Christopher Milne
 
 

On August 21, 1920, Christopher Robin Milne was born. The world knew him as Christopher Robin, the young boy around which the Pooh stories are based. And many people always knew him as such. But Christopher Robin Milne's life wasn't always what was portrayed in the stories, and as he grew up, he left the world of Cotchford Farm behind him.

Many people would say that A. A. Milne was a hard man to get to know. He tended to be uncomfortable with meeting people, and he was also uncomfortable around children.  It was quite different in later years, but Christopher's parents weren't all that involved with his upbringing during his nursery years. That task fell to his nanny. As Christopher grew up, his parents began to spend more time with him.

Growing up, Christopher had only three close friends. The first was his nanny. The second was a girl he had met that lived near Cotchford named Hannah. The third was Anne Darlington, who lived in London and was his closest friend for many years.  Perhaps it was due to the time he spent separately with each parent that Christopher gained the talents of both. He enjoyed working with his hands, just as his mother did in her garden. Christopher also shared talents with his father, such as his love for mathematics and for playing cricket. Christopher also shared in the creation of the stories that his father wrote about.

As a young child, Christopher enjoyed being associated with the Pooh stories. He and his friends once put on a play in the forest for the parents, enacting out one of the stories. He also took part in helping his father come up with the stories. It wasn't until boarding school, at the age of 10, that Christopher began to hate his association with Christopher Robin. Previously, he had been upset that some of the newspaper articles that had been written about him were wrong about certain facts, but for the most part, he enjoyed being associated with the stories. However, away from the family and amongst a new group of boys, he was often teased about being Christopher Robin.

Like his father had done, Christopher went to Cambridge on a mathematics scholarship. He only spent about eight months at school, having lost his love for mathematics and deciding to join the army to help with the war effort. Like his father before him, Christopher came to hate the horrors of war. Not all was horrible about the war, however. Christopher managed to fall in love for the first time while stationed in Italy. He was introduced to Hedda by another member of his company at a dance for the officers. Together, they often spent time while the company was stationed in Trieste. Through spending time with Hedda, Christopher came to learn a little Italian (he could read it easily, but had trouble speaking it) and to love the country. After Christopher had returned to England, the romance fizzled out.

After the war, things started to go bad for Christopher. He had gone back to Cambridge in 1946 and graduated in 1947 with a degree in English literature. He tried to be a writer, but there wasn't the market for light stories as there had been for his father. It was at this point in his life that Christopher was most upset with his father. On July 24, 1948, Christopher married Lesley de Selincourt, his cousin. His parents did not approve of his choice. Partly because they had hoped that Christopher might one day marry long-time friend Anne Darlington, and partly because of Lesley's parents.
 
Christopher was still having troubles finding a job in London. He had written some occasional talks for the BBC, but it wasn't permanent. That, and the conflict he was having with his parents, caused Lesley and him to leave London in 1951. They moved to Dartmouth and opened a bookstore there. Christopher did begin to collect royalties from the Pooh books in 1971, after his mother died.

Originally, they lived above the shop, but that changed in 1956. The reason was the birth of their daughter, Clare. They moved to a house on the edge of town, and filled the second floor with gift items. Clare was a special daughter. Christopher described her as being "spastic". She suffered from cerebral palsy. Her special needs led to some changes with the Milne's. When she was old enough, she was sent to a special boarding school. When she was home, either Christopher or Lesley needed to be home with her at all times, so extra help was needed at the bookstore. Christopher also found an outlet for his carpentry skills, as he now designed tools that Clare was able to use.

A. A. Milne never had the chance to meet his granddaughter, as he died a few months before Clare was born. On his death he never saw Cotchford again. And although his mother lived for another fifteen years he only saw her once.

Christopher's first book, The Enchanted Places was published in 1974. It focuses on his childhood, and his relationship to his parents. A second book, The Path Through the Trees, came out in 1979, and deals with his adult life, and the struggles that he went through to escape from his father's shadow and find himself. He also wrote other books, mostly short essays on his beliefs and observations, but they were published in small numbers and didn't receive as much attention as his first two books.

In his later years, Christopher was very active in the community. He pushed for better libraries in the schools, campaigned to save his childhood stomping grounds in Ashdown Forest from oil prospectors, and gave his time to promoting the Save the Children Fund. Christopher Milne died April 20, 1996, leaving behind his wife, Lesley, and his daughter, Clare.

"Some years ago I had a letter from a small child in America. She was very, very angry with me because—so she had heard—I didn't like being Christopher Robin. If she had been Christopher Robin, she told me, she would have been VERY PROUD, and I ought to be ashamed of myself for not feeling proud, too. It was a "Wol" letter, naturally: I doubt if she expected it to be otherwise. She will be older now. Older, wiser, more tolerant. And if she happens on this book she may perhaps understand just how and why it all came about.

"Pooh," said Christopher Robin earnestly, "if I—if I'm not quite—" he stopped and tried again— "Pooh, whatever happens, you will understand, won't you?"

I like to think that Pooh understood. I hope that now others will understand too. (The Enchanted Places, 169)"