Hearsay 4 Introducing Jean

"How contrived," Jean thought on the return journey from Dartmouth to Totnes.

An onlooker aboard Compton Castle this June afternoon in 1957 may have noticed a slight flush to her cheeks as she went over it again in her mind.

"Have you got the book?"

"Joyce," replied Jean, "I'm not at all sure I can do this. I will go into the shop and if they have ‘When we were very young’ I will buy it."

"Or any other. And here’s my old copy. Take that."

"That's the bit I'm not happy with." "You only have to ask."

"Well may be I do but I have decided I'm not going to ask him to sign this one. That's just too much of a cheek, and after all he's not even the writer."

"Yes, but he is the son, the person the stories were written for.”

"No, your obsession for getting books signed by people connected with them is too much. I am not taking that book. If they have got a new one then I will buy it, and I might ask if he can sign it, that’s of course if the he in question is there, but that's as far as I’ll go."

They had. She did. He was there . She did again.

“On our right 'Greenway', once the home of Sir Walter Raleigh, and now Agatha Christie.”

“Well at least my dear sister didn’t think of her.” Jean was pleased with herself. Mr Milne had been quite polite about it all considering the number of times he must have been asked the same question. Especially considering his feelings towards his father’s books.”

Years later he would write,’ It seemed to to meet almost that my father had got to where he was by climbing upon my infant shoulders, that he had filched from me my good name and had left me with the empty fame of being his son.'

She opened the newly purchased book and read, ‘Best wishes, Christopher Milne’.

"Well as I bought it I think I am at least entitled to read it.'

As the paddler meandered upstream with its carefree passengers Jean looked up from time to time and by the end of the journey at Totnes knew something about swans, or rather one swan in particular.

"Surprise, surprise, not a bear at all.”

When we were very young

JUST BEFORE WE BEGIN

---You will find some lines about a swan here, if you get as far as that, and I should have explained to you in the Note that Christopher Robin, who feeds this swan in the mornings, has given him the name of "Pooh." This is a very fine name for a swan, because, if you call him and he doesn't come (which is a thing swans are good at), then you can pretend that you were just saying "Pooh!" to show how little you wanted him. Well, I should have told you that there are six cows who come down to Pooh's lake every afternoon to drink, and of course they say "Moo" as they come. So I thought to myself one fine day, walking with my friend Christopher Robin, "Moo rhymes with Pooh! Surely there is a bit of poetry to be got out of that?" Well, then, I began to think about the swan on his lake; and at first I thought how lucky it was that his name was Pooh; and then I didn't think about that any more ...and the poem came quite differently from what I in tended ... and all I can say for it now is that, if it hadn't been for Christopher Robin, I shouldn't have written it; which, indeed, is all I can say for any of the others. So this is why these verses go about together, because they are all friends of Christopher Robin;----

THE MIRROR

Between the woods the afternoon

Is fallen in a golden swoon.

The sun looks down from quiet skies

To where a quiet water lies,

And silent trees stoop down to trees.

And there I saw a white swan make

Another white swan in the lake;

And, breast to breast, both motionless,

They waited for the wind's caress ...

And all the water was at ease.

And likewise Compton Castle was at ease with her river as she paddled on past woods and fields into a Totnes evening.

“ I wonder if here is like that in the early morning.”

Jean looked at the scenery all around her. She had just read another poem. It had again surprised her. Not at all what she had expected.

THE INVADERS

In careless patches through the wood

The clumps of yellow primrose stood,

And sheets of white anemones,

Like driven snow against the trees,

Had covered up the violet,

But left the blue-bell bluer yet.

Along the narrow carpet ride,

With primroses on either side,

Between their shadows and the sun,

The cows came slowly, one by one,

Breathing the early morning air

And leaving it still sweeter there.

And, one by one, intent upon

Their purposes, they followed on

In ordered silence . . . and were gone

But all the little wood was still,

As if it waited so, until

Some blackbird on an outpost yew,

Watching the slow procession through,

Lifted his yellow beak at last

To whistle that the line had passed ....

Then all the wood began to sing

Its morning anthem to the spring.

Steamer Quay shortly came into sight and, to make the day complete, a swan glided into the scene.

“It’s a much better name for a bear,” she thought.