Pretty sure I know most of the answers :). We often see a bit on this on tv, later....

Annette

Ahhh, Annette - I thought this might be familiar to you!! You know, I schill for that charity, and hadn't seen that piece till I did my research!! Anyone else have any guesses??

Nancy.

Oh jeepers! I know I have heard all these before, but I can't for the life of me pull it out of this muddled memory. All the Christopher Robin poems are flashing through my head, though! I do think I know his color.

Cynthia

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Would it help if I told you that 'Winnie' went to the Zoo in 1915??

Nancy.

Hmmm...well, not really. WWI? I am thinking he was a black bear, but don't know where he came from originally-assumed North America because I didn't think there were black bears in Europe, but I could be wrong (I know, amazing huh??? Heehee).

I believe you have me stumped, but can't wait to hear the answers. GREAT questions.

Cynthia

We visited London when my son was two and used the Paddington Station to get around the city so of course we had to buy a Pooh book. Didn't get the stuffed bear though as he didn't much care for stuffed animals.

1. I did not know that Pooh was inspired by a real bear. Thought the character was inspired by his son's stuffed bear. Maybe that bear was named after the real bear. No idea how it got to London though guess from the timing it had to do with WWI.

2. I will go with Cynthis's idea that he was a black black bear. Some black bears are brown but I bet he was black which is the most common color.

3. Are you referring to the real bear, Winnie? The story bear was called by _______ or Pooh and never Winnie by anyone I know.

The rain gauge read just under an inch. A good rain with more expected today/tonight. Chances of tornadoes in the area which hopefully will stay away from us. Sad so many tornadoes and so much damage yesterday.

I will check back later to see if there are any clues.

A part of Canadian Heritage often shown on TV :).

Annette

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Milne named the character Winnie-the-Pooh after a teddy bear owned by his son, Christopher Robin Milne, who was the basis for the character Christopher Robin. Christopher's toys also lent their names to most of the other characters, except for Owl and Rabbit, as well as the Gopher character, who was added in the Disney version. Christopher Robin's toy bear(above) is now on display at the Main Branch of the New York Public Library in New York City.

Christopher Milne had named his toy bear after Winnie, a Canadian black bear which he often saw at London Zoo, and "Pooh", a swan they had met while on holiday. The stuffed bear was originally called Edward, and made his debut in Milne's book, When We Were Very Young. As the story progressed, the swan's name became part of the bear's name. In the first chapter of Winnie-the-Pooh, Milne offers this explanation of why Winnie-the-Pooh is often called simply "Pooh": "But his arms were so stiff ... they stayed up straight in the air for more than a week, and whenever a fly came and settled on his nose he had to blow it off. And I think - but I am not sure - that that is why he is always called Pooh." btw, Pooh's forest is based on Ashdown Forest, and the 100-Acre-Wood is based on the Five Hundred-Acre-Wood. The game of Poohsticks was originally played by Christopher Milne on a footbridge across a tributary of the River Medway in Posingford Wood, close to Cotchford Farm(near the family's country home). It is traditional to play the game there using sticks gathered in nearby woodland. When the footbridge required replacement in recent times the engineer designed a new structure based closely on the drawings by E. H. Shepard of the bridge in the original books, as the bridge did not originally appear as the artist drew it. An information board at the bridge describes how to play the game. Hmmm, life imitates art.
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So, 2 questions remain - have I given enough clues??

Nancy.

Now, Annette, if I said 40 below, Portage and Main - you'd get it, right? How to say that in American??

Nancy.

Hmmmmm a city in Manitoba is flitting through my mind, also the provence you live in Nancy :).

Annette

Canadian, hmm, must be Winnepeg. With the idea of WWII I surmise that a Candian soldier brought the bear (a pet?)with him on his way to his deployment.

Edward Bear was the original name I remembered, but since you haven't bestowed stars yet, I will go with Bobbie and guess Winnipeg was the original name of the real bear. Was the soldier Canadian? I am still flummoxed by why he ended up in the London Zoo, but he sure was cute! Good thing he did end up there or we may never have had all the wonderful stories. Love the picture with Eeyore, Tigger, and Kanga! So much fun. I will stick with black as his color.

Cynthia, who stayed home today because of a headache, but who really doesn't feel all that awful :)

Winnipeg emigrated to Britain along with her owner, Captain Harry Colebourn, an army veterinary surgeon in the Canadian military. In 1915, as World War I raged, Captain Colebourn was sent to the front in France. Unable to take Winnipeg along, he donated her to the London Zoo, where she quickly became a star attraction.

Colebourn purchased Winnipeg in White River, Ontario from a trapper who had killed the cub's mother for $20. She was named after Colebourn's hometown. In 1989, White River erected a statue commemorating Winnie-the-Pooh's namesake. (There was a bit of a to-do about this, as the Mouse believed only they had the right to erect statues and use the name Winnie-the-Pooh. As it is their most popular and profitable franchises, I can sort of see their point - OK, not really!) "Winnie" was surreptitiously brought to England with her owner, and gained unofficial recognition as The Fort Garry Horse regimental mascot. Colebourn left Winnie at the London Zoo while he and his unit were in France; after the war she was officially donated to the zoo, as she had become a much loved attraction there. Pooh the swan appears as a character in its own right in When We Were Very Young.

After the war, Colebourn did post-graduate work at the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in London, England and then, in 1920, he returned to Canada and started a private practice in Winnipeg. He retired in 1945 and died in September, 1947. He is buried in Brookside Cemetery in Winnipeg. There is presently a statue of Colebourn and Winnie in Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park Zoo.

As to the bear's colour - this was very newly post-Victorian-age, and black was a colour of mourning, not suitable for children's toys. I actually remember an episode of the American version of Antiques Roadshow where an expert got excited about valuating a black Steiff toy bear, so rare are they. The honey brown colour was the norm.

The Pooh stories have been translated into many languages, including Alexander Lenard's Latin translation, Winnie ille Pu, which was first published in 1958, and, in 1960, became the only Latin book ever to have been featured on the New York Times Best Seller List. In popular film adaptations, Pooh Bear has been voiced by actors Sterling Holloway, Hal Smith and Jim Cummings in English, Yevgeny Leonov in Russian, and Shun Yashiro and Sukekiyo Kameyama in Japanese.
So, there you go - from humble beginnings, a beloved cast of characters is born.

Now to stars: I think everyone deserves stars today!!

Thanks to All for playing - see you next week. Nancy.

Here is a link that might be useful: One-Minute Story of Winnie the Pooh

What a great story, Nancy. I had no idea there was a real bear! I plan to share this with my someday (ever hopeful, don't you know) grandchild when we read Milne together!

Thanks for the stars-don't really deserve them, but always happy to be given them!

Cynthia

This was very interesting. Hmm, I wonder where I can find one of those Latin translations?

I am with Cynthia, hopeful there will be a grandchild someday. All my young friends are too old for Winnie the Pooh (8 yrs.+) anymore though I met a 15 month old boy a few days ago.

Thanks for the great question. I'm off to watch another Titanic show that I taped over the weekend.