The Backstory of Winnie the Pooh

It was August 1914 and the First World War had just begun. In those days, horses still played their part in the military, and veterinarians were nearly as important as doctors.

So it was that in the first wave of Canadians to answer the call was a veterinarian called Harry Colebourn from Winnipeg. Harry was soon on a train headed for Quebec City where he would board a ship for England. As fate would have it, he didn’t travel unaccompanied.

At a stop in White River, Ontario, the vet bought a tiny female black bear cub for twenty dollars, and in honour of his hometown, called her “Winnipeg”, or “Winnie” for short. Winnie quickly became the pet and the mascot of the entire Fort Garry Horse regiment.

Alas, all good things must end, and Colebourn and his unit were posted to France in December of that year, and Winnie could not go with them. Colebourn thought about what to do and donated her to the London Zoo, her home for the next twenty years.

Soon Winnie was the most popular attraction at the zoo. Children fed her sweetened condensed milk and could ride on her back.

Among the young children was a little boy named Christopher Robin Milne, the son of one A.A. Milne. Christopher Robin was so taken by Winnie that he even named his own teddy bear after her, actually combining the name with “Pooh” after a pet swan he used to have.

Robin’s father took all this in, and as an established writer and playwright just couldn’t help himself. Winnie first appeared in the London Evening News as a Christmas story in 1925. The story was so well received that Winnie-the-Pooh appeared as a book in 1926, followed by The House at Pooh Corner in 1928. Both books were illustrated by E.H. Shepard*, drawing inspiration from the Ashdown Forest in Sussex, where the Milnes had a country home.

A Canadian soldier’s pet bear cub, a little boy with a penchant for endearing names, and a father who knew a good story when he saw one, combined to give us the dearest and most enduring children’s story of our times.

* (In those days, it seems, adults gave up their names in favour of initials.)