the RETURN of WINNIE -THE-POOH
A new Royal Ontario Museum exhibit — full of honey and love, of course — marks Christopher Robin’s 100th birthday
It was a simple wartime gesture. Buy a bear cub. Keep spirits up. Remind soldiers of home. When Lt. Harry Colebourn noted his $ 20 purchase at a train stop in White River, Ont. in his diary on Aug. 24, 1914, he had no idea of the ripple effect that would see the little, black bear cub become a global phenomenon worth billions.
The bear he named Winnie — after his hometown of Winnipeg — would indeed help morale among the troops as they headed off to battle in the First World War. She would also spark delight in children at London Zoo when the soldiers went off to fight in France.
One four- year- old child in particular — Christopher Robin — was so enthralled when he met her that he changed the name of his own teddy bear from Edward to Winnie- the- Pooh. And that inspired his father, Alan Alexander Milne, to write four books, two of poetry, two of prose, about his son’s adventures with said bear and his stuffed animal friends Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga, Roo and Tigger. ( Rabbit and Owl are based on real animals in the forest where they all played.)
Christopher Robin Milne was born 100 years ago. His teddy bear, a present for his first birthday, recently underwent a refurbishment, and now resides in the New York City Library. But its movie-star replica (from the 2017 film Goodbye Christopher Robin) is in the Royal Ontario Museum’s exhibit Winnie-thePooh: Exploring a Classic.
The blockbuster show, from London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, is in Toronto on its final stop of a seven- city, four- year tour. It’s estimated more than 600,000 people have seen the exhibit worldwide. And according to the curators, the V& A’s Julius Bryant and ROM’S Justin Jennings, it’s fitting that the lovable bear has finally come back to Canada.
Jennings made a point of starting the ROM exhibit with the Canadian connection to the Pooh phenomenon. “We wanted to take the Canadian story and put it front and centre.”
And to do that the museum worked with Lindsay Mattick, Colebourn’s Torontobased great- granddaughter. She’s lent his diary and some war photographs to the museum for the show.
Winnie-the-pooh was first published in October 1926 and was a huge hit in the United Kingdom and abroad. It was followed by the House at Pooh Corner. There were also two books of poetry — Now We Are Six and When We Were Very Young. The latter, published in 1924, has the bear’s first appearance in the lines: “A bear, however hard he tries / Grows tubby without exercise.”
The childhood favourites from literary lore are remarkable not only for the playful prose but also the wonderful drawings done by Ernest H. Shepard.
Milne and Shepard were the Lennon and Mccartney of children’s books, says Bryant, Keeper of Word and Image at the V& A and the original curator of the exhibition. Although Milne prided himself as a playwright and comedic writer, the 70,000 words of the four books would prove to be his making.
Bryant wants the exhibit to showcase their work, but also to encourage parents and children to read the books together. “These books are meant to be read aloud,” he says. “They are definitely interactive... and there are great social values in them.”
The Winnie- the- Pooh books have never been out of print and have sold about 50 million copies in 50 languages.
Shepard, who donated two albums of original Pooh drawings to the V&A in 1973, continued to be involved with the various incarnations of the friendly teddy bear over the years, helping with the first colour editions in the late 1950s.
His original Pooh sketches were based on Christopher Robin’s teddy bear, but eventually morphed into his son Graham’s teddy bear — a Steiff bear named Growler. There’s a replica of his bear in the exhibit because the original met a rather savage end, Bryant says.
It turns out that Graham Shepard married a Canadian woman and when he went to fight in the Second World War, his wife and the old stuffed animal went to Montreal. Shepard died in the war and Bryant says his childhood teddy bear was eaten by a neighbour’s dog in Quebec.
Incidentally, Bryant points out that A. A. Milne gave Christopher Robbin’s stuffies to his New York agent because his son didn’t want them. And that agent ultimately gave the collection to the New York City Library, where they remain on display.
But it all started because Colebourn bought the bear. He loaned Winnie to the London Zoo when he went off to fight in France, visiting her when he had time off in the British capital. The affable bear was so popular with visitors that after the war Colebourn gave her to the zoo. ( There’s even a photo, taken around 1926, in the exhibition of Christopher
Robin standing right next to the real Winnie.)
What happened to Winnie? The bear, who was a hit at the zoo, really did love honey and condensed milk, according to his keepers. He lived to be about 20 years old — which was considered a ripe old age.
Since Pooh first appeared there have been numerous spinoffs of the original story. In 1930, Milne sold the licensing rights for the Pooh characters to Stephen Slesinger, his New York literary agent, for $ 1,000 and later, 66 per cent of broadcast royalties. Slesinger put the characters on an RCA Victor record and featured them on puzzles and in games, giving them a whole new life.
And when Milne’s widow, Daphne, sold the film rights of the honey- loving bear to Walt Disney in 1961, the Pooh franchise took off again. These days, the amiable icon even has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Pooh’s estimated value was about US$ 6.3 billion a year in 2000, according to Forbes. And although no recent estimates of his worth are available, it’s clear from response to the exhibition and the bear’s perennial popularity that he’s still highly rated. What’s the secret?
For Jennings, it’s the simplicity. The characters are all easily relatable. The natural setting — based on Ashdown Forest (“100 Aker Wood” in the books), in East Sussex near the Milne family home, about 90 kilometres south of London — has universal appeal. And from a Canadian perspective, he sees Pooh as a symbol of Canada coming into its own identity in the dark shadows of the First World War.
For Bryant, it’s the remarkable creative partnership of Milne and Shepard — both of whom fought in the First World War and who sought to celebrate all they had fought for — values, friendship and nature, which shine through the books.
And for Mattick, it’s the love story. Colebourn was a veterinarian who loved animals and bought the orphaned bear cub as a regimental mascot for the Second Canadian Infantry Brigade, to help the soldiers going off to battle.
“He didn’t have any grand intentions... He just bought a mascot,” she says, noting how remarkable it is that “one simple act of love can go on to have all these consequences.”
She was so inspired by her great- grandfather, the endearing bear and the stories that she wrote two children’s books herself — Finding Winnie and Winnie’s Great War, which she co- authored with Josh Greenhut.
The Winnie- the- Pooh exhibit, with more than 200 works, includes original drawings by Shepard, story recordings and, of course, the stuffed animals. It also recreates Pooh’s world for children to explore and enjoy. The show runs at the ROM until Aug. 3.