The Truth Behind 'Winnie the Pooh' Might Just Ruin Your Childhood

Many of us have known the story of Winnie the Pooh and his adventures with Christopher Robin. The story is that author A. A. Milne created the character and his friend based on his son Christopher Robin and his favorite stuffed animal.

Author Lindsay Mattick, however, had her own story to tell about the silly old bear in her story Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bear. She explains that her great-grandfather, Harry Colebourn, actually rescued a bear from a train he was on, and that bear was actually a female one.

He named her Winnie, after the town of Winnipeg in Canada where he was born and traveled with her to London in World War I.

When his regiment was deployed to France, he gave her to the London Zoo so they could take care of her. It is there that a young Christopher Robin saw her and became enamored with her, so much so that he named his teddy bear after her.

His father then proceeded to write the infamous Winnie the Pooh stories, and the rest is history.

Lindsay does love the stories, but she just wanted to let the world know the truth stating

"I want people who love 'Winnie the Pooh' to understand that the real story behind her is just as beautiful and just as amazing. I'm still blown away that, while a lot of people in Canada certainly know the story and know the history now, around the world it's really still not known. People don't even realise that there was a real bear."

It is such an amazing story, as well as the fact that all this time we had thought he was a male, when actually he was a she. I know that I, for one, will never look at the "silly old bear" in quite the same way again. Now, however, the story is that much sweeter.