How Winnie-the-Pooh helped the country find its feet

[TGM]

Nice read in the DT:

 

A snippet:

Quote

•  Jessica Salter 

28 SEPTEMBER 2017 • 1:15PM

A A Milne's world-famous character Winnie-the-Pooh played an unlikely role in the nation's recovery from the traumas of war

Winnie-the-Pooh may not be the first mental association that springs to mind when thinking of the “roaring 1920s”, a time when the New York Times noted “gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession”.

Nonetheless the world’s most famous bear, with his simple line-drawn illustration and gentle philosophical musings, was as much a part of the decade as champagne, parties and celebrities – forming a rather more gentle response to the horrors of the previous decade, and the millions lost in the First World War.

While F Scott Fitzgerald danced and drank the nights away in The Great Gatsby, Pooh’s creator, AA Milne, an officer in the Great War, found his escape in nostalgia and a return to a simpler age....

 

[Moonraker]

Interesting article, TGM. I gather that the real Christopher Robin became very fed up with being associated with the fictional one.

 

At least two books about Winnie have been published recently, featuring his time on Salisbury Plain, when he was one of several mascot bears of the First Canadian Contingent.

 

 

Moonraker

[helpjpl]

 

http://www.whiteriver.ca/article/the-history-of-winnie-the-pooh-white-river-ontario-6.asp

 

Christopher Robin and Winnie at London Zoo

 

 

JP

[Ron Clifton]

3 hours ago, Moonraker said:

I gather that the real Christopher Robin became very fed up with being associated with the fictional one.

A friend of mine met him in WW2 when he was Lieutenant C R Milne RE. My friend's impression was that his childhood had rather blighted his adult development.

 

Ron

[Magnumbellum]

A A Milne had an ambivalent attitude towards war. In 1933 he published a trenchant anti-war book, Peace with Honour, which he went on to denounce in 1940 in a pamphlet, War with Honour.

[TGM]

Though he was not alone in having an ambivalent attitude to the war and the peace . An interesting writer and propagandist nonetheless...?

[seaJane]

I've posted this before, but it bears (!) re-reading: 

https://allpoetry.com/From-A-Full-Heart

[Moonraker]

See the film A Bear Named Winnie here.

IMDB

(I thought that we'd had a discussion about this film before, but if we did I can't find it in the various Winnie threads.)

Perhaps aimed at children, it's a pleasant enough film, though I did wonder at the amount of physical affection shown between the bear (cute though he may have been) and soldiers. Presumably "General Hallholland"  represents General Sam Hughes, who was certainly a bombastic fellow but not the sort of idiot shown in the film trying to justify the efficacy of the Ross rifle.

Obviously I was interested in how Salisbury Plain was depicted. The film showed a lot of sunshine, which the First Canadian Contingent certainly did not have. For a week or so after its arrival in mid-October the weather was pleasant enough, but then it rained and rained and rained.