Milne with Bestall or Ghilchik might easily have had the same impact as Milne and Shepard. Shepard without Milne nearly always sank without trace, unless he were illustrating, as he would, books that were already established, such as (to Milne’s great pleasure) new editions of The Wind in the Willows and Bevis.
Milne came to acknowledge fully how much he owed to Shepard, but, at the end of 1923, he was worrying mainly about a title for the series of poems that were to appear in Punch. He wrote to Owen Seaman: ‘They want a general title and I can think of none better than When We Were Very Young, but I am ready to be persuaded if you, or anybody, can suggest something. Children Calling was my only other idea, but Uncle 2LO has made that vulgar.’ Seaman was obviously not quite happy about When We Were Very Young because Milne, a few days later, sent a list of further suggestions:
Alternative titles:
A Nursery Window Box
From a Nursery Window (or Through the NW)
Pinafore Days
Swings and Roundabouts (probably been used before)
Buttercups and Daisies
I think the first of these is the best, but I am not sure that it is better than WWWVY.
My brain has given out, and I can think of no more.
It was Milne’s own idea that the series should start off with three short poems, and they duly appeared, under the title When We Were Very Young, in Punch on 9 January 1924. They did not look very impressive. Unillustrated, they were rather squashed up together. First, ‘Brownie’, the one about the creature behind the curtain; then ‘In the Fashion’, the poem about tails; and finally ‘Before Tea’, where Emmeline has not been seen for more than a week, having gone off in a huff when someone told her her hands weren’t clean. A week later ‘Puppy and I’ appeared as a full-page spread with E. H. Shepard’s drawings, much larger than they would be in the book, surrounding the five stanzas. Milne would at one stage identify it as his own favourite of all the poems.
The other poems that would appear in this way were ‘The King’s Breakfast’, ‘Teddy Bear’, ‘Nursery Chairs’, ‘Lines and Squares’ (including two pictures – one of a replete bear who has just finished tucking into a passerby – which would not get into the book), ‘Market Square’ and ‘Little Bo-Peep and Little Boy Blue’. There were others that appeared unillustrated – and then the whole series of twenty-five ended with another four full pages: ‘The Three Foxes’, ‘Jonathan Jo’, ‘Missing’ and ‘Happiness’ – the last again with extra pictures: John putting his boots on. Four more would appear in the American children’s magazine St Nicholas during the summer and autumn. These were illustrated by Reginald Birch, who had become famous nearly forty years earlier for his drawings for a book which had made publishing history: Little Lord Fauntleroy. Before we look at the similar extravagant reactions to the publication of When We Were Very Young the following winter, we should see what else had been affecting Milne in 1924.
The health of Ken, his brother, had been causing worry for some time. Ken’s doctor had diagnosed tuberculosis (usually then called consumption), and in the spring of 1924 it was decided that he must resign from the Ministry of Pensions and leave Croydon for the country. At that time, when there were no effective drugs to fight the disease, there was great belief in the restorative power of fresh country air. Milne was in the middle of rehearsals of his new play To Have the Honour (written some time earlier) when he heard the news from his father that Ken was having to leave the Civil Service. He wrote immediately to propose they have lunch at the National Liberal Club, which he still used rather than the Garrick from time to time when he did not want to be sociable. He suggested that they should discuss ways and means. There would obviously be problems, with Ken’s pension – only a third of his salary – entirely inadequate to support his four ‘good and clever’ children, all still in full-time education. In 1922, when Ken had been in Pretoria on a government mission, J. V. Milne had sent one of his friends a family photograph and commented affectionately: ‘Look at happy Maud – always the same.’ Things would no longer be the same; Alan Milne would be a necessary tower of strength to his sister-in-law Maud for the rest of his life. In 1924 he wrote to his brother:
As a throw-out I suggest that you let me pay ￡100 a year each for the education of your children; i.e. ￡400 a year now, ￡300 when Margery is settled, and so on. But more important than this is yourself. You’ll have to write now, and really to stick at it, whatever the disappointments. As a start. I think I could get O.S. to let you try your hand at reviewing books for Punch. Turley made over ￡200 last year from this. If you got on all right at this, then I think there might be other openings. The Editor of the Nation is rather well-disposed towards me at the moment, but I fancy that we should have to be able to quote Punch to him first. Of course one feels that ‘any fool can review a book’, which may or may not be true, but the mere feeling creates an enormous amount of competition – which is why I am butting in. For God’s sake don’t think I mean by all this: ‘You’ve jolly well got to set to, and earn some money’ – You know I don’t; but I do mean, old boy, that you’re only 43, and that it’s no good regretting the brilliant service career which has been denied you, when there’s another sort of career still open and waiting for you. There are dozens of good novels and plays waiting to be written, and hundreds of articles; but a little regular reviewing would be a great help meanwhile, not only financially, but artistically. And you know that if I can help in any way, I will. My love to dear Maud. In a sneaking sort of way I envy you both going to live in the country!
Yours ever affectionately,
Alan
By the summer, Ken and Maud were settled at Shepton Mallet in Somerset. ‘He is very brave about it all,’ his father commented, describing how Ken sleeps ‘out of doors, in one of those revolving shelters and at 7.30 Maud comes in her dressing-gown with their early tea,’ across the damp grass. There had been some talk that J. V. Milne might join them in Somerset – he would miss them sorely in south London – but ‘Maud will have all her work looking after Ken.’ There was no suggestion that Daphne would tolerate her father-in-law.