Winnie’s Great War

Almost everyone who has read anything about the background of Winnie the Pooh, the real Pooh that is and not the Disney travesty, knows that he was inspired by a bear donated to the London zoo by a Canadian soldier from Winnipeg when his regiment was about to be sent to France in 1914. She was a very friendly bear, and Christopher Robin and his father visited her there many times. From these visits and the boy's favourite stuffed toy grew the Pooh stories and poems that so many know and love.

That we know this much is due to the diary that Harry Colebourn kept in 1914 in which he records succinctly, "August 24. Left Pt Arthur 7 a.m. On train all day. Bought Bear $20." Harry's grand-daughter took this entry, plus the one saying "December 9. Took Winnie to Zoo, London", a few intervening ones about the movement of Harry's regiment, plus the final "July 8, 1915. In London all day. Visit Zoo in morning and see Winnie", and weaves this story told from the point of view of Winnie, herself: how she was born, lived in the Ontario wilderness with her mother until the cub’s mother was killed by a trapper whose young grandson then adopted the orphaned cub. How she had to be got rid of (Grandma's ultimatum after she wrecked the kitchen), but Grandpa's promise that she would not be killed leading to her being sold to Harry at the train station in White River. All this, other than the deal itself, is pure invention; then came the research into what the regiment would have done with a bear as its mascot, what Winnie could have expected, what mischief she could have got into, and so forth. Giving Winnie the special talent of being able to talk to other animals, such as the squirrels in the woods and the horses in the army -- Harry was a veterinary with the 34th Fort Garry Horse -- meant that she could get extra information about what was going on. They cross the Atlantic -- Harry was seasick; Winnie was not. They trained in Salisbury. From the occasional picture taken of Winnie as regimental mascot, it seems that she really did learn some tricks such as standing to attention and saluting; why should she not have more attributed to her? Then the regiment was deployed to France, and Winnie had to be left behind. It doesn't take a great imagination to imagine her feelings of bereavement, but that Winnie would transfer her love for her special people to a love for people in general takes more insight and since that is what happened, the reasons shown in the book make sense.

In fact, the book makes sense. It is told as a tale for the child Cole, great-grandson of Harry and with a stuffed bear of his own, as being the story of his very own bear. "Your bear" features in the narrative at many points. When Winnie's negative reaction to someone's giving her a chunk of onion is explained by "Your Bear does not like onions!", you can't help thinking that perhaps young Cole is also negative on that score! There are other directly personal bits interjected as pieces of dialogue between the storyteller and the child. There is the one example given in the excerpt above; many of the others are pointedly about war, its futility, its cruelty, and why it should never happen, in spite of the fact that it always has and apparently always will.

Winnie, however, is one of the good things to come out of that particular war, and Winnie is portrayed here as a bear who makes people feel better about themselves and their situations. Since that is what the best loved toys do for children (think of the Velveteen Rabbit), it is good that the book has managed to capture those feelings of comfort and trust that we remember from "back then" whether it is yesterday or thirty years ago.