he was, who he had been. But he wasn't reconciled to his parents. In his father's last years, he rarely saw him. After his father's death in 1956, his mother lived on for 15 years. He saw her only once. He had said goodbye "long ago", but he wasn't angry any more. For years he had been fiercely independent, rejecting the idea of any financial help from anyone. To have taken a "lift from my fictional namesake of all people" would have been the final insult. In time, he did take the money: "I had to accept it, for Clare's sake." The income generated by the four books - published in 30 languages - has been extraordinary. Milne's literary estate is divided four ways, between his family, his school (Westminster), his club (the Garrick) and the Royal Literary Fund. In 1966, the Walt Disney organisation acquired a 40-year film, video and merchandising licence in the Pooh characters.

The cartoon version of Pooh appals devotees of EH Shepard's original drawings, but its commercial success is undeniable. Christopher Robin as he appears in Disney's 2011 animated film Credit: AP Photo/Disney Enterprises, Inc In his lifetime, the books sold about seven million copies and made AA Milne a wealthy man. But he wasn't interested in money. He was a prolific essayist, novelist and playwright; his passion was his work. Yet, when the children's books appeared, all his previous work was forgotten. Milne was angry that four short books, "containing, I suppose 70,000 words, the number of words in an average-length novel", should obliterate the rest. He was infuriated, too, by the assumption that, because of them, he had a special "fondness for children". He denied it. "I have never felt in the least sentimental about them," he said. In 1947, without regret, Milne let Christopher's childhood toys - the original Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, Kanga - go to America.

For years, they toured libraries and bookshops and eventually, with Christopher's blessing, Milne's US publishers gave them to the New York Public Library, where they are now on display. Christopher was content never to see them again. "I like to have around me the things I like today, not the things I once liked many years ago." BBC - Culture - AA Milne and the curse of Pooh bear British literature AA Milne and the curse of Pooh bear Both AA Milne and his son Christopher Robin grew to resent the bear – and the books – for the enormous impact they had on their lives By Amanda Ruggeri 28 January 2016 Sixty years ago, children – and their parents – lost one of the most beloved geniuses of children’s literature: AA Milne, the creator of Winnie the Pooh. “I suppose that every one of us hopes secretly for immortality,” Milne wrote in 1926 before his Pooh books swept the world. Immortality he received – but not for the reasons he wanted. Advertisement Make new memories with British Airways Whether it’s discovering the sights and sounds of London or exploring Britain’s breath-taking countryside, where will you make new memories this year?

View image of Milne wanted to leave more of a legacy than the ‘bear of very little brain’ (Credit: Credit: ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy) Pleased as punch Over the course of his lifetime, Milne wrote seven novels, five nonfiction books and 34 plays, along with numerous stories and articles. He worked as editor of Granta and assistant editor of Punch. His self-stated aim: to write whatever he wished. As a young writer, when Punch finally accepted one of his pieces, he had been elated. “I had proved that I could earn a living by writing. I would be editor of Punch one day. I was the happiest man in London,” he wrote in his 1939 autobiography – tellingly titled It’s Too Late Now. Of course, Milne would also write the four children’s books that made up the Winnie the Pooh series as well as two poetry collections, When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six. The children’s books added up to just 70,000 words, the length of an average novel. But their enormous fame erased the memory of all the work he’d already done.

View image of Milne’s Winnie the Pooh books added up to just 70,000 words (Credit: Credit: CBW/Alamy) If I write anything less straightforward than ‘The cat sat on the mat’, I am ‘indulging in a whimsy' – AA Milne The success of the Pooh stories also undermined the reception of the non-juvenile work Milne wrote later. “It seems to me now that if I write anything less realistic, less straightforward than ‘The cat sat on the mat’, I am ‘indulging in a whimsy’,” Milne wrote in the introduction to his play The Ivory Door in 1928. “Indeed if I did say that the cat sat on the mat (as well it might), I should be accused of being whimsical about cats; not a real cat, but just a little make-believe pussy, such as the author of Winnie-the-Pooh invents so charmingly for our delectation.” His collaborator, the Punch political cartoonist turned Pooh illustrator EH Shepard, felt the same. Before his death, he called Pooh “that silly old bear” and expressed regret that he’d ever taken part.

After the Winnie the Pooh books, Milne tried to write for Punch again. But not even his former readers would take him back. “His skill had not deserted him, but his public had; and eventually the editor, EV Knox, wrote to tell him so,” his son Christopher wrote in his 1974 memoir The Enchanted Places. “We each had our sorrows.” The real boy After all, Milne wasn’t the only one who struggled with Winnie the Pooh’s fame. As the inspiration for Christopher Robin, in some ways Milne’s son was even more famous than his father. As one Town and Country article put it in a photograph caption, Milne was an “English playwright. Children’s poet laureate by divine right of whimsy. His plays have been successfully produced in New York. And he is the father of Christopher Robin.” View image of Milne with his son Christopher (Credit: Credit: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy) The family didn’t exactly shield Christopher from the publicity. He was given the fan letters that children wrote to him and would laboriously pen responses with his nanny’s help. Many photographs were taken of him with his father, and also alone.

