Classic Winnie The Pooh

Posted by Johanna on Jan 7, 2013 in Winnie the Pooh | 1 comment

The classic and original Winnie the Pooh won’t be found on a video, in a movie, on a T-shirt or even on a lunchbox. Since 1987, the Classic Pooh and four of his best friends–Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga, and Tigger–have been living together  in The New York Public Library.

Long before Walt Disney turned Pooh and his freinds into movie stars, Christopher Robin Milne, a very real boy living in England, received a small stuffed bear on his first birthday. He named him Edward Bear (later renamed Winnie the Pooh). Following Edward came the rest of the stuffed animals, which Christopher loved and played with throughout his childhood.

One day, Christopher’s father, A.A. Milne, with the artist  Ernest H. Shepard, decided that these animals, and two other imaginary friends, Owl and Rabbit, would make fine characters in a bedtime story. From that day on, Pooh and his friends have had many fanciful adventures, from Piglet’s encounter with a Heffalump to Eeyore’s loss of his tail. These classic stories have been embraced by millions of children and adult readers for more than 70 years.

The original characters  drawn by E.H.Shepard were the models for Christopher Robin and his  lovable friends and are as popular today and  as much in demand as the later cartoonish Disney characters.

The classic drawings and tales of Pooh and friends continue to appeal to children today .It seems adventure, mischief and innocence just don’t go out of fashion

Winne the Pooh …in Latin!

Posted by Val on Jan 7, 2013 in Winnie the Pooh | 0 comments

I came across an interesting article about Winnie the Pooh recently and I thought I would share it with you. Around 1960 a Latin version of A.A.Milne’s book  ‘Winnie the Pooh’ was published in the U.S. and it was titled ‘Winnie Ille Pu’.The book contained not a single page in English but that did not stop it from it becoming the only Latin book- and perhaps the only book in any foreign language – ever to become a New York Times bestseller.It remained on their list for 20 weeks and sold 125,000 copies in 21 printings.One well known writer of the day described the book as ‘the greatest book a dead language has ever known’.

New book about Pooh and his Friends

Posted by Johanna on May 15, 2012 in Winnie the Pooh | 0 comments

After over 80 years Winnie the Pooh returns to Hundere Acre Wood……The publishers of the Pooh books have brought out
a new book of ten stories featuring the famous characters and including a new one Lottie the Otter..Lottie is a cricket loving otter and a stickler for good manners.
The stories follow Christopher Robin as he returns from boarding school for the summer and meets up with old freinds again.

The author David Benedictus remains faithful to the original
Milne narrative and the illustrations by Mark Burgess are very sympathetic to the great Shepard originals.

Where Winne the Pooh and his friends live.

Posted by Johanna on Apr 17, 2012 in Winnie the Pooh | 0 comments

When E.H.Shepard first drew the map of the 100 ‘aker’ wood he based the location on Ashdown Forest, the very real countryside around Cotchford Farm the home of the Milnes

in East Sussex. Over the years,there has been much written and indeed speculated as to where areas in the fictional map match up with surrounding areas of the farm and woods.To sort the wood from the trees so to speak,requires a bit of imagination ,a map of the area and possibly a copy of Christopher Robin’s autobiography ‘The Enchanted  Places’..In that book Christopher Robin says quite emphatically that

Ashdown Forest and 100 Acre wood are identical.Traveling to the region and exploring for yourself really make the stories come alive.

If you find yourself wandering along the path through Ashdown Forest you can could come across Piglet’s beech tree, or Kanga’s and Roo’s house in a sandy part of the forest near Gill’s Lap ,which many readers will recognize as Galleon’s Lap ,which is one of the ‘Enchanted places’ in the Forest.East of Gill’s Lap is the ‘North Pole’ discovered by

Pooh.This area is on private land just across a narrow stream.On the local map the area that is known as 500 Acre Wood would be known to you dear Pooh reader as 100 Acre wood,which is of course where all the characters live.

There is plenty of  local helpful information but a good starting point is the Ashford Forest information centre which is one mile east of Wych Cross just off the A22.

The best known landmark is Poohsticks Bridge which on the local map is called Posingford Bridge.Playing the game on the bridge is great fun and should not be missed.

Winnie The Pooh….We Love You..But where did that name come from?

