Christopher Robin Milne

Because this was no ordinary forest, but Ashdown Forest, home of the 100-acre wood in A.A. Milne's world-famous children's classic Winnie the Pooh.

And the bridge was no ordinary bridge but the bridge where Milne's son, Christopher Robin, dropped sticks into the water to see which would float fastest, giving his father the idea for the game.

I think Winnie the Pooh speaks right into the heart of childhood.

A.O. Milne really respects childhood as the most important space in life that we hold with us forever and ever.

Writer and broadcaster Gyles Brandreth read out the extract from Milne's 1928 book The House at Pooh Corner, which brought the game of pooh sticks to prominence before the first bout.

He has a particularly strong personal connection to the setting and the story.

It was very special for me because I was lucky enough in the 1980s to get to know Christopher Robin Milne.

I'd always loved the Four Children's Books by A.A. Milne.

So he just turned 100 a couple of days ago because that was the date of the original publication of Winnie the Pooh by A.

A. Milne based on the stories he and his wife would tell their son, Christopher Robin.

And it was all based on a stuffed animal that A.

A. Milne bought at Harrods in London.

it was Tony Blair and Bill Clinton.

It was David Cameron and, as you say, Barack Obama, and still they're not going back.

But the sad thing is, once you dig a little bit deeper, I don't think the English have done their homework on this one, because Christopher Robin ended up having a very difficult relationship with his parents.

He was not happy with the fame that was eventually saddled on him and the role he had to play.

I, I knew that, of course, the Disney movie, uh, was based on books from some other time, [laughs] but I, I really didn't, I really didn't dig into it.

By the time I was aware of who A.A. Milne was, um, I, I was old enough that I was no longer consuming Winnie-the-Pooh cartoons.

I think I was in my thirties the first time that I saw a photograph of Milne's son, Christopher Robin.

Christopher Robin Milne is a w- real human being, and he-- the, the stories that his father wrote about Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends were based on a menagerie of toys owned by young Christopher Robin.

Winnie-the-Pooh still exists.

I, i- i- I actually, I, I literally just learned this looking at this article from The Washington Post today, and it just...

It's one of tho- it's one of those things that, like...

It just struck me, man.

Pop quiz, high shot.

Who's the original author of Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne, Walt Disney, Beatrix Potter, or E.B. White? If you didn't say A.A.

Milne, oh bother.

Milne drew inspiration for the characters while watching his young son play in the woods with his stuffed animals, his son's name, Christopher Robin Milne.

Winnie the Pooh turns 100 years old this week for a character described as a bear of very little brain.

He's given us some surprisingly big ideas.

Winnie the Pooh first floated into bookstores on October 14th, 1926, 100 years ago.

British author A.

A. Milne bought for her son in, uh, 1921.

Her son, and you know, the little boy in the, in the book is Christopher Robin, and she bought it for her son, Christopher Robin Milne, a 20-inch Farnell teddy bear at Harrod's in 1921, and that, um, bear became Winnie-the-Pooh and then obviously inspired her book.

But I think the interesting thing is that in the 1980s, the actual bear, that little fluffy bear that was very old by then, went to live in the New York Public Library since the early '80s.

And a lot of people in the UK, and I laugh because, you know, the, you know, other, um, former colonies around the world are asking for their artifacts back from England, are they not? Well, now England is suggesting that Winnie-the-Pooh should be returned to the UK from the New York Public Library, where he does, is much loved, but you know, that's not where he comes from.