"Winnie the Pooh" was a real bear

I didn't know that until I read this article in the Telegraph.

The ‘prequel’ to Alan Alexander Milne’s 1926 collection of stories, Winnie the Pooh, begins in 1914 in Winnipeg, Canada ... Harry Colebourn, a vet, waved goodbye to his family to embark on a 1,500 mile rail journey to a military training camp near Quebec.

He was to join the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps, tending horses on the Western Front in World War I.

When the train pulled in to White River, Ontario, Harry stepped out to stretch his legs and noticed a man with a bear cub tethered to a bench.

A few short moments of deliberation later and Harry was carrying the cub onto the train, having handed $20 to the hunter.

. . .

He resolved to call her Winnie (yes, the real Winnie was in fact a girl) after Winnipeg, his home town, and recorded the event for posterity in his diary: “August 24: Bought bear $20”.

At the time, however, Harry’s corporal was far from pleased to find him fawning over a bear cub. When Winnie stood up on her hind legs as if to salute him, however, he couldn’t help but laugh along with the other soldiers.

With her thick, glossy black coat and tan muzzle, Winnie looked nothing like the fraying yellow teddy depicted by EH Shepard in the illustrations to Milne’s stories - and even less like the slightly chubbier Pooh from Disney’s film adaptations.

With her thick, glossy black coat and tan muzzle, Winnie looked nothing like the fraying yellow teddy depicted by EH Shepard in the illustrations to Milne’s stories - and even less like the slightly chubbier Pooh from Disney’s film adaptations.

But Harry’s diary entries prove that Winnie shared certain character traits with her fictional namesake. For a start, she was always hungry.

Back then there wasn’t much honey about ... but Winnie went wild for the small bottles of condensed milk that were cherished by the soldiers.

She’d hold them between her paws and gleefully slurp them in a couple of gulps, before lying on her back and humming with contentment.

She was also a natural born entertainer, climbing tent poles in the army training camp.

. . .

By the time Harry’s regiment, the Second Canadian Infantry Brigade, sailed to Britain, there was no question of Winnie being left behind in Canada. She travelled on board across the Atlantic as their mascot.

. . .

When the time came for Harry’s regiment to leave for the front line, Winnie posed proudly with her comrades but Harry couldn’t bring himself to take her too.

Instead, he took a day’s leave, and drove her up the A303 to London where he reluctantly left her at London Zoo.

. . .

By the time armistice was declared on November 11 1918, Harry considered it too cruel to uproot Winnie from her home in London.

“He visited her at the zoo and saw that she was the star attraction,” Lindsay says. “In so many ways it’s a blessing that she stayed. I always tell Cole that sometimes one story has to end for another to begin.”

Back in Winnipeg, Harry often talked about Winnie, recounting their adventures and showing photographs of her to his son Fred, who in turn passed them on to his daughter Laureen, Lindsay’s mother.

But it was only after his death in 1947 that Fred and his family learnt that Winnie’s friendship with a small boy at London Zoo had inspired one of the bestselling children’s book series of all time.

There's much more at the link.  It's a fascinating story for animal-lovers and bookworms alike.  Having "grown up", so to speak, on a diet of Winnie the Pooh (among other literary greats for children), I was fascinated to read 'the story behind the story'.

Peter