The Real Christopher Robin – Why A.A. Milne’s Son Hated Winnie the Pooh

  • August 1920: Christopher Robin Milne is born, the son of writer Alan Alexander (A.A.) Milne and Daphne de Selincourt.
  • 1924: a.a. Milne publishes the first Winnie the Pooh story, a collection of poems titled When We Were Very Young.
  • 1928: Last Pooh story published, The House on the Corner of pooh.
  • 1928-1929: christopher robin begins to be bullied by his classmates.
  • 1940-1942: Christopher Robin can’t find a job after college, driving a wedge between father and son.
  • 1947: Christopher Robin meets Lesley, her first cousin, and marries her months later.
  • 1956: a.a. Milne dies.
  • 1996: christopher robin dies.

the many adventures of winnie the pooh

Nearly 100 years have passed since the first Winnie the Pooh tale was published, but the stories of Christopher Robin and his adventures with the friendly animals of the Hundred Acre Wood continue to captivate the hearts of fans both young and old. older.

The latest installment in the stuffed animal-inspired series is Christopher Robin, a film starring Ewan McGregor as the adult version of the title character. he is reunited with his “silly old bear” of his, who then helps him get his life back on track. Although this live-action shot is purely fictional, the man behind the books is very real, and he suffered a great deal of struggle over the success of his namesake.

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christopher robin in real life

christopher robin milne was born in chelsea, london, on august 1st. January 21, 1920, just 21 months after the great war ended. He was the first and only child of former British Army officer Alan Alexander Milne and his wife Daphne de Sélincourt. His father, a screenwriter and novelist by trade, was inspired by Christopher’s stuffed animals, particularly a teddy bear named Edward (the name “Winnie” comes from a bear they saw at the London Zoo), to create stories about The Adventures of Friends in the Hundred Acre Wood. The first book, a collection of children’s poems titled When We Were Very Young, came out in 1924, shortly after Christopher Robin’s fourth birthday. it sold more than 50,000 copies in eight weeks, according to the telegraph.

christopher robin’s fight with a.a. milne’s success

Looking back to his early childhood, Christopher told writer Gyles Brandreth that his father “wasn’t good with children” and was away most of the time, either at work or at London’s prestigious Garrick Club. . his mother, meanwhile, insisted on dressing him in “girlish” clothes and keeping his hair below his ears, a style that was unusual even for the time. Christopher’s closest confidant was his nanny, Olive Rand, who was with him for over 8 years.

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Pooh’s fourth and final title, The House at Pooh Corner, published in October 1928. By then, each book was selling hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide. As the series’ popularity grew, so did Christopher Milne’s resentment. Jealous classmates bullied and teased Christopher, who responded by taking boxing lessons to learn how to defend himself. >which continued into adulthood, he wrote in his 1974 memoir haunted places.

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“at home I still liked him, in fact, sometimes I felt quite proud to share his name and be able to bask in his glory a bit. at school, however, I started to dislike him, and I realized that he disliked”. more and more as I get older,” Christopher wrote.

a tense relationship between father and son

father and son forged an apparent relationship during christopher’s teenage years, bonding over algebra problems and crossword puzzles when the young milne was home during breaks, but that foundation crumbled once christopher left for college in cambridge. After serving in World War II and finishing his degree, Christopher, then in his twenties, was unable to find satisfying work. he was not up to the “family name” of him.

The troubled period solidified his resentment toward A.A. He believed, he would later reveal, that his father “had gotten to where he was by riding on my shoulders as a child, that he had stolen my good name and left nothing but the empty fame of being his son.”

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Christopher probably would have been even more bitter if he hadn’t met his future wife, who also happened to be his first cousin, at age 27. Mrs. Milne disapproved of Christopher and Lesley’s relationship because she and her brother, Lesley’s father, had been separated for 30 years. however, the couple married months later and opened a bookstore together.

Writing his memoir seemed cathartic for Christopher: “Believe it or not, I can look at those four [Winnie-the-Pooh] books without flinching,” he said at age 60, but he never really reconciled with his parents. He visited his father occasionally in the author’s later years, but after a.a. Milne died, Christopher only saw his mother once in the remaining 15 years he lived after her husband’s death. Even on her deathbed, according to the Oxford Biography Index, Daphne Milne refused to see his only son.

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make up with pooh

Christopher befriended Brandreth, who was writing a musical about the elder Milne, in 1980. He told the writer that he was no longer angry, that he had said goodbye to his parents “a long time ago”. He even parted ways with the friends who had started it all (his childhood toys Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, and Kanga) in 1947 when he delivered them to the New York Public Library, where they remained on display for 20 years. years.

“I like to have around me the things I like today, not the things I once liked many years ago,” he said. Despite the resentment and feelings of inadequacy that plagued Christopher for much of his life, Brandweth wrote that he believed his friend “was happy and fulfilled” at the time of his death in 1996.

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