Early Life
Christopher Robin Milne was born at 11 Mallord St, Chelsea, London at 8 A.M. to author Alan Alexander Milne and Dorothy Milne (née de Sélincourt). His parents had expected the baby to be a girl, and had chosen the name Rosemary. When it turned out to be a boy, they initially intended to call him Billy, but decided that this would be too informal. They gave him two first names to help distinguish him from other Milnes, each parent choosing a name. Although he was officially named Christopher Robin, his parents often referred to him as "Billy". When he began to talk, he pronounced his surname as Moon instead of Milne. After that, his family would often call him "Billy", "Moon", or "Billy Moon". In later life, he became known as simply "Christopher".
On his first birthday, he received an Alpha Farnell teddy bear he called Edward. This bear, along with a real bear named "Winnie" that Milne saw at the London Zoo, eventually became the inspiration for the character of Winnie-the-Pooh. The teddy bear was about two feet tall, light in color, frequently losing his eyes, and a fairly constant companion to Milne.
As was customary for upper-class and upper-middle-class children at the time, Milne was reared by a nanny — Olive Brockwell. Meetings with his parents were restricted to short periods just after breakfast, at tea time, and in the evening, just before he went to bed. As he grew up, he spent more time with them; however, they spent little time together, so Milne divided his own time between his mother and his father.
Time spent with his father led to Milne's love of mathematics and cricket, as well as to their shared pacifism. Though Milne spoke self-deprecatingly of his intellect, referring to himself many times as being "dim", he was intelligent for a boy of his age. The reason for his denial of his intelligence was that he was able to solve complex equations with little or no difficulty but had to concentrate on much simpler ones.
From his mother, Milne acquired a talent for working with his hands. He owned a small tool kit, which he used to take apart the lock on his nursery door when he was seven years old. By the age of 10, he had modified the works of a grandfather clock, and altered a cap gun so that it would shoot real bullets.
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