When he was seven, he participated in audio recordings that were done of the books – exploitation, his cousin later said, that showed “the unacceptable face of Pooh-dom”. The next year, Christopher performed before 350 guests at a party, reciting parts of the books and singing the song The Friend. In 1929, he acted in a pageant based on the stories. “I do not want CR Milne to ever wish that his name were Charles Robert" – Milne It was around then that Milne decided to stop writing children’s books. He felt it was time he “said goodbye to all that” in order to change literary direction once more, something he’d been so adept at in the past. But a large part of the reason, he wrote, was also his “amazement and disgust” at his child’s outsized fame. “I feel that the legal Christopher Robin has already had more publicity than I want for him,” Milne wrote. “I do not want CR Milne to ever wish that his name were Charles Robert.” In 1930, Christopher went off to boarding school.

It was the beginning, he wrote later, of that “love-hate relationship with my fictional namesake that has continued to this day.” (The other boys ribbed him mercilessly. His neighbours played the gramophone record he’d performed on over and over until, finally, they got bored with the joke and gave him the record. Christopher smashed it to pieces. Perfect strangers believed they knew – and could judge – Christopher. On the 60th anniversary of the first Winnie the Pooh book, critic Chris Powling wrote, “Was there ever a more insufferable child than Christopher Robin?” View image of Shepard’s illustrations were the exact likenesses of the real-life Christopher Robin (Credit: Credit: CBW/Alamy) Even more galling must have been that, as Christopher insisted in his memoirs, the opinions were based on a character that wasn’t really him. His family didn’t even call him Christopher Robin, but his nickname Billy. Both father and son emphasised that Christopher was not the literary character. But not everyone saw that distinction – with reason, perhaps, since even the original Shepard illustrations were exact likenesses of the real-life boy.

It seemed to me, almost, that my father had got to where he was by climbing upon my infant shoulders – Christopher Milne It was only after a frustrated period of fruitless job-searching after university that Christopher came to feel real resentment – toward both the stories and his father. “He had made his own way by his own efforts and he had left behind him no path that could be followed. But were they entirely his own efforts? Hadn’t I come into it somewhere?” Christopher wrote. “In pessimistic moments, when I was trudging London in search of an employer wanting to make use of such talents as I could offer, it seemed to me, almost, that my father had got to where he was by climbing upon my infant shoulders, that he had filched from me my good name and had left me with nothing but the empty fame of being his son.” View image of Christopher Robin Milne unveils a statue of a bear at London Zoo (Credit: Credit: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty) Milne was just as stuck with Pooh and Christopher Robin as his son was. “I gave up writing children’s books. I wanted to escape from them as I had once wanted to escape from Punch; as I have always wanted to escape.

In vain,” Milne wrote. “As a discerning critic pointed out: the hero of my latest play, God help it, was ‘just Christopher Robin grown up’.’” When Milne wrote in The House at Pooh Corner that “in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing”, he didn’t know how true it was. His legacy may not be quite as literary as he wanted. But even now, 60 years after his death, the boy and his bear are still playing on the pages, and in the imaginations, of thousands of children worldwide. This story is a part of BBC Britain – a series focused on exploring this extraordinary island, one story at a time. Readers outside of the UK can see every BBC Britain story by heading to the Britain homepage ; you also can see our latest stories by following us on Facebook and Twitter .

The real Christopher Robin dies, aged 75 | The Independent The real Christopher Robin dies, aged 75 Sunday 21 April 1996 23:02 BST Click to follow The Independent Online Christopher Robin Milne, the son whom writer AA Milne first introduced to the world in his books as angelically kneeling at the foot of his bed saying his prayers, has died aged 75. In one of the most enduringly adored series in children's literature, AA Milne used his son Christopher's love for a small toy teddy bear to create the world of Pooh. Winnie the Pooh arrived in the bookshops in 1926, Now We are Six a year later, and The House at Pooh Corner in 1928. But while Alan Alexander Milne enjoyed international fame from his work, his young son Christopher is thought to have hated his reputation as the inspiration for the fictitious character. Far from being the idyllic childhood of the books, the nursery life of the real Christopher Robin was stamped with authority and formality. The young child apparently grew to hate his father's creations.

In early childhood he was supposed to said about his father: "One day I'll write verses about him and see how he likes it." Christopher Robin Milne was born in 1920 in London. As the Pooh stories grew in stature, even brought to life by the Disney studio animators, so too has the academic analysis of AA Milne's work. Photographs of the Milne family in the 1920s show how closely the illustrations of the fictitious Christopher Robin resembled Milne's own son. But like many children's authors who invent an idealistic world, the reality was far from the truth. Christopher Robin - unlike his fictional counterpart who will always remain in the woods with his friends Pooh, Owl and Roo - was sent to boarding school. He eventually won a scholarship to Cambridge University, dropped out, joined the army, fought in the Second World War, went back for his degree and eventually open a bookshop in Dartmouth in 1951. There he sold autographed copies of the Pooh stories, donating the money to Save the Children.

