--- title: Winnie the Pooh: True Story Behind Goodbye Christopher Robin description: The 'true story' behind the Winnie-the-Pooh books is at the heart of new movie 'Goodbye Christopher Robin'. But how true is it to reality? canonical: https://time.com/4953156/goodbye-christopher-robin-true-story/ author: Kate Samuelson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-10-13T15:25:18.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:49:22.379Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: The True Story Behind Winnie the Pooh and 'Goodbye Christopher Robin' og:description: Milne's relationship with his son, the real-life Christopher, was a thorny one og:url: https://time.com/4953156/goodbye-christopher-robin-true-story/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb37026dbdbc674ce/6988e0b1096a94658b69fde9/goodbye-christopher-robin-winnie-pooh-04.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: goodbye-christopher-robin-winnie-pooh-04 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The True Story Behind Winnie the Pooh and 'Goodbye Christopher Robin' twitter:description: Milne's relationship with his son, the real-life Christopher, was a thorny one twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb37026dbdbc674ce/6988e0b1096a94658b69fde9/goodbye-christopher-robin-winnie-pooh-04.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The True Story Behind Winnie the Pooh and _Goodbye Christopher Robin_ > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. by [Kate Samuelson](https://time.com/author/kate-samuelson/) ## Kate Samuelson Oct 13, 2017 3:25 PM UTC  Will Tilston stars in Goodbye Christopher Robin Will Tilston stars in Goodbye Christopher RobinDavid Appleby—Twentieth Century Fox by [Kate Samuelson](https://time.com/author/kate-samuelson/) ## Kate Samuelson Oct 13, 2017 3:25 PM UTC A.A. Milne’s charming tales of honey-loving [Winnie-the-Pooh](http://time.com/4070681/winnie-the-pooh-history/), timid Piglet, grumpy Eeyore and their human friend Christopher Robin have delighted readers for generations. But many are likely unaware of the darkness underneath the book’s surface. The real story behind the _Winnie-the-Pooh_ series is the subject at the heart of a new movie called [_Goodbye Christopher Robin_](http://time.com/4888858/new-goodbye-christopher-robin-trailer-takes-a-look-at-winnie-the-poohs-creator/)_,_ starring [Domhnall Gleeson](http://time.com/4974228/domhnall-gleeson-goodbye-christopher-robin/) _(Brooklyn)_ as Milne and Margot Robbie _(Wolf of Wall Street)_ as his wife Daphne_._ The film suggests that, among other things, Milne’s relationship with his son, the real-life Christopher, was difficult. But how true is the movie, which hits theaters Oct. 13, to reality? ### A.A. Milne suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder In _Robin_ we see how Milne’s post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the result of his fighting for the British Army in World War One, led him to move his family away from London to the peaceful English countryside. Although there is no direct evidence that Milne suffered from what we commonly know now as PTSD, his experiences during the war weighed heavily on him. In his autobiography [_It’s Too Late_ _Now_](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/12/aa-milne-memoir-shows-winnie-the-pooh-author-longing-to-escape-his-bear), [Milne wrote](https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.80352/2015.80352.Its-Too-Late-Now-The-Autobiography-Of-A-Writer%5Fdjvu.txt) that it made him “almost physically sick” to think of “that nightmare of mental and moral degradation, the war.” He referred to a trip to the Insect House at the Zoo with Christopher Robin, where the sight of the “monstrous inmates” triggered intense discomfort. “I could imagine a spider or a millipede so horrible that in its presence I should die of disgust,” he wrote. “It seems impossible to me now that any sensitive man could live through another war. If not required to die on other ways, he would waste away of soul-sickness.”  A.A. Milne, author of the story Winnie the Pooh, with his son Christopher Robin. Photograph by Api—/Getty ### Daphne sold Milne’s ‘Vespers’ poem without him knowing Milne wrote ‘Vespers’, possibly his most famous poem, in 1923\. The sentimental poem ends with the lines: “Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares! Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.” In _Robin_, Daphne has her husband’s poem published in _Vanity Fair_ without his permission or knowledge. In reality, the poem _was_ published in _Vanity Fair_, however [some reports suggest](http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune%5Farchive/2003/01/20/335653/index.htm) that Milne had told his wife she could keep the money if she managed to sell the poem to a magazine. ‘Vespers’ was “disown\[ed\]” by Christopher Robin in his autobiography, _The Enchanted Place_, first published in 1974\. “\[It is\] the one \[work\] that has brought me over the years more toe-curling, fist-clenching, lip-biting embarrassment than any other,” he wrote. ### Daphne was a devoted but absent mother _Robin_ suggests that Daphne Milne was more concerned with her socialite duties than caring for her son — whom she left almost solely in the company of his nanny, Olive, known affectionately by Christopher Robin as ‘Nou’. However, that was not necessarily the full story. “When a child is small it is his mother who is mainly responsible for the way he is brought up. So it was with me. I belonged in those days to my mother rather than my father,” Christopher Robin writes in _The Enchanted Place_.  