Figure 1.--Disney after caving in to the spimisters and having Christopher wear red sneakers have come out with another set of books with him back in strap shoes.
|
Figure 1.--Disney after caving in to the spimisters and having Christopher wear red sneakers have come out with another set of books with him back in strap shoes. |
A.A. Milne writes in his autibiography that "It seemed to me almost that my father had got to where he was by climbing on my infant
shoulders." In fact, A.A. Milne was already a successful playwright and humorist in 1924 when, during a rainy holiday in Wales, he wrote a whimsical collection of verses about his then 4-year-old son.
The book, When We Were Very Young, and three later volumes--featuring the adventures of a
wide-eyed child named Christopher Robin and his
guileless teddy bear companion Winnie-the-Pooh--would
sell thousands of copies, be translated into more than 30 languages.
Just like Little Lord Fauntleroy, there was a real Christopher Robin. And like Vivian Burnett, the shadow of Christopher Robin would follow A.A. Milne's son for all his life, until his death, at 75, on April 20 in Devon, England. Young Milne was raised in London, and as a child he
once admitted that he "quite liked being Christopher
Robin and being famous." The novelty began wearing thin
at boarding school, where classmates taunted him, and he
became shy and started to stammer. Eventually the strains of establishing his own identity soured relations with his father. In 1948, he risked the senior Milne's disapproval and that of his mother, Daphne, to marry his first cousin Lesley de Sélincourt, now 70. The two had one daughter, Clare, 40, who suffers from cerebral palsy. After moving to Dartmouth, in Devon, in 1951, Milne opened a bookstore, wrote a two-volume memoir and seemed to make a posthumous peace with his father, who had died in 1956. He sold his claim to any future royalties from the Pooh books to the Royal Literary Fund for a lump sum in order to provide for his disabled daughter. Distancing himself altogether from his famous alter ego was impossible, however, and even in his later years fans of the books "would throw their arms around him and kiss him, whether he wanted it or not," says Mike Ridley, a
longtime Milne acquaintance who runs a Pooh souvenir shop in Hartfield, England. "The Christopher Robin he tried to get away from is the Christopher Robin that's going to be remembered."
Figure 2.--Christopher in this Shepard drawing wears a red gingam smock with matchinmg short pants and sandals without socks. |
Virtually all of what we know about the clothes wore by Christopher Robin comes from the delightful drawing of Ernest Shepherd. Christopher's drawings are not mentioned in the story lines. Shepard draws Christopher wearing ginham smocks, short pants, and strap shoes. Often he draws him playin without socks. A few times Cristopher wears "Wellies" (Wellington boots).
Christopher was not often picture with a hat, but in some Shepard drawings he wears a beat up wide brimmed hat.
CVhristopher is often pictured in smocks. The smocks are often blue or red gingham smocks. I assume this is the case because Christopher Milne did indeed wear gingham smocks. I'm not sure if Shepard's son Grahm wore smocks.
Christopher on rainy days is often shown wearing wellies--with either short pants or smocks.
One of the most delightful childhood memories of Victorian England is Ernest Shepherd's lovely book, Drawn From Memory. Shepard is the artist who illustrated A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh. Shepard grew up in London during the 1880s. He recalls remarkably detailed images of horse-drawn London where a penny was wealth for a child. A warm, delightful view of Victorian England emerges from the book, recollections of the Jubilee, seaside bathing at
Eastbourne, hop-picking in Kent, the Drury Lane Pantomine, aunts and
illnesses, hansom cabs, hobby horses, park outings, and pea-soup fogs.
Shepard details the experiences of he and his brother and describes them through their childhood eyes.
There is good news for literary purists. After caving in to pressure from ABC in the 1980's resulting in red sneakers on Christopher Robin, Disney studios have released a new set of Winnie the
Pooh kids'books with Christopher back in his traditional Mary Jane shoes. These books, designed to be sold in grocery stores in sets of 18 volumes, are titled "Lessons from the Hundred Acre Wood". The biggest lesson will be to the
general public that Mary Janes are just as appropriate for boys as they are for girls!
A new special Disney Halloween edition Pooh paperback has Christopher Robin in a devil cape costume along with red Mary Janes.
Another sign that the Disney animators have "waken up" and given Christopher Robin his traditional alternative to those ABC-enforced sneakers. A new
Disney video about Tigger is due out, but early reports say Christopher Robin does NOT appear in it. What a shame! The last video (Search for....) had Christopher in
them red sneakers which as mentioned before were first put on him in the 1980's under direction of ABC TV in an attempt to "Americanize" him for a Saturday morning cartoon series.
Walt Disney himself bought rights to the character in 1964 intending to keep Christopher a Brit. 1960's Pooh features gave Christopher a British accent, and always kept him in his single bar Mary Janes unless it was snowing, in which case I think he wore skates.
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