In 1974 he described in his book The Enchanted Place how his father had needed him "When I was three, my father was three. When I was six, he was six. He needed me to escape from being 50." Mr Milne is survived by his wife Lesley and their daughter. More about: A. A. Milne | Scholastic A. A. Milne COUNTRY OF BIRTH United Kingdom Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger, and Kanga with little Roo in her pocket—these are some of the best-loved characters in children's literature. They began as stuffed toy animals that belonged to a boy named Christopher Robin. They came to life in the imagination of the boy's father, the writer A. A. Milne. Alan Alexander Milne was born in London on January 18, 1882. His father, who was headmaster of a small private school, often read aloud to his three sons, Barry, Ken, and Alan. Milne was very good at mathematics when he was a boy. Later, he attended Trinity College, Cambridge, to study that subject. But he soon became more interested in writing.

In 1903, he returned to London to try to make a living as a free-lance writer. He wrote humorous articles and light verse. After two years, publishers were "getting used" to him, as Milne described it. He became an assistant editor for the humor magazine Punch in 1906. In 1913 he married Dorothy (Daphne) de Sélincourt. Milne served in the army in World War I. After the war, he began to write plays, many of which are still performed. The best known is Mr. Pim Passes By (1919). He wrote other works for adults—novels, essays, and his autobiography, It's Too Late Now (1939). The Red House Mystery (1921), a detective novel, is still popular. So is Toad of Toad Hall (1929), his play based on Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows. But it was poems and stories for children that made him famous. Christopher Robin—or Billy Moon, as he called himself—was born in 1920.

One day Milne wrote a poem about him called "Vespers" and gave it to his wife as a present. She sent the poem to a magazine, and it was published. Milne wrote more poems, which were published in two books, When We Were Very Young (1924) and Now We are Six (1927). In 1925, the Milnes bought a farmhouse in Sussex. This "enchanted place on the top of the Forest" was the setting for Milne's stories about Christopher Robin and Pooh. Other toy animals, as well as creatures of the forest, joined in the adventures described in Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928). A. A. Milne had a special talent for presenting small children as they are. He takes us into their private world of make-believe and funny words—of "wheezles and sneezles," "haycorns," "expotitions," and "biffalo-buffalo-bisons." All the pictures in the Christopher Robin books were drawn by the well-known artist Ernest H. Shepard.

His tiny pen-and-ink figures exactly capture the mood of the books. A. A. Milne died on January 31, 1956. Pooh, Piglet, and the others now live at the New York Public Library. "Milne, A. A. (1882-1956)." Reviewed by Christopher Milne. The New Book of Knowledge. Grolier Online. Load More Christopher Robin | Winnie the Pooh About Christopher Robin Christopher Robin Milne was born August 21, 1920 in Chelsea. His father , despite the affability which his children's books suggest, was distant, though amiable, with his one and only son. In keeping with Middle Class English tradition in the 1920's, Christopher Robin was brought up by a Nanny who looked after him most of the day. He was taken formally downstairs three times a day to visit his parents. Small, shy and unself possessed, Christopher Milne was clever with his hands. He loved sewing, knitting and making tapestry pictures. He dismantled clocks and locks, rigged up burglar alarms, and even turned a toy pistol into a dangerous weapon.

Christopher was sent to boarding school at Stowe. From Stowe he won a scholarship to read English at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1939. However, he did not return to university after his first year but instead spent some time with the Cotchford Local Defence Volunteers. Later that year Christopher joined the Corps of Royal Engineers and served in the Middle East and Italy for five years during World War II. During an enemy bombardment of a bridge which he had helped to design and build, Christopher sustained injuries from flying shrapnel. Small shards of the metal were left embedded in his brain, where they remained undetected until nearly fifty years later. His war service began the severance of his links with his father. The relations between them became increasingly strained. Though burdened with the fame that rested uneasily on his reluctant shoulders, Christopher remained unfamiliar and unrecognised. By making him a household name in millions of homes throughout the world, A. A. Milne had "filched from me my good name and had left me with nothing but the empty fame of being his son." This process was furthered when, having returned to Cambridge and obtained a degree in English, Christopher decided in 1951 to leave London.

He moved to the village of Stoke Fleming and set up a bookshop in nearby Dartmouth. For twenty years he ran the shop together with his wife, Lesley de Selincourt, a cousin whom he had married in 1949. As he sat behind the counter of his bookshop, Milne was constantly pestered by matronly clients bringing in their progeny to shake hands with 'the original Christopher Robin'. He would do so with a wanly polite smile. For a fee of £10,- donated to the Save the Children Fund, he would also sign one of his father's books. He later took advantage of his unwanted fame and fronted a campaign to save Ashdown Forest from the ravages of oil prospectors. The area was not just the home of Owl and Rabbit, he said, but one of the few areas of outstanding natural beauty in the vicinity of London where city people could come to breath fresh air. At the early age of 52, Christopher handed over the keys of the shop to Lesley, and sat at his portable typewriter to follow the literary path trodden years before by his father.

His autobiographical books, 'The Enchanted Places' and 'The Path Through the Trees', explored the journey from his boyhood with his family in Cotchford to his life with his wife, Lesley, and their daughter, Clare, in Devon. It was only after finishing these autobiographical works, he said, that he could finally look his dreaded namesake in the eye and feel less embarrassed by him. Christopher battled bravely for some years with myasthenia gravis, a neurological decease, and passed away peacefully in his sleep on April 20th, 1996. His life was celebrated in a small Quaker gathering of family and friends. In our characters section, you can read more about the fictional character of Christopher Robin . © All rights reserved. 1998-2017 EMGJ consulting © Characters, pictures & their names Disney Content is property of its respective owners & is provided for informational & educational purposes only. A.A. Milne | British author | Britannica.com British author Alternative Title: Alan Alexander Milne A.A. Milne A.A.

