The Enchanted Places Read online

  Christopher Milne

  THE

  ENCHANTED

  PLACES

  A CHILDHOOD MEMOIR

  PAN BOOKS

  For Olive Brockwell

  ‘Alice’ to others

  But ‘Nou’ to me.

  To remind you of those enchanted places

  Where the past will always be present.

  Contents

  Introduction

  1. The Interview

  2. Names

  3. Nursery Days

  4. Soldier

  5. Self Portrait

  6. In the Country

  7. Cotchford Farm, 1932: A Conducted Tour

  8. Field and Forest

  9. Tree Houses

  10. Weathers

  11. Animals Tame and Animals Wild

  12. The Toys

  13. Husky at Pageants

  14. The Busy Backson

  15. Another Portrait

  16. She Laughed at My Jokes

  17. Green Sweets

  18. The Enthusiast

  19. Eeyore’s Gloomy Place

  20. Collaboration

  21. The Pistol

  22. The Ointment Round the Fly

  Epilogue

  Introduction

  From time to time I get a letter from an unknown asking for my help. The sender is a student (or it may be a teacher) and is writing a thesis (or it may be a research paper), and the subject is A. A. Milne (or it may be ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’). And he (or it may be she) would be grateful if I could oblige by answering a few questions about myself.

  Forty years ago such letters were addressed to my father, and I can well remember seeing them on the breakfast table every morning and watching him open them. There were letters from students requesting biographical details; there were letters from children wanting autographs; letters from hopeful imitators asking for advice on how to get their books published; letters from Secretaries of Societies requesting his presence at some function or other; even occasional letters from people down on their luck, short of cash and grateful for anything that could be spared. He would read them silently, then pass them, one at a time, to my mother.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Probably Wol.’

  ‘I thought so too.’

  So ‘Wol’ it often was.

  You may remember the occasion. Rabbit had found the notice saying GON OUT BACKSON BISY BACKSON and had taken it round to Owl for his advice. You may even remember the actual lines. Owl asks:

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘The best thing,’ said Owl wisely.

  Somehow, so often, nothing did seem the best thing to do. To answer them was impossible. To explain why you couldn’t answer them seemed unnecessarily unkind. So they remained unanswered. ‘Wol.’ And now that these letters are coming my way, I, too, find that ‘Wol’ is often the best, indeed the only possible thing. But it leaves me feeling unhappy . . .

  To some extent, then, this book is an attempt to salve my conscience; and it may perhaps be some slight consolation to all those who have written and waited in vain for a reply that this, in a sense therefore, is their reply. Belated, I confess, but at least a fairly full one.

  You can call it a sort of companion to the Pooh books. In the first chapters I have attempted a picture of Milne family life, the family life that both inspired and was subsequently inspired by the books. In the later chapters I have attempted a picture of my father. If I have imagined an audience it has been a gathering of Pooh’s friends and admirers, and I have tried to answer the sort of questions that I imagined friends of Pooh wanting to ask. They would want to know about the real Pooh and the real Forest and whether there really was an Alice. They would want to know something about the real little boy who played with Pooh in the Forest. And finally they would want to know something about the man who turned all these things into stories and verses. They would not be particularly interested to learn what happened afterwards: what happened to the little boy when he grew up.

  Yet the little boy did grow up and it is the grown-up little boy who is writing now. And something of what he was by nature and something of what he became as a result of his experience will colour his words.

  So if I seem ill at ease posing as Christopher Robin this is because posing as Christopher Robin does today make me feel ill at ease. And if I seem to write most happily about the ordinary things that boys do who live in the country it is because this is the part of my childhood that I look back upon with the greatest affection. If I had been a different sort of person I would have felt it all differently and would have written a different book.

  In other words, I am really making a double appearance, first as the boy I am describing and secondly as the adult through whose eyes I am seeing him. If it were obvious how the one became the other then no more need be said; but it is not obvious and this leads to the question: Should I perhaps not fill in the gap? My instinct was to answer ‘No’ and to refuse for two reasons. First, it had nothing to do with the Pooh story and so was of no concern to my imagined audience. Secondly, it is one thing to write about a distant and happy period of one’s life but quite another to write about a nearer and very much less happy period.

  In the end, however, persuasion overcame instinct, and I have added an Epilogue. I say this now to make it clear that the story I originally set out to tell comes to an end at the end of Chapter 22. The Epilogue is a different story addressed to a different audience. It is the story of the effect on someone’s life of an unusual event that occurred when he was a child. You may imagine, if you like, an Interval between the two, an Interval during which the audience can get up and stretch their legs. And if any of them decide at this point to make for the exit, I shall quite understand.

  1. The Interview

  Cotchford Farm on an August morning somewhere around the year 1932. The penstemons, the bergamots, the phloxes, the heleniums, the rudbeckias, the dahlias and even the solitary coreopsis that had seeded itself so cleverly in the paving stones by the sundial had all been told the evening before that today they must look their best. But as yet – for it was barely ten o’clock – there was only one person in the garden to see how nicely they were doing it. He was a tall man, dark and handsome, wearing a brown suit and a brown homburg hat, and he was sweeping the brick path that ran beside the house. For it was Saturday.

