Vespers: the Curse of Pooh

In 1923, A.A. Milne wrote Vespers, a whimsical account of his infant son, Christopher Robin, at prayer. "Mr Milne crept in and watched for a few moments," remembered Christopher's nanny, presenting a slightly sinister picture of the doting father. "Then I heard him going away down the stairs chuckling as if he was very pleased about something." The poem, published later that year in Vanity Fair, was well received and Milne, determined to capitalise on its success, immediately started work on the poems that would appear in the volume When We Were Very Young.

It's fitting, perhaps, that the bulk of these poems were drafted over the course of an otherwise disastrous holiday at a country house in North Wales. Bad weather kept the Milnes confined to the house and Milne, whose manner could be prissy and superior, managed to antagonise their fellow guests. Even the butler made a point of serving him last at every meal. When the family eventually left, their car was surrounded by a happy throng eager to herald their departure with a chant of "The Milnes are leaving, Hurray! Hurray!' This memory must have remained with Christopher Robin, though any lasting psychological damage inflicted was to be overshadowed by the creative fruits of the hours his father spent skulking in his room.

When We Were Very Young was published in 1924 and rapidly followed by Winnie the Pooh , Now We Are Six , and The House on Pooh Corner . In 1934, Christopher Robin was listed by Parents' Magazine as one of the most famous children in the world - the others were Yehudi Menuhin, Jackie Coogan, Crown Prince Michael of Rumania and the then Princess Elizabeth. The ramifications of his celebrity, from which he'd hitherto been sheltered, were now fully apparent. His schoolmates tormented him by mimicking his stammer and endlessly replaying a gramophone recording of him reciting Vespers with its refrain "Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares! Christopher Robin is saying his prayers!" (They eventually relented and allowed him to smash it to pieces. Years later, his cousin Angela allowed her children to use her copy of the record for target practise.)

It hardly seems conceivable that Milne could have remained oblivious to the psychological land-mines he was blithely planting in his son's path. Nothing in his writing or correspondence betrays the slightest concern that Christopher might be overwhelmed by his alter-ego. In 1931, he told an interviewer, "If I make a success of Christopher Robin as a person, I will consider it my greatest creative work." Twenty years later, as he recuperated from a serious operation, he read a Sunday Dispatch interview in which Christopher was quoted as saying, "Ever since I was quite a small boy, I have always hated being Christopher Robin." The remainder of Milne's life was overshadowed by illness and heartache. He died on the 31st of January, 1956. Christopher Robin appalled his mother by attending the memorial service in a shabby rain-coat. Later she instructed that a sculpture of her son's head be buried in order that she never have to see it again.

 

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