Milne, in full Alan Alexander Milne (born January 18, 1882, London , England —died January 31, 1956, Hartfield, Sussex ), English humorist, the originator of the immensely popular stories of Christopher Robin and his toy bear, Winnie-the-Pooh . A.A. Milne, c. 1920. Hulton Archive/Getty Images Milne’s father ran a private school, where one of the boy’s teachers was a young H.G. Wells . Milne went on to attend Westminster School , London, and Trinity College , Cambridge, the latter on a mathematics scholarship. While at Cambridge, he edited and wrote for Granta magazine (then called The Granta, for Cambridge’s other river). He took a degree in mathematics in 1903 and thereafter moved to London to make a living as a freelance writer. In 1906 he joined the staff of Punch (where he worked until 1914), writing humorous verse and whimsical essays.

He was married in 1913, and in 1915, though a pacifist, he joined the service during World War I as a signalling officer. He served briefly in France, but he became ill and was sent home. He was discharged in 1919. When he was not rehired by Punch, Milne turned his attention to playwriting. He achieved considerable success with a series of light comedies, including Mr. Pim Passes By (1921) and Michael and Mary (1930). Milne also wrote one memorable detective novel , The Red House Mystery (1922), and a children’s play , Make-Believe (1918), before stumbling upon his true literary métier with some verses written for his son, Christopher Robin. These grew into the collections When We Were Very Young (1924) and Now We Are Six (1927). These remain classics of light verse for children.

Despite Milne’s success as a playwright, only these verses and his two sets of stories about the adventures of Christopher Robin and his toy animals—Pooh, Piglet , Tigger, Kanga, Roo, Rabbit, Owl, and Eeyore —as told in Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928) endured into the 21st century. Illustrations by Ernest Shepard added to their considerable charm. In 1929 Milne adapted another children’s classic, The Wind in the Willows , by Kenneth Grahame , for the stage as Toad of Toad Hall. A decade later he wrote his autobiography , It’s Too Late Now. Learn More in these related articles: Who Was Christopher Robin Milne? Who Was Christopher Robin Milne? Christopher Robin Milne was born on August 21, 1920, and was so registered. However, in the Milne household he was known as Billy, and soon as Moon (from his own mispronunciation of Milne).

"We did rather want a Rosemary," Alan confessed to Biddie Warren a few days after Christopher's birth, "but I expect we shall be just as happy with this gentleman" (Thwaite, pp. 214-215). One of the most famous blonds in modern times (at least until Disney Pooh got done with his fictional namesake, many years later), Christopher was actually born with "lots of curly brown hair" and brown eyes. Later drawings, descriptions and (sometimes colorized) photos show Christopher's hair turned blond and stayed blond (as did his father's) for most of his life. Like his father before him, Christopher waited a long time before his first haircut. "His long hair reminded his mother of the girl she'd wanted and the father of the boy he himself had been" (p. 217). There were also the girlish clothes young Christopher wore, and which appear noticeably and fairly frequently in the Pooh Books. If Alan himself had the sense as a boy of "battling against the wrong makeup" -- of looking girlish when he really wasn't -- his son battled less against a similar outward appearance.

He was content to be gentle, shy and quiet (though he became an enthusiastic boxer, rope climber and explorer of the countryside as he grew older). N.B.: Christopher Milne was most probably an INFP (as compared to the ENFP personality type of the Webmaster ). Christopher's closest childhood friend was Anne Darlington, who was eight months or so older and a tougher character (as even the photo on the left suggests). They were devoted and almost inseparable. Anne had a toy monkey, Jumbo, as dear to her as Pooh was to Christopher. (One can only imagine what might have happened had Alan chosen to immortalize Jumbo in the Pooh Books, as he did Anne herself in his dedication to Now We Are Six.) Several poems by Milne, and several illustrations by Shepard, feature Anne and Christopher -- notably "Buttercup Days", in which their relative hair colors (brown and golden blond) and their mutual affection are noted. (The illustration to this latter poem, from Now We Are Six, also features the cottage at Cotchford Farm.) To Alan and Dorothy Milne, Anne was and remained to her death the Rosemary that Christopher wasn't, and Dorothy long held fond hopes that Anne and Christopher would marry.

Though Alan had long since lost any interest in orthodox Christianity, and never had Christopher christened, he allowed the family nanny, Olive Rand (later Brockwell), to have charge of young Christopher's religious upbringing. It was by such grace and Olive's good personal example that Christopher actually felt much closer to God in his childhood than he did later. (One wonders if his later resistance to organized religion had anything to do with his constantly being teased at boarding school about the actually-intended-to-be-ironic poem "Vespers", with its famous line, "Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.") Until he went to boarding school, Christopher (in his own words) "quite liked being Christopher Robin and being famous." There were many interviews of his parents in those years, of course, as well as of Christopher himself; and they give a delightful portrait of the boy behind the character. Some of Alan's poems about Christopher, as well as Christopher's own memoirs, intimate that Christopher had inherited his father's brains and his mother's hands -- a fact that would eventually serve Christopher well at critical times in his life. Christopher's portrait of himself as a child may be summed up thus (The Enchanted Places, pp.

