Alan Alexander Milne was a noted playwright who had been captain of the British Home Guard in World War II, before moving from London to Sussex with his family. Ashdown Forest become the inspiration for Hundred Acre Wood and the wonderful books of Winnie-the-Pooh (illustrated by E.H. Shepard). Even as adults, there is no wisdom like that from this wise bear:
It’s more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long difficult words. But rather short easy words like ‘What about lunch?
If the person you are talking to doesn’t appear to be listening, be patient. It may be simply that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.
You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest, waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.
When you are Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingifhs inside you, is quite different when it gets out into the open, and has other people looking at it.
Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing. Of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.
Tales from the Forest is a collection of seven new tales by Jane Riordan, written in the style of AA Milne and featuring beautiful humorous illustrations by Mark Burgess (inspired by EH Shepard’s original drawings).
The artist also illustrated The Wind in the Willows, another childhood favourite by Kenneth Grahame, a former banker, whose books were inspired by the Berkshire village of Cookham Dean, near the River Thames.
A Children’s Author (and trained botanist)
Beatrix Potter was not just a children’s writer and illustrator, but also a scientific watercolourist, whose paper on fungi was presented at Kew’s Royal Botanic Gardens (by a mycologist, when women were not allowed to attend).
On her death, she left most of her estate to the National Trust, which now runs the place for visitors to explore, in Near Sawrey (The Lake District).
A Unique Writer (with a dramatic life)
Roald Dahl wrote quite odd books, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (with the famed Oompa-Loompas) and even invented his own language called Gobblefunk. He wrote in his garden shed, with HB pencils on yellow paper.
Born to a wealthy Norwegian family (he was a big friendly giant himself at 6ft 6in), his father died when he was just 4, leaving behind a fortune of today’s equivalent of £6.8 million.
Age 6 he and his mother travelled to the Lake District, as he was passionate about meeting his heroine (Beatrix Potter) and he went on to write many books for children himself. He also adapted Ian Fleming’s children’s story Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for film, and wrote the storyline for the James Bond film You Only Live Twice.
Roald’s private live was very dramatic. He married American actress Patricia Neal (she played the mother living in the boarding house in the 1950s sci-film The Day The World Stood Still). In 1960, their baby was badly injured when struck by a taxi in New York.
Roald helped to develop a device to alleviate the medical condition caused by the accident, which has since been used successfully for thousands of children worldwide.
Two years later, their young daughter died of measles. Roald also then lost faith in religion, when he was told by the former Archbishop of Canterbury that although his daughter was in paradise, her beloved dog Rowley would never join her. He later wrote:
I wanted to ask him how he could be so sure. I sat there wondering if this great and famous churchman really knew what he was talking about, and whether he knew anything at all about God or heaven. And if he didn’t, then who in the world did?
As if that was not enough tragedy, in 1965 his wife (while pregnant with their fifth child) suffered three burst cerebral aneurysms, fell into a coma for weeks, and had to learn to walk and talk again.
A Polite Spectacled Bear from Peru
Michael Bond wrote the Paddington Bear books, about the creature from ‘darkest Peru’ who is found at the railway station. This polite bear was actually inspired by refugee children that his family housed during the Second World War. He was the original illegal immigrant!
He remembered seeing the children all with labels with their names and addresses, carrying a tiny bag or parcel with favourite items (the inspiration for the jar of marmalade). Based on the South American spectacled bear, which is now endangered, due to habitat loss.
A wise bear always keeps a marmalade sandwich in his hat, in case of emergency. Paddington Bear
A Writer with Extraordinary Imagination
Enid Blyton (played extraordinarily in a biopic by Helena Bonham-Carter) was undoubtedly one of England’s best-selling children’s writers, her extraordinary imagination producing much-loved books like The Folk of the Faraway Tree.
The daughter of a Sheffield cutlery salesman, he was also a keen naturalist who knew everything about birds, animals and flowers. After training as a teacher, Enid married a former soldier turned publisher, then focused on her writing, before sadly developing dementia.
The Writer Behind a Favourite Children’s Film
Frank Baum was the American author of the book that went on to become one of the best-loved children’s films of all time: The Wizard of Oz. He actually lived in South Dakota (not Kansas) and had written many other children’s books, not just this one. The book actually has many more lands, the film was very much made shorter, to simplify.
Of course, the film is mostly known for the wonderful Judy Garland, although alas it was getting this part that set her on a slippery slope (the studio owners were already giving her drugs and forcing her to smoke, to lose weight). The son of the actor who played ‘the tin man’ (who almost died due to inhaling toxic aluminium paint) went on to marry Judy’s daughter Liza Minelli.
The actress who played the Wicked Witch of the West was in real life a charming lady, who when first told she had won a part in the film, believed it was to play kindly Aunt Em! She suffered third degree burns when the toxic copper (green paint) ignited in an accident.
The actress who played Aunt Em had an ending as sad as Judy. When consumed in her 80s with arthritic paint (and about to to blind), she took some pills, put a plastic bag on her head and wrote a note asking ‘I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen’.