Fun Find Friday

July 15, 2011
Location: United Kingdom, Epcot

Over in the back room of The Toy Soldier at the United Kingdom you can find one of the greatest meet and greet areas found throughout Walt Disney World. The characters here are Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, but that's not the reason this meet and greet is so great, nor is it the fact that this meet and greet almost always has no wait. The Fun Find for this Pooh themed week (and the reason why this area is so great) is actually found on the book shelf within this room:

So what's all on this shelf exactly? Quite a bit. Let's start from the right and work our way to the left.

This is the most obvious Pooh reference in the area. There are several letters found stuffed into a small little area with the majority being addressed to Mr. Sanders of 100 Acre Woods West. Who is Mr. Sanders? Well, Mr. Sanders is the name on the sign which sits out front of Winnie the Pooh's house! To the left of this letter you can find the following:

Here we can find some old photographs that seem to have some significance, but what is it exactly? The Winnie the Pooh character we all know and love was adapted from the classic stories of Winnie the Pooh written by English author, A.A. Milne. Milne got his inspiration for his stories about Pooh Bear from his son and his stuffed teddy bear. His sons name? Christopher Robin of course! To honor Christopher Robin, the boy who inspired one of the most lovable characters of all time, Disney placed the three photographs seen above of Christopher Robin as a child as a sort of thank you.

Moving on to our final item on the desk:

After seeing this typewriter the reference becomes pretty obvious. You have letters addressed to Mr. Sanders, you have pictures of Christopher Robin, you may as well put out a typewriter giving recognition to A.A. Milne, the author who would have written the stories on a typewriter similar to the one seen above.

However, there's more to this typewriter than actually meets the eye. I've been told by several different Cast Members on several different occasions an interesting tidbit about this specific typewriter. Not only is it an exact model of one of the typewriters A.A. Milne used to write the Winnie the Pooh stories on, this is in fact, one of the ACTUAL typewriters he used to write the stories of Pooh, Piglet, Owl, and the rest of our friends in the Hundred Acre Woods.

So there you have it! Actual pictures of Christopher Robin and one of the typewriters owned by A.A. Milne! Make sure you stop by the room on your next visit and type Winnie the Pooh out here. While doing so think about a simple fact: You are typing the name of one of the most lovable characters of all time on the same typewriter that character was born!

Return to Fun Find Friday