fullybooked2017

Most writers welcome commercial success, film and TV tie-ins and celebrity. I can’t think that it has happened in my lifetime, but just occasionally, a writer has come close to cursing the character or series of books which made them famous. One such was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who came to hate his most inspired creation and had to be persuaded, after killing him off, to engineer a miraculous escape. Another was AA Milne. Winnie The Pooh has probably made even money – and continues to do so – than the great Consulting Detective, but the little bear and its owner Christoper Robin, became not just an irritant, but the cause of family strife and bitterness.

Like Conan Doyle, Milne wanted to be known for much more than creating a whimsical children’s character but, sadly, most of his other work is now largely forgotten or ignored. I, for one, am delighted that some of his work, originally published as sketches in Punch, has been revived by Farrago, which is an imprint of Duckworth Books. These pieces are, as you might imagine, relatively short, as befits something to be read in a weekly magazine. They are an account of the social life of a group of young people who call themselves The Rabbits. The group comprises Archie Mannering, his sister Myra, a chap only known as Thomas from The Admiralty, Dahlia Blair and the narrator himself. There is also a chap called Simpson (who writes for The Spectator) and  ‘walk-on’ parts for various other characters.

What we have, is basically a group of twenty-somethings, each from an impeccable upper middle-class background, with time – and money – on their hands. The time span is from summer 1909 to the spring of 1914, and we follow ‘The Lop-Eared Ones’ as they and enjoy themselves in a villa between Mentone and Monte Carlo, play cricket, golf, and become involved in amateur dramatics:

They ski in Switzerland:

The humour is very gentle, and the mood is as light as a feather. The stories are more or less contemporary with early PG Wodehouse creations like Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge and Psmith, but the humour is very different. Put it this way; I read Wodehouse and sometimes laugh out loud, while the doings of The Rabbits evoke more of a fond smile. Incidentally, later in their lives, relations between Milne (left) and Wodehouse were distinctly frosty. Milne was a genuine patriot. He served with The Royal Warwickshire Regiment on the Somme in 1916, and after a spell recuperating from trench fever he worked in military intelligence. During WW2 he served with The Home Guard, and it was during this period that he became one of the harshest critics of Wodehouse, who had been interned by the Nazis in France, but made a series of very controversial broadcasts.

It is worth spending a moment or two considering the nature of humour. Is cruelty essential? Near contemporaries of Milne were George and Weedon Grossmith. Their Diary of a Nobody is one of the funniest books ever written and, for page after page, we laugh (and, perhaps, sneer) at the pomposity and misfortunes of Mr Pooter; it is worth remembering though that, at the end, Pooter is acclaimed by his boss as one of the most decent and loyal employees he has ever had. Milne’s book has not a single ounce of cruelty in it; the foibles of Archie, Simpson and others are observed gently and with affection.

Edward VII died in May 1910, but his passing goes unmentioned by The Rabbits. It’s not that kind of book. We still have in our minds, though, the notion that the events of late August 1914, just four months after the last episode in this book, saw that last glorious summer left over from the Edwardian era as a golden light which was to be snuffed out by the horrors of The Great War. We know that Milne himself survived, but it is inevitable that many of the real young men typified in The Rabbits did not. Those celebrated four words of Philip Larkins have never sounded more appropriate – Never Such Innocence Again.