Remembering Christopher Robin by Kevin Last

Cotchford Farm started life in the sixteenth century as a crown forge. It’s long history means that it played as the witness to a range of different residents. The speaker has already covered one of those in The Diary of William Young of Cotchford Farm, effectively covering a year in the life of an extremely enterprising young man.

This talk seeks to extract the real Christopher Robin from the fictional friend of Winnie-the-Pooh. It explains how he escaped an over cosseted childhood and went to public school and Cambridge before being drawn into World War 2. After army service, life was not easy as he searched for work in London in the late 1940s before striking lucky with both a wife and a new life in the West Country. Throughout all of this his love of the countryside sustained him.

It is based on a chance discovery of a diary, that of William Young of Cotchford Farm and his story, which in turn led to the story of Christopher Robin Milne and the stories written by his father.

Actress Madeline Smith (Live and Let Die, The Two Ronnies, two Hammer films etc) was born in Hartfield and she is going to tell us something of her early experiences and her love of Winnie-the-Pooh.

The talk also covers the sad story as Cotchford Farm was also the place where Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones met his death under murky circumstances in July 1969.
About the Speaker

Kevin Last is an author, who is releasing “Goodbye Christopher Robin: Escaping Winnie the Pooh” through Unicorn Publishing. His previous book was The Diary of William Young of Cotchford Farm telling the story of one man’s life on Cotchford Farm during one year.

Talk Details
The talk is on Thursday 21st September at 7:30pm.
The talk will take place at East Grinstead Museum.

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