Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

These are such a lovely, charming set of stories - I'm looking forward to reading them to my son when he's older.

I thought the copy we had on the bookshelves belonged to my wife, but then I saw an inscription in the title page; my father sent it to me twenty years ago this Christmas. It's said you alter the past to fit it to the present and seeing that inscription made me sad. But at the time it made me angry. I only ever met my father a few times and as a child would irregularly receive a Christmas or birthday gift. Usually they were a mismatch to my age - at 12 I was more interested in remote control cars than bear stories. I distinctly remember the gifts being proof that he knew or cared little about me (am I Eeyore?) and that made me angry.

But that was then. Now I know he had his own, typically English, baggage. An 11 year old in the '50s probably did like Winnie the Pooh. And it's easier to be forgiving of adults when you realize that adulthood isn't always so easy.

As it turns out I come from a long line of missing fathers. My father left me, his father left him, even my grandfather was fatherless at a very young age. I did worry before my child was born that perhaps the knowledge had faded from the genes. Was the example of a father necessary to be a good father yourself? To imitate or react against? I don't have an answer to that yet but I could never leave my son. Maybe abandonment was one example of fathership.

I can't wait to read Winnie the Pooh to my son. If I've learnt any lesson, it will be when he's about four or five.