Queen Camilla ignored the latest drama around Prince Harry’s return to the UK today as she made a surprise appearance at Ashdown Forest, the inspiration for A. A Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood in his Winnie the Pooh books. The visit was held to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the publication of the first Winnie the Pooh book in 1926.
A passionate and lifelong reader, The Queen visited the ‘Poohsticks Bridge’, the bridge where A. A. Milne played ‘Pooh Sticks’ with his son, Christopher Robin, and played a game of ‘Pooh Sticks’ with three children who recently won a Winnie-the-Pooh-themed poetry competition.
The poetry competition was organised by the Ashdown Forest, in partnership with the Royal Literary Fund, of which the Queen is Patron. Also present were Edward Kemp, chief executive of the Royal Literary Fund, and children’s authors, Dame Julia Donaldson, Axel Scheffler, Jane Riordan, Sita Brahmachari and Cerrie Burnell.
Located at ‘The Enchanted Place’, where Christopher Robin said goodbye to Pooh at the end of the book series, Camilla visited The A. A. Milne & E. H. Shepard Memorial and met staff and volunteers from Ashdown Forest, as well as local schoolchildren.
Rounding off the visit, the Queen unveiled a brand-new trail, known as the ‘Queen’s Walk’, which will enable easier access to the forest for future generations.
Between 1925 and 1940, Milne lived near Ashdown Forest with his son, Christopher Robin, and his walks in the forest with his son provided the inspiration for the Hundred Acre Wood.
The rights to A. A. Milne’s Pooh books were left to his family when he passed away in 1956, the Royal Literary Fund and other organisations. Incredibly, since 1972, £91 million has been generated from A. A. Milne’s estate towards the Royal Literary Fund, contributing to authors’ grants, education and outreach programmes since 1972.
Each year, the RLF distributes over £7 million through grants and a range of education, community and workplace programmes and the Fellowship scheme has created earning opportunities for over 750 professional writers at more than 100 universities and institutions across the UK.
Her Majesty has spent her whole life being a passionate reader and even launched the Queen’s Reading Room back in January 2021, which recommends new reads every month. The initiative offers exclusive content and is, in Queen Camilla’s own words, “a resource, a reassurance and a refuge to all book lovers”.
She previously said: “If you learn to read, however difficult your life is at the time, you can pick up a book and you can escape. You can laugh, you can cry, it just takes you out of the real world, and it gives you a different dimension to life.”
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