When We Were Very Young ... Trivia Quiz

Answer: Buckingham Palace

The first line ("They're changing the guard at Buckingham Palace") would have been pretty obvious, but that fact is significant because Alice took Christopher Robin down to watch, and offered all sorts of enlightening information during the excursion. "A soldier's life is terrible hard", "one of the sergeants looks after their socks", and the reason why the king wasn't there was that "'He's much too busy a-signing things,' says Alice."

Answer: Happiness

Ah, the joy of splashing in puddles! And the rhythm of this poem is just right to be shouted out as you stamp away after (or during) the rain. As the poem says, in its entirety:

"John had
Great Big
Waterproof
Boots on;
John had a
Great Big
Waterproof
Hat;
John had a
Great Big
Waterproof
Mackintosh --
And that
(Said John)
Is
That."

And so say all of us. Of course, there were three children in my family, so the splashing was often directed towards a sibling, and not just the random joyful splashing implied in the poem.

Answer: Lines and Squares

We've all made sure to avoid stepping in the cracks in the pavement, but not all of us do so in order to keep the bears waiting at the corner under control! After a successful outing, "It's ever so jolly to call out, 'Bears, / Just watch me walking in all the squares!'"

Answer: Disobedience

In a charming reversal of the usual roles, it was not he who was disobedient, it was his mother. Despite being warned not to wander on her own, she tried to go down to the end of the town without his help. The result was that

"King John
Put up a notice,
'LOST or STOLEN or STRAYED!
JAMES JAMES MORRISON'S MOTHER
SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN MISLAID.
LAST SEEN
WANDERING VAGUELY:
QUITE OF HER OWN ACCORD,
SHE TRIED TO GET DOWN
TO THE END OF THE TOWN -
FORTY SHILLINGS REWARD!'"

As children, we used to love to chant along with this poem, especially the final verse that is whispered, with the final word shouted to release all the tension built up by the effort to whisper and not giggle.

Answer: At the Zoo

And that's not all - you can also see a vast array of animals, including biffalo-buffalo-bisons,a great big bear with wings, a sort of a tiny potamus, a tiny nosserus, badgers and bidgers and bodgers, and "a sort of a something
which is called a wallaboo". The highlight of the trip, however, was giving buns to the elephant.

Answer: Rice Pudding

Nobody can work out why Mary Jane is crying so hard, as "She's perfectly well and she hasn't a pain, And it's lovely rice pudding for dinner again!" The original illustration from E. H. Shepard showed a girl perched on her chair with her legs kicking, clearly not impressed with the world.

Answer: Missing

A. A. Milne clearly had experience (either as a child or as a parent) with the misfortunes associated with owning small pets. This poem is about the cute brown mouse that went missing after its box was opened, just for a minute. In the collection "Now We Are Six", there is a poem called "Forgiven", in which Alexander Beetle similarly escapes, this time because Nanny opened the matchbox in which the Alexander was residing.

Answer: The King's Breakfast

Tragedy strikes the royal palace when the cow suggests that he consider having marmalade instead of butter for his breakfast, and he retires to sob in bed. All is set aright when the Queen asks the Dairymaid who asks the cow to reconsider, and both milk and butter appear on command. (At the age when these poems are generally read, the time required to produce the butter isn't a consideration - it's only as an adult that I read it and think, "Wait a minute".)

Answer: Halfway Down

After hearing this poem about the joys of sitting on the step in the middle of the stairs, we went out and discovered that our house had an even number of steps, so there wasn't a middle one - very disappointing. The middle stair seems almost magical:

"Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up
And it isn't down.
It isn't in the nursery,
It isn't in town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head.
It isn't really
Anywhere!
It's somewhere else
Instead!"

Answer: Vespers

Vespers is properly an evening prayer service, but here is applied to the simple prayers of a young child on his way to bed. Its final lines provide a lovely closing to the book:

"Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers."