Quote:
Originally Posted by James Gilbert
I don't anything about the stuffed bears in the store, but my grandfather was in the 160th Bruce Battalion in First World War and they had a black bear as a mascot...maybe others did also?
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Winnipeg, the bear that Winnie the Pooh was based upon, was the mascot of a Canadian unit in WW1. They left it with the zoo when they went to France. It was too big to take back to Canada 4 years later, so they gave it to the zoo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnipeg_the_Bear
There is a well known photo of a young Christopher Robin Milne actually playing with the bear while his father can be seen looking down on this from a window. See here:
http://www.poohcorner.com/A-Short-Hi...nd-Winnie.html
Interestingly, Cotchford Farm, in East Sussex, where A A Milne wrote Winnie the Pooh, was later sold to the Rolling Stone's Brian Jones. He drowned in the swimming pool in 1969.