This was in the London Times today.  They also talked with a past president of the
the American publishers (I don't recollect the name of the company) yesterday on
NPR.  He had pretty much the same thing to say as Diane Powers does in Chrissie
Devinney's forward.

Erik Stultz
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Robin Young on an MP's campaign to free Christopher
                  Robin's chums

   Why Winnie the Pooh languishes
                   in exile

A LABOUR MP is demanding the liberation and
  repatriation of Winnie the Pooh and his friends who, she
  says, have been imprisoned for decades in a glass case in
  New York Central Library.

  Gwyneth Dunwoody, MP for Crewe and Nantwich,
  visited Winnie, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, Kanga and Roo -
  the original toys given by the author A. A. Milne to his son
  Christopher Robin - and she has tabled a Commons
  question to Chris Smith, the Culture Secretary, asking
  what plans he has for their return.

  "They are part of our heritage and they want to come
  home," she said. "They look very unhappy indeed. I am
  not surprised, considering they have been incarcerated in
  a glass case in a foreign country for 70 years.

  "Just like the Greeks want their Elgin Marbles back, so
  we want our Winnie the Pooh, along with all his splendid
  friends."

  Mrs Dunwoody had hoped, it seems in vain, that the
  Prime Minister might raise the question in Washington with
  President Clinton.

  The chances of getting the Milne menagerie home seem
  slim. A. A. Milne gave them to his American publishers
  after being sent on a promotional tour. The publishers
  passed them to the city library, where there is now a
  Winnie the Pooh visitors' book.

  Mrs Dunwoody said yesterday: "These were the actual
  toys Christopher Robin Milne played with, and on which
  the illustrator E. H. Shepard based his marvellous
  drawings which brought the stories to life."

  Those who have seen the toys in New York confirm that
  they look sad to be so far from the House at Pooh Corner
  and the Hundred Acre Wood. Eeyore is enormous but
  Piglet even smaller than Shepard made him appear.

  The animals' authenticity was confirmed by Christopher
  Robin Milne, who was considerably annoyed in 1995
  when Bonhams, the London auctioneer, announced that
  they would be selling the original Winnie the Pooh as prize
  item in a sale of the stock of the Cotswold Teddy Bear
  Museum in Gloucestershire.

  Though that bear had been a star draw at the museum for
  years and carried a certificate of authentication dated
  1962 from a Cheshire auction house, having been bought
  in the 1920s from Harrods, the author's son denied all
  knowledge of it. "The only teddy bear I know of is the
  original which is in the New York public library," he said
  at the time, evincing no regret over the bear's plight.

  Bonhams withdrew its claim that the bear it sold was the
  original Pooh, while still insisting that it had once been
  owned by A. A. Milne and given by him to a fan or a
  friend. It was, like the genuine Pooh now languishing in
  New York, a bear fashioned by the English makers
  Farnell.

  Mrs Dunwoody said: "It is really sad that they should have
  wasted 70 years in exile. Oh, the indignity of it all!"

MCDevinney wrote:

> Saw on AOL's news fed that the Brits want Winnie the Pooh to be returned....
>
> .c The Associated Press
>
> NEW YORK (AP) - Oh bother.
>
> The British want Winnie the Pooh and his four friends to come home.
> [...]
> ``I saw them recently and they look very unhappy indeed,'' Labor Minister
> Gwyneth Dunwoody said. ``I am not surprised, considering they have been
> incarcerated in a glass case in a foreign country for all these years.''
> [...]
> Mrs. Dunwoody is asking what plans Britain's culture secretary has to arrange
> for the stuffed animals' repatriation after half a century.
> [...]
> ``Just like the Greeks want their Elgin Marbles back - so we want our Winnie
> the Pooh back, along with all his splendid friends,'' Mrs. Dunwoody said.
> [...]
> The New York Public Library is treating the sticky issue very cautiously.
> ``Until we get a specific request, we're not commenting,'' spokeswoman Caroline
> Oyama said.
> [...]
> But a more combative Diane Powers, associate chief librarian at the Donnell
> Library Center, the branch where the stuffed toys are on display, said
> Wednesday: ``If England returns the Elgin Marbles to Greece, we might consider
> returning Pooh.''
>
> Chrissie Devinney
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