Posted by Johanna on Apr 17, 2012 in Winnie the Pooh | 0 comments

How this ‘silly old bear’ got his name is really fascinating.The origins of the name Winnie the pooh is a story of a black bear cub,a soldier,a swan,a child and a zoo.The name Winnie came about as follows.At the outset

of World War One a young Canadian officer named Harry Coleburn brought a cub bear to London on his way to the French Front. When his regiment was leaving for France he gave the bear on loan to London Zoo.He had bought the small female black bear in Canada from a hunter who had shot its mother.
The soldier named the bear Winnie after his home town of Winniepeg.Winnie became a popular attraction at the zoo. Captain Coleburn happily survived the War and returned from the Front in 1919. Back in London ,on his way home ,he asked the zoo to keep the bear.The zoo was delighted
as it had become very popular with the public.Especially with a small boy called Christopher Robin Milne,the author’s son..Father and son often visited the zoo together and ,strange as it may seem now, Christopher Robin would be allowed to enter the cage and play with Winnie.
This bear was the inspiration for the character Winnie the Pooh .Although Winnie is a female name Christopher Robin insisted that his bear would be a boy bear!The real Winnie lived on at the zoo till 1934.

Christopher used to go and feed a swan near his house every morning and he named the swan Pooh.He said that ” Pooh is a very fine name for a Swan,because if you
call him and he doesn’t come ,which is a thing swans are good at,then you can pretend you were just saying ‘Pooh!’ just to show how little you wanted him”
The swan gets a mention in a poem from ‘When We Were Very Young’.So the swan then gave it’s name to the bear.
The name Winnie the Pooh was born and what a great name it is.

POOHSTICKS… When it all started.

Posted by Johanna on Apr 17, 2012 in Winnie the Pooh | 0 comments

Poohsticks bridge, which is known locally as Posingford Bridge,is a beautiful old carthorse crossing over the Medway river in the village of Upper Hartfield, East Sussex,which is about an hour south of London.

Built in 1907, it has had it’s footbridge replaced to resemble the wonderful drawing that E.H.Shepard originally made in the 1920′s,as the bridge did not originally appear as the artist drew it.

Playing Poohsticks on the bridge has become very popular in the last 20 years or so.In fact dropping so many sticks into the water has meant that the local water authority has to bring in an excavator

from time to time and clear out the bundles of Poohsticks that have accumulated downstream!.Otherwise localized flooding could occur.As Eeyore says “They’re

funny things Accidents,you never have them till your having them ”

There cannot possibly be anyone in the world who does not know how to play Poohsticks. Can there?.. Really?..Well just in case, here goes..

Firstly,each player picks a stick.Try and find ones that are mostly the same size.Each player then leans over the upstream side of the bridge [careful now!] and drops their stick in a “twitchy sort of a way” into the flowing water.

Never throw your stick in .Never!.The players then cross over to  the downstream side of the bridge and the first players stick to emerge from under the bridge is the winner.The number of players is only limited to the size and weight of the bridge.

Although the game of Poohsticks does not yet qualify to be included in the Olympic Games, we live in hope.But did you know that there is an Annual World Poohsticks Championship?.The competition takes

place each year in England on the River Thames in Oxfordshire.It is a charity fund raising event and you can enter it yourself or as a team.It costs the princely sum of two pounds to enter

or ten pounds for the team.Entrants come from far and wide to try their hand in winning a prize of a Winnie the Pooh Teddy Bear.

In A.A.Milne’s book, Pooh first discovers the game when he accidently drops a pine cone from a fir tree into the gently flowing stream below him.”Thats funny I dropped it on the other side and it came out this side!”, said Pooh.

” I wonder would it do it again?” He tried it again with more fir cones and it worked again.And again.Not quite satisfied Pooh dropped two cones in together one big one and one little one .The big one came out first,

which is what he said it would do and the smaller one came out second which again is exactly what he said it would do.So Pooh reckoned that he had won twice!  So the game of Poohsticks was invented and Pooh and his freinds began playing

the game on the edge of the forest.But instead of using fir cones they used sticks, because they were easier to mark them.In 1979 the centenary of E.H.Shepard’s birth was marked with a special game of Poohsticks on the famous bridge and a

unique stamp was created by the Post Office to commemorate the occasion.