Pooh to you.(Ryan)(Christopher Robin Milne, the creator of Winnie The Pooh)

As I SAT DOWN on Sunday August 21, intending to write a piece (on a wholly different subject) for Quadrant's October issue, I chanced to notice that the date was the anniversary of the birth (in 1920) of Christopher Robin; yes, that Christopher Robin, the only Christopher Robin, son of A.A. Milne (1882-1956). By a chance equally odd, I was reminded that the following day, Monday August 22, would be the anniversary of the birth of the New Yorker's wisecracking mistress of the sweet-and-sour, Dorothy Parker. If she were still alive, this sharp razor at the Algonquin's legendary lunch-table would be 112.

Could there possibly be any connection between these two apparently random and ill-sorted facts? Read on.

A.A. Milne was for some years assistant editor of London Punch, and also wrote plays and essays. His Toad of Toad Hall was a brilliant dramatisation of Kenneth Grahame's immortal Wind in the Willows. But A.A. Milne's true literary goldmine he unearthed in his own backyard--his son Christopher Robin. In 1924 Milne published a little book of almost prattlingly simple "child verses", under the title of When We Were Very Young; in 1927 he produced a further collection--Now We Are Six. Both were charmingly illustrated with black-and-white line drawings. The "signature poem" by which most people nowadays recall Milne's oeuvre begins:

 
   They're changing guard at Buckingham Palace-Christopher 
   Robin went down with Alice. 
   Alice is marrying one of the guard. 
   "A soldier's life is terrible hard," 
      Says Alice. 

Although written for Christopher Robin, the wide-eyed innocence of these verses might be less artless than at first it appears.

In 1926 Milne published Winnie the Pooh, and in 1929 The House at Pooh Corner, all prose stories of the exciting adventures of Christopher Robin and his toys--Pooh Bear, Piglet, Kanga and Roo, Rabbit, Owl and the doleful donkey Eeyore. (Tigger the tiger was a latecomer.) E.H. Shepard's gently brilliant line drawings added a whole dimension of sensibility to the printed page.

The triumph eighty years ago of Milne's Pooh Bear and Christopher Robin might be compared today to J.K. Rowling's conquest of the juvenile book market with her Harry Potter series, but with important differences. For example, publishing in the 1920s remained (in Fred Warburg's words) an "occupation for gentlemen". The merchandising of "spin-offs" and the ministrations of the "marketing" cowboys had not submerged the primacy of literature. I don't recall any offers of genuine footprints of Christopher Robin, or quill pens made from Owl's authentic feathers, nor veritable Pooh Bear honeypots. No bumper-stickers of any sort.