(My father) had got where he was by climbing on my infant shoulders, that he had filched from me my good name and had left me with nothing but the empty fame of being his son.
- Christopher Robin Milne on his father A.A. Milne’s use of his name in Winnie the Pooh
Christopher Robin Milne received a bear on his 1st birthday in 1921. But looking back on his early childhood, Christopher Robin believed his father was “not good with children” and was mostly absent, either working or at London’s esteemed Garrick Club. His mother, meanwhile, insisted on dressing him in “girlish” clothes and keeping his hair below his ears, a style that was odd even for the time.
As the Winnie the Pooh series’ popularity grew, so did Christopher Milne’s resentment of it. Jealous classmates bullied and taunted Christopher, who responded by taking boxing lessons to learn how to defend himself. Entering boarding school at age 9, Christopher Robin had a full-fledged love-hate relationship with his fictional namesake that continued into adulthood
Father and son forged a semblance of a relationship during Christopher’s adolescence, bonding over algebra problems and crossword puzzles when the younger Milne was at home on breaks, but that foundation crumbled once Christopher left for Trinity College, Cambridge, to read English Literature. After serving in World War II and finishing his Cambridge degree, Christopher, then in his mid-twenties, failed to find fulfilling work. He wasn’t living up to his “household name.” The burden began to weigh down on him.
The troubling period solidified his resentment towards his own father, A.A. Milne. Christopher probably would have grown even more bitter if he hadn’t met his future wife, who also happened to be his first cousin, at 27 years old. Mrs. Daphne Milne disapproved of Christopher and Lesley’s relationship because she and her brother, Lesley’s father, had been estranged for 30 years. The couple married months later, nonetheless, and opened a bookshop together.
Writing his memoirs seemed cathartic for Christopher and brought him some peace. He visited his father occasionally in the author’s last years, but after A.A. Milne died, Christopher only saw his mother once in the remaining 15 years she lived past her husband’s death. Even on her deathbed Daphne Milne refused to see her only son.
**Christopher Robin and his wife Lesley
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