AA Milne's son came to hate his portrayal in the Winnie the Pooh books, but that wasn't the end of the story. In this article from 19 October 1998, Gyles Brandreth gives an account of his late-life friendship with Christopher Robin Milne

The other day, on a television programme in America, I was introduced as "a guy with a true claim to fame – he once shook the hand that held the paw of Winnie the Pooh".

Yes, I knew Christopher Robin, the real Christopher Robin, the most famous small boy in literature. We first met about 18 years ago when I was writing a musical play about his father, AA Milne. I made the pilgrimage to Dartmouth in Devon where Christopher, then about 60, and his wife, Lesley, owned and ran a bookshop and cared for their severely disabled, grown-up daughter, Clare.

Christopher – slim, a little bent, owlish glasses, tweed jacket – was not at all as I had expected. I had been told I would find him painfully shy, distant, introspective, diffident about his parents, reluctant to talk about Pooh. He surprised me at once. He was consciously charming, courteous, kindly, gentle but forthcoming, amusing, amused. He said: "Of course we must talk about Pooh." He had a mischievous twinkle. "It's been something of a love-hate relationship down the years, but it's all right now."