Catherine Pepinster
When a queen goes abroad for a state visit, she is sure to pack couture clothes and serious bling. This week Camilla did just that, as she and the King embarked on their four-day visit to America, with a Dior coat dress, an Anna Valentine frock and plenty of rocks, including diamonds and amethysts handed down by previous queens, Victoria and Mary. But tucked away in her luggage was something the Americans really treasured: a stuffed toy.
You could call this the state visit of honeypot diplomacy. While the US president showed off the Trumps’ new beehive, built as a White House in miniature, and Melania handed over a pot of their bees’ clover honey, Camilla pleased the Americans with her special delivery – a little furry Roo, to complete the set of Winnie-the-Pooh original characters held at New York Public Library. Apparently the original Roo, the baby kangaroo, got lost, so Camilla brought with her a specially made replica to hand over in person.
But what are they all doing there, the gang of Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga, Tigger and Winnie-the-Pooh, immortalised by AA Milne? (Those of you murmuring that a bear of little brain would be at home among the crazies of Manhattan, shame on you).
Apparently, the collection of toys once owned by Christopher Robin Milne – AA’s only child – is in New York after a temporary display in the US. 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 happy about being the subject of the books. While he first kept the toys, he allowed them to tour the US in 1947. They were subsequently displayed at the New York library in 1956 and then permanently donated to it in 1987.
Of course, many Americans probably think that Pooh, Piglet and all the rest aren’t the creations of an English imagination but invented by Walt Disney. Disney himself knew the original stories because his daughter loved reading them in the 1930s. Then, 30 years later, the first Pooh film was released as the filmmaker tried to turn the bear into just 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 Hundred Acre Wood, his Pooh sticks, his little hums, and his sanguine take on life, is as British as can be. Perhaps we should be like him and view the takeover of our heritage by just saying something very Pooh-like: “Oh, bother.” But the world isn’t like that any more. The view now is that what originates somewhere should stay there.
Take the Elgin Marbles. They might be the British Museum’s most precious artefact, drawing 6 million visitors a year to see these glorious ancient Greek sculptures which have been preserved beautifully since they were removed from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin in the early 19th century. But the Greeks want them back – and are so confident they will get them back that an empty room awaits them in the Acropolis Museum.
I’d venture that Pooh and his friends have had way more impact on the British than the Marbles have had on Athenians. If it’s time for the Marbles to return whence they came, it’s time for Pooh and co to come home too. They would certainly be better off in our country than in, say, a library in New York.
They could live in the Edinburgh Museum of Childhood, alongside one of the first Steiff-made Peter Rabbits. There could be a special museum built near Ashdown Forest, Milne’s inspiration. Or even at Buckingham Palace. After all, that’s 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
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