Liphook Community Magazine Spring 2017

Pooh Sticks Bridg
Winnie-the-Pooh, quite possibly the best-loved bear in the world,
is now 90 years old. The stories of Pooh and his friends, have been
enchanting generations of readers since A. A. Milne wrote “Winniethe-Pooh”
in 1926. The stories continued two years later in “The
House at Pooh Corner” in which Pooh invents a new game, the
game of Pooh Sticks.
The enduring appeal of the books is partly due to the illustrations
of E. H. Shepard, who lived at Lodsworth near Haslemere from
1955. Milne and Shepard had both fought in the Great War and
Shepard, who worked as an illustrator for Punch magazine, was
asked by Punch contributor and E.V. Lucas, who was also the
chairman of the publisher Methuen, to illustrate some “charming
verses” by Milne. These were initially published in Punch and
were an immediate success when published (with Shepard’s
illustrations) in “When We Were Very Young” in 1924. They then
went on to work together with the Pooh books and with “Now We
Are Six” in 1928.
One of Shepard’s illustrations, which is based on the actual bridge
where Milne played Pooh Sticks with his son Christopher Robin is
reproduced here, and is remarkably similar to the one in Radford Park.
Warden. The bridges which he designed were opened in 1983 and,
although since repaired, still remain recognisably the same
structures. Bert had hoped to rebuild the stone bridge which had
Rod Sharp and family enjoying time at Liphook’s very own
Pooh Sticks Bridge.
The impressive Radford Park bridge, together with the other
bridges in the Park, were built by a team led by local resident
Albert (“Bert”) Larmer who was born in 1920 and served his
apprenticeship as a carpenter and joiner in Farnham before
joining the Royal Engineers where he learned bridge-building
skills in India during World War II. After demobilisation, Bert ran
his own building business in Farnham which he later had to
relinquish due to ill-health. He became the foreman of the
Manpower Services Commission Youth Opportunities scheme
team which turned Radford Park from a rubbish dump and
swamp into the asset we have today, and then became Park
Believed to be the original Pooh Sticks Bridge in Ashdown
Forest which is situated on the high weald of East Sussex.
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