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Poohsticks


Poohsticks is a sport first mentioned in The House at Pooh Corner, a Winnie-the-Pooh book by A. A. Milne. It is a simple sport which may be played on any bridge over running water; each player drops a stick on the upstream side of a bridge and the one whose stick first appears on the downstream side is the winner. The annual World Poohsticks Championships have been held at Day's Lock on the River Thames in the UK since 1984.

Poohsticks was invented by English author A. A. Milne for his son Christopher Robin Milne. The sport first came to prominence when it was described in the author's book The House at Pooh Corner as well as in the Disney animated featurette Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore. Winnie-the-Pooh, the protagonist of the book, accidentally drops a pine cone into a river from a bridge and, after observing how it appeared on the other side of the bridge, devises the rules for Poohsticks. Pooh continues to play the sport with the other characters, Christopher Robin, Tigger and Eeyore.

The sport was first developed at a bridge located in Ashdown Forest, close to the village of Upper Hartfield, East Sussex, England. Built in 1907 and originally called Posingford Bridge, it is considered to be the bridge on which Milne and his son first played the game. However, it is uncertain whether the sport was first played at the bridge then written into the story, or vice versa. The bridge maintained the public's interest and a campaign to rebuild it in the late seventies was considered important enough to feature on the BBC Nine O'Clock News. The bridge was subsequently reopened by Christopher Robin Milne and officially renamed as Poohsticks Bridge.


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