Letter: Pooh could have gone too

Pooh could have gone too

Sir: I went to boarding school, and, horrible though it was, I must disagree with Linda Fielding (letter, 31 January). Everybody had cuddly toys, and nobody was teased about it. My mother taught in residential schools, where teddy bears were on the beds of all the children, boys and girls alike. Linda Fielding has misread the ending of The House at Pooh Corner. The point was that Christopher realised that as he became older, and his time was going to be taken up with lessons, he was not going to be able to play with his teddy bear all the time.

So off they went together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest a little boy and his bear will always be playing.

-"An Enchanted Place" from The House at Pooh Corner (1928)

It may be a tragedy that little boys have to grow up, but it would be sadder still if they didn't!

PAMELA D PLAYLE-MITCHELL

Lancaster