  George Tasker always swept the path on a Saturday, not because it particularly needed a weekly sweep (though today was different) but because Saturday morning was when he got paid. The shyness and embarrassment that this always caused him had led him to devise a sort of ritual to which my mother had learned to respond. He didn’t like to knock on the door. He couldn’t just stand around hoping to be noticed. Pulling up weeds from the beds by the house was her work, not his. While if he did anything more distant, he might never get seen at all. So he brought down his big brush and swept; and this made just the right amount of noise, not enough to disturb the Master but enough to remind the Mistress in case she had forgotten.

  She had not forgotten. The side door opened and she emerged.

  ‘Good morning, Tasker.’

  ‘Good morning, Madam.’

  A brief conversation followed, for this too was part of the ritual. The Mistress said how pleased she was that it was all looking so pretty today, because someone was coming down from London specially to see it; and Tasker agreed modestly that it was looking quite nice. The Mistress said weren’t we lucky with the weather; and Tasker said weren’t we, though we could do with a drop of rain. And then the moment arrived and the pound notes were able to change hands and Tasker was able to sound slightly surprised as well as grateful, as if he had forgotten all
about its being Saturday. A moment later the Mistress excused herself as she still had rather a lot to do to get everything ready; and Tasker, after sweeping another yard of path to complete the ritual, shouldered his broom and went home.

  Let us call her Miss Brown. Miss Brown was a journalist and she was coming down from London to meet us, to be shown around, to ask a lot of questions and then to write an article about us for a magazine. So my mother (after paying Tasker) was going round the garden tidying things away – golf clubs on the putting lawn, a fishing net by the stream, a pullover and a cushion in the Alcove, a copy of last week’s Observer folded open at the Torquemada crossword in the Garden House – things that my father and I had left lying about. My father was in his room working. And I was already beginning to feel slightly sick at the thought of having to meet someone strange. I had been told that I must: that she would expect to see me and that it would seem odd if I weren’t there, but that I needn’t do more than make an appearance, just be around when she arrived and then slide off. Would I have to change? Perhaps a clean shirt and a better pair of trousers and a comb through the hair wouldn’t be a bad thing. My father wondered gently which side I usually parted my hair these days; and I remember thinking this odd because I had always parted it on the left.

  After lunch we retired to our various bedrooms to make ourselves presentable and to think our various thoughts. My mother’s room was large and beautiful. It spanned the full width of the house at its narrow waist. So there was a window in the west wall that looked towards the dovecot and the azaleas (alas, now over) and away to the setting sun; and there was a window in the east wall from which you could see the big lawn, the Garden House and the Six Pine Trees, and through which shone the early morning sun. As she got herself ready she was rehearsing once again the tour that she had planned: the rooms to be hurried by, the room’s where one could linger, the features that the eye could be directed towards, the route round the garden that would show it at its best, the places where one might pause, as if for breath, and wait (hopefully) for admiration. As she rehearsed, so she muttered to herself; as she muttered, so, now and again, she smiled . . .

  My father’s room was small and dark, with a window that looked over the courtyard at the kitchen. He was brushing back his thin, fair hair. If Miss Brown liked the house and the garden, and if – which was really the point – she said so loudly and clearly; if she was a genuine Pooh fan and not just someone who muddled you up with A. P. Herbert; if she was young and pretty and gay and laughed in the right places; if all these things, then it might be rather fun . . .

  My room was next door, a large room with a high ceiling that went right up into the roof, and a floor so sloping it was an uphill walk to the window. I was trying not to think about Miss Brown at all, thinking instead of the things I was going to do when I had slipped away. In imagination I was already wearing again the clothes I had just taken off and was down by the river. It would be a good day for seeing if I could find any new crossing places . . .

  At last we were ready and waiting. Then came the sound of a car lurching in and out of the ruts along our lane followed by the crunch of gravel as it turned into our drive. The Milnes trooped out to welcome their guest.

  Nervous laughter. Introductions.

  ‘And this is our boy.’

  ‘How do you do, Christopher Robin.’

  ‘How do you do.’

  There. It wasn’t too bad. I had looked her bravely in the eyes and smiled my smile. And now we were moving towards the house. My mother led the way, my father and Miss Brown close behind. Gay chatter, in which I was not expected to join. So I tagged along at the back. A cat appeared and I stooped to reassure it, glad of an excuse to drop behind still further.

  A hasty glance into my father’s room, then into the drawing-room.

  ‘Oh, isn’t this wonderful! And you’ve done it all yourselves? How old did you say it was? Queen Anne? These beams look as if they were once ships’ timbers. Oh, what gorgeous flowers . . .’ Miss Brown had been well trained.

  Then at last through the French windows and out into the garden, my father and Miss Brown now leading the way. My mother dropped back.

  ‘You can slide off now, Pip, dear, if you like.’