37-41): Height: Small for his age. Weight: Underweight. Needs fattening up. Appearance: Girlish. General Intelligence: Not very bright. General Interests: Good with his hands. From all indications, though, Christopher underestimated (at least in his memoirs) his own childhood and boyhood intelligence. ("Not very bright", as he noted, stemmed from his "odd" ability to do hard mathematical sums but not easy ones -- something I can relate to, as I had the same problem.) Alan's own accounts of Christopher's achievements show a child, and then a boy, who was consistently precocious, indeed in scholarship form -- and in time, like Alan at the same age, a mathematician and a cricketer. (Alas, Christopher's shyness affected many things, including his confidence at cricket; and his undoubted keenness at cricket in his younger days withered as he grew older.) He was also competent with tools (especially woodworking tools) as early as age seven (when he was already the family's Chief Mender).

Christopher (as we may see from his self-image) could be cited as a victim, as have been so many others, of the modern world's profound misunderstanding (for all its psychological tests and sometimes precisely because of them) of what "intelligence" really is. It is a combination of nine factors, not just one to three. Alan's particular brand of blending is one of those valued by our modern world. Christopher's brand generally is not, and the world is poorer because of this prejudice. Christopher's real life is the story of his efforts to compensate for this prejudice as well as for the rare circumstances in which he found himself as the template for a successful author's most successful human literary creation. During the last years of Christopher's easy identification with Christopher Robin, there was a pageant held at Kidbrooke Park at the edge of Ashdown Forest near Cotchford. Both Christopher Milne (pp. 87-89) and Ann Thwaite (pp. 330-331) mention it. It occurred in July 1929 twice a day for four days. After a long procession of historical personages, Christopher entered carrying his famous toys (dropping Eeyore -- it would be Eeyore!

-- along the way), went into the woods, then returned.. "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...." (The Enchanted Places, p. 88). Incredibly, some rare film footage of this pageant survives. It was featured on a BBC documentary entitled "The Real World of Winnie-the-Pooh" (see the BBC's original story here ). Here is the story as posted on Justin Valentin's Web site : Christopher Robin footage found (November 26th, 2001) Film footage of the real-life Christopher Robin playing with friends dressed as Winnie-the-Pooh characters has been found -- 72 years after it was shot. The clip was unearthed during research for a new BBC documentary celebrating the 75th birthday of the children's books.

The 10-second piece shows Christopher Robin Milne, son of creator A.A. Milne, following school children dressed for a pageant as Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Eyeore, Tigger and Kanga. He was nine years old when the film was shot in the Ashdown Forest, East Sussex, in 1929. Although Christopher Robin was unaware of the film he remembered the pageant and wrote about it in his autobiography. It says: "The pageant went its memorable way and I see it as an ancient cine film, much faded and blurred and with many breaks, but with here and there and a sequence as vivid as the day it was shot. It was exciting doing my bit." Helen Kent was the BBC producer who discovered the footage, while looking for shots of the Ashdown Forest. To her amazement the film she requested contained shots of Christopher Robin himself. Ms.

Kent said: "I couldn't believe I had discovered actual footage of the real Christopher Robin Milne." Frank Gray, director of the South East Film and Video Archive where the piece was found, said: "If anyone asked me 'would this film still exist?' I would have said 'no' as 80% of the films from the 1920's have been lost. This is the only film we have of Ashdown Forest from that period, so for this one film to be the film that also showed Christopher Robin was virtually impossible. It's a wonderful piece of film because it links the world of Winnie-the-Pooh to Ashdown Forest and Christopher Robin." To the left is a sample frame from the film footage, as featured in the BBC's original story published on November 27, 2001. The documentary "The Real World of Winnie-the-Pooh" was presented on that date by 10-year-old Joel Pitts, who navigated his way around Ashdown Forest using the map E.H. Shepard drew of the Hundred Acre Wood. Along the way, Joel found that Roo's Sandy Pit, Galleon's Lap and other landmarks in the stories still exist.

At Gibbs Christopher was still living in the nursery, and his Nanny was still very much a part of his life. Going to Boxgrove in 1930 put an end to Olive's role in his life; and it also marked the beginning of his love-hate relationship with his fictional namesake. As with introspective boys at boarding schools generally, Christopher had to assume a dual identity: one for home, another for school. Thanks to the fictional Christopher Robin, in the real-life Christopher's case the split was particularly deep. On the other hand, as he grew older Christopher became increasingly close to his father, and remained so until well into his twenties. This may explain (as Christopher himself wrote much later) why when his departure from his father's orbit finally came, it was a farther departure than usual. It is often said that A.A. Milne was not particularly "good with children". Christopher opined so himself, in his own writings. Certainly the formal photos taken of Alan and Christopher together, even in later years (such as the above), have a decided awkwardness about them.

