The true Pooh

At the New Yorker, there's a review of a film based on the true life strained relationship between AA Milne, of Winnie the Pooh fame, and the real life Christopher Robin.

Maybe I have read about this before, but had forgotten how Milne was traumatised by World War 1:

A. A. Milne fought in the epic Battle of the Somme, in 1916, when a million men were killed or injured. It was one of the bloodiest battles in human history. Milne, already a playwright and a novelist, was among those wounded. He went home shell-shocked, with all the haunting symptoms of what is today diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder, or P.T.S.D. He confused swarming bees with bullets buzzing by him, popping balloons with incoming cannon fire. He was morose and distant.

The success of the books brought attention to the son which was not wanted:

When he went off to boarding school, Christopher Robin Milne was never able to escape his name, or the storybook character portrayed by his father. He was taunted and teased and pushed down staircases. Fame produced a different kind of trauma from which he spent much of the rest of his life trying to recover.

You can read more at the link.