  So I slid. First up to my room to get back into my comfortable clothes and Wellington boots; then, after a cautious glance through the landing window to see that they weren’t still lurking by the house, quickly downstairs and through the front door. I didn’t want to be seen. It would look silly to be caught sneaking off like this. By going out through the front door I could keep the house between us, and all would be well. I would have to go rather a long way round: up the lane and then turn down by the duck pond; but I’d be there soon enough.

  Five minutes later I had my right boot wedged into an alder stump, right hand clutching a branch, left hand reaching out towards a willow, left boot dangling in space above the brown water. And there I paused to enjoy to the full the wonderful feeling of being alive . . .

  It was evening. Miss Brown had gone and I was back. My mother was in the garden quietly pottering, reliving those glorious moments, hearing again those wonderful, heart-warming words. Miss Brown had noticed everything and she had commented. She had specially remarked on the dahlias, Tasker’s pride and joy. He must be told on Monday . . . Gently muttering, gently smiling, my mother moved among her flowers, basking like a cat in the evening sun and in the memory of the praise that had been lavished on her and her beloved garden.

  My father was on the putting lawn, pipe in mouth, stooping over his putter, deeply absorbed. One under twos and three to go. It looked as if it might be a record. He, too, still felt a glow from Miss Brown’s visit. He, too, loved praise. True there had been a moment when he had found himself wondering if she had ever actually read any of the books. But perhaps it had been a long time ago and she had forgotten. Anyway, she was a dear and very pretty and had said nice things, just as he had hoped. One under twos. He concentrated again on the ball, and as he hit it the sun slipped behind one of the branches of the group of alders on the bridge and a tiny breath of cold air rustled the leaves of the poplar and made a tiny cold echo in his thoughts, so tiny at first that he could scarcely identify it. He watched the golf ball curving down the slope, but he had aimed too high and it was not coming down properly. Could it be jealousy? Today’s Milne feeling jealous of the Milne that wrote those books five – ten – years ago? Could one feel jealous of one’s self? Or was it something else? Something gone, something lost? She had asked what he was writing now. ‘A novel,’ he had said. ‘Will you ever write another book about Christopher Robin and Pooh, do you think?’ Why do they always ask that? Can’t they understand? He sighed and walked towards his ball.

  I was upstairs in what was known as the Carpenter’s Shop, my own private room at the very top of the house, a room whose floor and beams were so eaten away by woodworm that visions of it have haunted my dreams ever since. Yet it was a room I loved, because here I could be alone with my chisels and my saws. Each tool was labelled in my mind with the date and the occasion on which I had acquired it. Many of them had been bought four years before, one by one, out of my weekly pocket money, from the ironmongers in Sloane Square as Nanny and I walked home from Gibbs. Many of them, complete with their labels, were to survive another forty years. I was busy perfecting a burglar alarm that I was planning to fit inside the door of the Secret Passage; and the evening sun, coming in through the window, was shining on my work. It would soon be dinner time. After dinner there would be another chapter or two of Wodehouse, my mother reading, my father and I listening. Then, tomorrow being Sunday, I wouldn’t be going riding, so might go exploring instead. How nice it was to feel that there was so much of the holidays still left.

  And what of Miss Brown? Can we try and guess her thoughts.

  She was in her car speeding back to London, in her handbag her notes, in her head her memories. She too was glowing. It had been an unforgettable day. Sh
e had been anxious and nervous, but it had all gone perfectly. She felt stimulated and pleased with herself, and she was already beginning to put together sentences to describe it, making a collection of appropriate adjectives: old-world, mellow, golden, peaceful. Her delight with the house and garden had been quite genuine. You could see how this setting had inspired the books – though it was an odd little room that Mr Milne had chosen as his study. You would have thought a lighter, sunnier room with a view of the garden would have been better. But perhaps it might have been a distraction.

  She thought about her notes. Had she got answers to all the questions she had planned to ask? More or less. The main point was that Mr Milne took his writing very seriously, ‘even though I was taking it into the nursery,’ as he put it. There was no question of tossing off something that was good enough for the kiddies. He was writing first to please and satisfy himself. After that he wanted to please his wife. He depended utterly upon doing this. Without her encouragement, her delight and her laughter he couldn’t have gone on. With it who cared what the critics wrote or how few copies Methuens sold? Then he hoped to please his boy. This came third, not first, as so many people supposed. Did Christopher Robin or Mrs Milne help him with ideas? Yes and no, it seemed. There was the Forest and the Five Hundred Acre Wood. These were real. Then there were the animals. They were real, too (except for Owl and Rabbit that he had invented). His wife and his boy (always his boy, never Christopher. Odd!) had, as it were, breathed life into them, given them their characters. What he had done was to write stories round them. The stories were entirely his own invention.

  His books seemed to show a great understanding and love of children. Was he very fond of children? Silence. Then: ‘I am not inordinately fond of them, if that is what you mean, and I have certainly never felt in the least sentimental about them – or no more sentimental than one becomes for a moment over a puppy or a kitten. In as far as I understand them, this understanding is based on observation, on imagination and on memories of my own childhood.’