Yet Alan was always keenly observant of and delighted in his son; and as Christopher grew into his teens, he and his father could share many things that Alan used to share with his brother Ken. One might say that Alan's relationship with Christopher as a teenager was a blend of affection and nostalgia - which dynamic would be fully consistent with a father/son relationship of INTP/INFP (referencing the famous Myers-Briggs Type Instrument grid). Adulthood naturally brought many changes for Christopher -- and many unexpected twists and turns to his life. They began with his arrival at Cambridge at nineteen, just as the clouds of World War II were gathering. Both he and his father, for different reasons, were pacifists; and now both were to seemingly betray their beliefs. Christopher had won a major scholarship to read English at Cambridge. He also brought with him his keenness in mathematics. Yet here, Christopher's love of mathematics perished, as Alan's love had before him (even leaving aside Alan's earlier experiences at Westminster). Even so, a certain way of thinking remained in the Milnes.

It showed in Alan's logically based humor (especially in the Pooh Books); it also showed in Christopher's delight in elegance (in things both written and made by hand). Meanwhile, Christopher decided to join the army instead of returning to Cambridge after his first year. With help from his father (and in large measure thanks to a detailed book on Victorian carpentry), Christopher became a Sapper in the Royal Corps of Engineers, a place where he could put his talent for woodworking and mechanical things to good use. In all, he served in the Middle East and Italy for five years. Like Alan before him, he was lucky; he avoided death or ultimately serious injury. During the Allies' Italian Campaign, the enemy bombarded a bridge which he had helped to design and build. Shrapnel put him out of action, just when (as he wrote later) he needed such a happenstance the most. (Small shards of the metal were left embedded in his brain, where they remained undetected for nearly fifty years.) Italy was a marvelous place to be for someone who loved the countryside as much as Christopher did. It was there that he encountered Vesuvius in one of its occasional fits.

And it was there that he encountered another sort of turmoil, that of his first romance -- with an Italian girl named Hedda (The Path Through The Trees, pp. 105-106): Hedda was one of a group of Italians whom Harry -- in ways only known to people like Harry -- had managed to organize. (...) I was not present on their first visit. I forget now what particular excuse was given -- headache, pressure of work, calls of duty. If Harry wanted to import a gang of popsies, that was O.K. and just the sort of thing Harry would want to do, but count me out. I don't dance, thank you very much, and I don't particularly enjoy female company, thank you very much, and I don't fancy spending my evenings necking with signorinas who don't speak my language. This was my reaction. And so my heart sank when I was told that the party had been a success and that they would be coming up again next week. "Oh, and Chris, there was one who would have been just right for you. We told her all about you and she wants to meet you.

She's at Venice University studying English." Then I hope you told her that I don't dance. "That's all right, Chris, she wants someone to help her with her English. You ought to be good at that. She's quite a smasher, by the way." Oh, shut up, Harry. Christopher's natural shyness notwithstanding, he and Hedda hit it off very well. Their months together were happy and innocent, leaving no regrets. If Hedda learned English the more readily thanks to Christopher's help, Christopher learned about Italian -- and about Italians in their many varieties, especially Hedda (who was herself part Austrian). In the end, Christopher declared his love for Hedda and promised to return for her after he was decommissioned. In the end, though, Hedda needed a more masterful husband than Christopher could be. He began to realize this himself, when he did return for a visit; and six months later, "without too much heartbreak and with no ill-feeling, [the relationship] came to an end" (TPTTT, p. 113).

Hedda's last letter to him (in 1948) was to congratulate him on his engagement to Lesley de Selincourt, his first cousin. Christopher and Lesley had a great deal in common -- not least of which was enjoyment in doing "nothing much together". If this echoed young Christopher Robin's love of "doing Nothing", it was all the more ironic that Lesley seemed to despise Pooh and add to the real-life Christopher's resentment of him. Lesley was not Anne Darlington, and Alan could not help but compare the two unfavorably,. There was also the "instinctive antipathy" between Lesley and Christopher's mother Dorothy; and there was Alan's fear for his future grandchildren, born of the fact that Christopher and Lesley were so closely related (Thwaite, p. 471). Nevertheless, on April 7, 1948, Christopher and Lesley were engaged, and on July 24, 1948, married. Christopher had earned only a Third Class degree in English Literature at Cambridge, and was ill-equipped to make his way in the world by traditional means.

Like his father, he wanted to be a writer, but times for writers were very difficult after the war. On top of this, there was the burden of "the empty fame" of being A.A. Milne's son on the one hand and being unwanted and unappreciated for what he really was on the other. There had been a deepening rift between father and son after the latter's return from the war; and this was only compounded by Christopher's difficulties in finding employment and his eventual marriage to Lesley. In 1951 Christopher and Lesley left London to start the Harbour Bookshop in Dartmouth, Devonshire. Dorothy thought the decision very odd, inasmuch as Christopher didn't seem to like "business" and would have to meet Pooh fans all the time. While both of these factors would cause their frustrations, Christopher and Lesley successfully established and ran their bookshop for many years -- and that without any help from royalties derived from sales of the Pooh Books.