Daphne Milne hugging her son, Christopher Robin in 1926. Bettmann—Bettmann Archive In real life, Daphne might deserve more credit than she is given in the movie for helping to bring the world of _Pooh_ to life. “It was my mother who used to come and play in the nursery with me and tell him about the things I thought and did. It was she who provided most of the material for my father’s books,” Christopher Robin once said, [according to the _New York Times_](http://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/23/books/trapped-by-a-stuffed-bear.html). That said, Christopher Robin’s relationship with his mother was, by all accounts, not a functional one. After his father died in 1956, Christopher saw his mother just once in the remaining 15 years of her life, according to the [Oxford Biography Index and _Country Living_ magazine](http://www.countryliving.com/life/entertainment/a43801/real-christopher-robin-hated-winnie-the-pooh/). The real Christopher Robin told a journalist [in the 1970s](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/i-knew-christopher-robin--the-real-christopher-robin/) that he wasn’t angry with his parents and had said goodbye to them “long ago.” ### Christopher Robin hated the fame the books brought him Robin, who died on April 20, 1996, at the age of 75, did not always hate being associated with the _Winnie-the-Pooh_ stories. Initially, as a young boy, he enjoyed the novelty of being famous. “It was exciting and made me feel grand and important,” he told the same journalist [in the 1970s](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/i-knew-christopher-robin--the-real-christopher-robin/). However, as the movie only very lightly touches upon, things changed when he turned around eight or nine and was sent away to boarding school, where he was relentlessly bullied.  Winnie the Pooh Christopher Robin sitting at home with his teddy bear. Bettmann—Bettmann Archive “For it was \[then\] that began that love-hate relationship with my fictional namesake that has continued to this day,” he wrote in _The Enchanted Place_. “At home I still liked \[Christopher Robin\], indeed felt at times quite proud that I shared his name and was able to bask in some of his glory. At school, however, I began to dislike him and I found myself disliking him more and more the older I got. Was my father aware of this? I don’t know.” Certainly, Milne didn’t seem aware of the negative impact his books had on his son. “The publicity that came to be attached to ‘Christopher Robin’ never seemed to affect us personally, but to concern either a character in a book or a horse that we hoped at one time would win the Derby,” Milne wrote in his 1939 autobiography. Later in his life, Christopher Robin seemed able to reflect on what had frustrated him about the books. “When I was three my father was three. When I was six he was six… he needed me to escape from being fifty,” he wrote at the end of _The Enchanted Place_. ### Milne was passionately anti-War The film suggests that Milne was vehemently against war and hoped to write in condemnation of it — until _Pooh_ got in the way. This is true; Milne’s _Peace With Honour_, a earnest plea for pacifism, was published in 1934\. However, much to his frustration, he remained best known for his books about a honey-loving bear. “\[I am writing this book\] because I want everybody to think (as I do) that war is poison, and not (as so many think) an over-strong, extremely unpleasant medicine,” [he wrote](http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/winnie-pooh-day-author-aa-milnes-secret-role-ww1-military-intelligence-propagandist-1483801) in _Peace With Honour_. “The last war involved women and children and the accumulated wealth of civilisation in slaughter and ruin. The next war will involve them in a much greater slaughter and ruin. This seems to be a good reason for making the next war impossible.”  A. A. Milne and Christopher Robin Milne playing with a toy teddy bear. Culture Club—Getty Images However, despite his pacifist credentials, Milne voluntarily enlisted in the British Army during the First World War — although he is famously noted to have said that he [never fired a shot at the enemy](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-first-world-wars-famous-faces). A letter written by Milne which is on display at Imperial War Museum in London encapsulates the moral dilemma he faced as a pacifist in the build-up to the Second World War. “I believe that war is a lesser evil than Hitlerism, I believe that Hitlerism must be killed before war can be killed,” he wrote. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4953156/goodbye-christopher-robin-true-story/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4953156/goodbye-christopher-robin-true-story/"},"headline":"The True Story Behind Winnie the Pooh and Goodbye Christopher Robin","datePublished":"2017-10-13T15:25:18.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:49:22.379Z","description":"Milne's relationship with his son, the real-life Christopher, was a thorny one","url":"https://time.com/4953156/goodbye-christopher-robin-true-story/","keywords":["movies","True Story Behind"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb37026dbdbc674ce/6988e0b1096a94658b69fde9/goodbye-christopher-robin-winnie-pooh-04.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Kate Samuelson","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/kate-samuelson/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb37026dbdbc674ce/6988e0b1096a94658b69fde9/goodbye-christopher-robin-winnie-pooh-04.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"goodbye-christopher-robin-winnie-pooh-04","caption":"Will Tilston stars in Goodbye Christopher Robin","creditText":"David Appleby—Twentieth Century Fox","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4953156/goodbye-christopher-robin-true-story/","name":"The True Story Behind Winnie the Pooh and Goodbye Christopher Robin"}}]}] ```