In case you’re wondering – it is National Winnie the Pooh Day, hence my little homage. It’s a little retro and a bit sentimental but I consider myself lucky because if I lived in the States I could be writing about their National Peking Duck Day, celebrated every year on the 18th January.
Here’s the original Pooh with his friend Christopher Robin Milne.
Christopher Robin had a little clan of stuffed toys which have all ended up in The Children’s Center, 42ns Street, New York.
Bet you recognise this little gang of mohair critters – from left to right: Kanga, Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore and Tigger.
AA Milne wove his son’s favourite toys into the now world famous Pooh stories and the wonderful illustrator E H Shepard brought them to life in his, now iconic, images.
I wish I had a set of these – the first collection of stories about the character was the book Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), and this was followed by The House at Pooh Corner (1928).
and some lucky little children in the 1950s had curtains in their bedroom made from this original fabric copyrighted by Milne and Shepard.
Here are a handful of favourite pages for your delight:
And I leave you with a page which, for some reason has stayed with me since early childhood – including the song.