Much of Christopher's The Path Through The Trees describes those years and the years of retirement following: the details of running a bookshop, and the causes (education, then civic development) that finally enabled Christopher to overcome his public shyness and find his voice. Then there was the birth of Clara Milne, a few months after Alan's death in 1956. Alan's fears for Christopher's and Lesley's future offspring had proven justified; Clara was born severely palsied. And yet, in devising means to gave her as much independence as possible, Christopher's rather unusual combination of a mathematician's brain and a woodworker's hands finally shone. Another cause fired Christopher's efforts in later years: the preservation of the Ashdown Forest country from oil exploration. It was not only the inspiration for much of the Pooh Books; it was one of the few nearby places Londoners could go to breathe fresh air. Naturally, Christopher was involved in the dedication of monuments to his father's work and other preservation efforts related to it. At the relatively early age of 52, Christopher handed over the keys of the Harbour Bookshop to Lesley and began his career as a professional writer.

His first two autobiographical books, The Enchanted Places and The Path Through The Trees, enabled him to look both his father and his literary namesake in the eye and established his own literary reputation. In his third volume, The Hollow On The Hill, he explored his search for a personal philosophy, a sort of pantheistic humanism similar to that of his father. Alan had never had Christopher christened; and while he allowed the Church to seek to persuade his son, he never allowed it to apply force to him. While Christopher was abroad during the war (he was then twenty-four), Alan sent him two books: Renan's The Life of Jesus and Winwood Reade's The Martyrdom of Man. Upon comparing the two philosophies described by the two authors, Christopher chose the latter for himself, as Alan had before him. To him, as to Alan, God had not created Man, but quite the other way around.

(Christopher takes some little space defending his beliefs on this point, in his first two volumes.) Yet with Christopher, as with Alan, the witness of nature concerning God could not be completely ignored; and in Christopher's third volume, he showed a somewhat greater willingness to listen to it, and even to certain traditional Christian teachings, than is evident in his earlier volumes. In 1985, Methuen published Christopher Milne's fourth book, Windfall. Wikipedia's article " Christopher Robin Milne " mentions it, but I had not heard of it previously (that is, prior to January 7, 2007). In 1988, Methuen published Christopher Milne's fifth book, The Open Garden. I have not seen or read this book, but it is excerpted in the combined volume Beyond the World of Pooh (left), published by Dutton in 1998. Ironically, the British edition has on its cover the very figure that was such a mixed blessing to Christopher Milne through so much of his life: Christopher Robin, so accurately drawn from life by E.H. Shepard. (The American edition, with equal irony, has a famous photo of A.A.

Milne, young Christopher Milne and the real-world Winnie-the-Pooh.) As the synopsis of this book on Amazon.co.uk puts it, "Eventually, in his later years, [Christopher] turned his attention to contemplating the wasteful exploitation of the environment and produced a provocative treatise on humankind's duty to the natural world." The Open Garden appears to be that treatise. As such, it undoubtedly begins where The Hollow on the Hill left off: with a humanistic plea for concern for the natural environment. Winnie the Pooh ruined my life | Express Yourself | Comment | Daily Express VIDS Winnie the Pooh ruined my life IT IS one of the best-known lines in English verse: “Hush, hush, whisper who dares, Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.” PUBLISHED: 00:00, Fri, Oct 2, 2009 Christopher Robin hated the creations of his father A.A. Milne, pictured with his son [] The poem Vespers, about a golden-haired boy saying his bedtime prayers, has enchanted generations of children and parents alike.

But for the little boy kneeling at the foot of the bed the poem – and indeed his whole identity – would become an instrument of torture for him for most of his life. Indeed Christopher Robin Milne would refer to the refrain as “the one work that has brought me over the years more toe-curling, fist-clenching, lip-biting embarrassment than any other.” As the star of the children’s stories and poems written by his father AA Milne, Christopher Robin Milne was the most famous boy in the world. When his father went on a literary tour to the United States in 1931 all anyone wanted to know about was how little Christopher Robin was getting on. In terms of global renown, Parents Magazine placed him on a par with the child prodigy Yehudi Menuhin, Hollywood child star Jackie Coogan and no less a personage than young Princess Elizabeth. Even when he was no longer little, Christopher Robin’s efforts to forge a life independently of his father’s literary creation always led back to the same place: to Winnie-the-Pooh, Eeyore, Tigger and his own childhood self.

Customers at the bookshop he ran for more than 20 years in Devon would invariably arrive armed with an autograph book and a child in tow who was longing to meet the real-life Christopher Robin. The gangly, bespectacled figure they encountered behind the shop counter never refused to oblige but it was always with a weary air of resignation. It is doubtful he would welcome the publication of Return To The Hundred Acre Wood, a new sequel to the Pooh stories written by David Benedictus with the approval of the AA Milne estate, more than 80 years after the original was first published. As one critic wrote, Christopher Robin spent more than 40 years “trying to get off his knees from saying his prayers”. The most mild-mannered and self-effacing of men in all other aspects of life, on the subject of his father he could be brutal in his condemnation. As a schoolboy he declared: “One day I will write verses about him and see how he likes it.” In later life his reproaches were more calculated to wound. “When I was three my father was three. When I was six he was six... he needed me to escape from being 50.

