I Knew Christopher Robin by Stephen Church, Managing Director of The UK Gift Company
Quite a claim to fame I know, but it's true. I met the son of A A Milne, author of the Winnie The Pooh stories on more than one occasion. As with so many of us, my first introduction to the stories was at my mother's knee. There was no better way to settle down in bed than with the tales of the Hundred Acre Wood, where Winnie The Pooh, Tigger, Eyore, Piglet and his friends got up to many quirky advenures. Imagine my wide-eyed delight, when on a family holiday in Dartmouth, we went into a bookshop to discover that the owner was the son of A A Milne, Christopher Robin himself. As a seven year old devotee of Winnie The Pooh, I struggled to get my head round the fact that one of the main characters of the book was older than my Dad and wasn't wearing shorts, but it was a thrill, nonetheless. In the years I've been in the gift business and had a shop of my own, it's still a great delight to welcome children as they feast their eyes on our Winnie The Pooh collections. There are the stunning Swarovski Crystal pieces, not to mention our giant sized Steiff Winnie The Pooh Bear, and our fastest selling pieces, The Winnie The Pooh figurines and nurseryware pieces.
