Celia Hatton

They'd hoped to bring out the Winnie the Pooh book in 1925, but there were various delays.

Evening News, which was then London's largest circulation paper, offered to print a story.

Winnie the Pooh and the Bees, as Alan Bennett was beautifully reading, was the story chosen.

And it made a really big splash.

It was right across the evening news on Christmas Eve.

So in two days' time, Christmas Eve, 1925.

And then repeated the following day, the BBC, then of course the British Broadcasting Company, an independent company as it was in those days, broadcast the story to all of its listeners on the home service on Christmas Day afternoon.

So it was a really big splash.

It was equivalent to perhaps one of the Harry Potter launches today.

And it really set the scene.

And of course, it was the first story where the name Winnie the Pooh appears.

Although the bear had appeared in When We Were Very Young under the name of Teddy Bear, this is the first name.

Absolutely not.

And interestingly, I'm talking to you today from Australia and I've been in Singapore a few weeks ago and I was absolutely fascinated by how much Winnie the Pooh material is on display, is up for sale.

Here in Australia, sales of Winnie the Pooh books are 60% up on last year.

HarperCollins' new Centenary editions are walking off the shelves like hot lamingtons.

It's absolutely extraordinary.

And it's quintessentially English.

I say English rather than British, I think it is.

But yet it appeals universally across the world.