“It seemed to me almost that my father has got to where he was by climbing upon my infant shoulders, that he had filched from me my good name and had left me with the empty fame of being his son.” O nly when he emulated his father and took up the author’s pen himself was he able to reconcile himself to what he regarded as his father’s exploitation. But by then AA Milne was long dead after many years of ­virtual estrangement from his son. The popular perception of the Pooh stories is that they were written by a deeply affectionate father for his adored only son. The reality was rather less benign. Though never unkind to the boy, Alan Alexander Milne was cast very much in the Edwardian mould of fatherhood: ­affable enough but distant. The truth is that when the child was born on August 21, 1920, both Milne and his wife Dorothy de Selincourt were hoping for a girl. “We did rather want a Rosemary,” Milne confessed in response to congratulations from a friend.

“But,” he added, “I expect we shall be just as happy with this gentleman.” Mother and father each chose a name for the baby but called him Billy, which then became Billy Moon after his mispronunciation of his surname. Early photographs of the young Christopher Robin show a doe-eyed child whose longish hair and delicate ­features made it difficult to determine the gender. His biographer Ann Thwaite claimed: “His long hair reminded his mother of the girl she had wanted and the father of the boy he himself had been.” As an adult Christopher Robin described his boyhood self as “small for his age, underweight, needs ­fattening up and girlish.” His father was from a solid middle-class background. AA Milne was ­educated at the independent school run by his father in Kilburn, North London, where one of the school­masters was HG Wells. While at ­Cambridge, where he wrote for the student magazine Granta, he was noticed by the editors of satirical magazine Punch and taken on as a contributor, ­rising to assistant editor.

By the time Christopher Robin was born, Alan Milne, who was then already 42, was also a well-known playwright and novelist as well as a humorist and satirist. He and Dorothy – always known as Daphne – lived in Chelsea. H ewrote his first children’s poems during a spell of rainy weather during a family ­holiday in Wales. They were published in 1924 as the collection When We Were Very Young and illustrated by Punch cartoonist EH Shephard. As was customary for well-to-do families of the age, Christopher ­Robin’s upbringing was largely left to a nanny. Contact with his parents was limited to brief periods at breakfast, tea time and in the evening just before bed. To compound the parental ­alienation Alan and Daphne spent ­little time together, meaning their son’s time had to be further divided between them. This resulted in Christopher Robin inheriting his father’s facility for mathematics and from his mother an aptitude for working with his hands. By the age of seven he was already the “chief mender” of the household, dismantling and repairing clocks and locks and rigging up burglar alarms and stitching tapestries.

AA Milne’s collection When We Were Very Young made Christopher Robin a household name. In 1925, the year after their publication, Milne bought Cotchford Farm, a country house in Harfield, East ­Sussex, which became the setting for the Hundred Acre Wood that was the scene of the fictional ­Christopher Robin’s adventures with his animal friends. The model for Winnie-the-Pooh was Edward, the teddy bear ­Christopher Robin had been given for his first birthday while the other animal toys arrived on subsequent birthdays. At first Christopher Robin enjoyed his fame. “There were times when it was exciting and made me feel grand and important.” That all changed when he went to boarding school at Stowe, where the other boys mocked him constantly about “saying his prayers”. His father tried to reduce the damage, insisting the fictional Christopher Robin was nothing like Billy at home and refusing to write any more children’s books. But it was too late, the immortalisation of his golden-haired son was already complete.

Like his father, Christopher Robin won a scholarship to Cambridge but left university to serve with the Royal Engineers in the Second World War and was wounded in Italy – pieces of shrapnel remained lodged but undetected in his body for 50 years. Soldiering gave him the anonymity he craved, the no-strings friendship of his comrades and the ability to strike out on his own. C hristopher’s closest childhood friend had been Anne Darlington. Alan and Daphne regarded her as a surrogate daughter and hoped she and Christopher would marry. Instead Christopher defied his parents to court and marry his first cousin Lesley de Selincourt in 1948. Three years later they moved to Dartmouth where they successfully established the Harbour Bookshop. The Milnes opposed Christopher and Lesley’s marriage partly because of consanguinity and indeed their only child Clare was born with cerebral palsy in 1956, a few months after the death of AA Milne. Apart from a few visits to his sickbed, Christopher was estranged from his father. Though his mother lived another 15 years he never saw her again. Christopher now turned his talents to designing special furniture and implements for his disabled daughter.

Though he would sign books for customers in return for a £10 donation to Save The Children, Christopher had never taken royalties from the Pooh books and sold his share of future earnings to set up a trust fund for Clare. After 20 years he handed the ­running of the bookshop over to Lesley and devoted himself to ­writing. In 1974 he published The Enchanted Places, the first of three autobiographical books about growing up with Pooh. He said he wanted to pre-empt unwanted biographies but ­admitted that writing was “like a session on the analyst’s couch”. Christopher Robin Milne died in April 1996. Like the father he struggled to love, he had never found a subject to write about that was more compelling than his own life. To order a copy of Return To The Hundred Acre Wood by David Benedictus, published by Egmont, price £12.99, send a cheque to Winnie The Pooh Offer, PO Box 200, Falmouth TR11 4WJ, call 0871 988 8367 or visit . UK delivery is free

Question: Which writer was the father of Christopher Robin?
Answer: A A MILNE