Catherine Pepinster
When a queen travels abroad for a state visit, she surely packs couture clothing and lots of jewelry. This week, Camilla did just that, as she and the King embarked on their four-day visit to the United States, wearing a Dior coat dress, an Anna Valentine dress and plenty of stones, including diamonds and amethysts passed down from previous queens, Victoria and Mary. But hidden in his luggage was something Americans really treasured: a stuffed toy.
You could call this the state visit of honeypot diplomacy. While the President of the United States showed off the Trumps’ new hive, built as a miniature White House, and Melania handed out a jar of clover honey from her bees, Camilla pleased Americans with her special delivery: a little furry Roo, to complete the set of original Winnie-the-Pooh characters found in the New York Public Library. Apparently the original Roo, the baby kangaroo, was lost, so Camilla brought along a specially made replica to deliver in person.
But what are they all doing there, the gang of Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga, Tigger and Winnie-the-Pooh, immortalized by AA Milne? (Those of you who murmur that a brainless bear would be at home among the crazy people of Manhattan, shame on you.)
Apparently, the toy collection that once belonged to Christopher Robin Milne, AA’s only son, is in New York after a temporary exhibition in the U.S. Milne first turned his son’s stuffed animals into stories 100 years ago, when the first Winnie-the-Pooh book was written. Christopher Robin was never content with being the subject of books. While he first kept the toys, he allowed them to travel around the US in 1947. They were subsequently displayed at the New York Library in 1956 and then permanently donated to her in 1987.
Of course, many Americans probably think that Pooh, Piglet, and all the rest are not creations of the English imagination, but invented by Walt Disney. Disney himself knew about the original stories because his daughter loved reading them in the 1930s. Then, 30 years later, the first Pooh movie was released when the filmmaker attempted to turn the bear into another American character, alongside Mickey Mouse, Pluto and Donald Duck.
There’s a 21st century term for this: cultural appropriation. Winnie-the-Pooh, with his life in the Hundred Acre Wood, his Pooh sticks, his little hums and his optimistic outlook on life, is as British as can be. Maybe we should be like him and see our inheritance taken over by just saying something very Pooh-like: “Oh, bother.” But the world is not like that anymore. The current view is that what originates somewhere must stay there.
Take the Elgin Marbles for example. They could be the British Museum’s most prized object, attracting 6 million visitors a year to see these glorious ancient Greek sculptures which have been beautifully preserved since Lord Elgin removed them from the Parthenon in the early 19th century. But the Greeks want them back and are so sure they will get them back that an empty room awaits them in the Acropolis Museum.
I would venture to say that Pooh and his friends have had much more of an impact on the British than the Marbles have had on the Athenians. If it’s time for the Marbles to go back to where they came from, it’s time for Pooh and company to come home too. Surely they would be better off in our country than, say, in a New York library.
They could live in the Museum of Childhood in Edinburgh, alongside one of the first Peter Rabbits made by Steiff. A special museum could be built near Ashdown Forest, Milne’s inspiration. Or even Buckingham Palace. After all, that was where Christopher Robin (the character named after AA Milne’s son) went with Alice.
Catherine Pepinster is a journalist, author and broadcaster.
The Telegraph, London
