There is a row brewing over the estate of long-departed Winnie-the-Pooh author A.A. Milne, involving the Garrick Club in London, the Disney Corporation and certain members of the British public.
The Garrick, where Milne was once a member - why he did not join the A.A. Club remains a mystery - was left a share in the valuable Milne estate, and it seems that the Disney Corporation is now going to buy this share for £40 million. Included are the rights to When We Were Very Young, Now We Are Six, The House at Pooh Corner and what Auberon Waugh has described as "other shameful, odious, sentimental rubbish for five-year-olds which is obviously better placed in America".
A matter of opinion, of course.
On one side of the row are those who think the Garrick should take the money and run: these are principally Garrick Club members, including Norman Lamont, who stand to gain some £40,000 each. They have been keeping their heads down. Saying little. Maintaining a dignified silence. Very British.
On the other side are various parties who think the club should either reject the offer, or spend the money on a good cause - or indeed on anything but themselves. These people believe that Milne and his literature belong to the British nation, and they are horrified at the thought of yet another national treasure passing into foreign hands, especially American hands, and most especially Disney hands. So vulgar.
I (myself) believe that the Garrick Club should enjoy its good fortune if it comes to pass, but spend at least some of the money on a good cause: namely that of helping the offspring of famous authors to come to terms with the awfulness of hand-me-down fame.
In particular the money should benefit living people immortalised in fiction through no fault of their own, and thereby forced to endure lifelong embarrassment for no good reason. I am urging the establishment by the Garrick of what might be called the Own Back Foundation.
Why? Consider the case of A.A. Milne and his son, who died just two years ago at the age of 75.
For his entire life, the unfortunate Christopher Robin Milne had to put up with being identified as the gingham-smocked companion of Winnie-the-Pooh. To visit such a fate on a young child is nothing short of sadistic.
Milne had a typical upper-class Victorian child's upbringing, spending most of the time in an attic room with his nanny, and brought formally downstairs to visit his parents three times daily. The ma was warm, but the da was distant: in the son's poignant recollection, "his heart remained buttoned up all through his life".
Worse, A.A. Milne was not what he seemed. The notion of the fictional Christopher Robin "saying his prayers" was ludicrous, as both father and son were agnostic. Not surprisingly then, Christopher found the poem Vespers a "toe-curling, fist-clenching, lip-biting" source of shame. He was further misrepresented in a poem called The Engineer: in real life as a child, Christopher was so good with his hands that he could mend almost anything mechanical, but in the poem his father had Christopher Robin say: "It's a good sort of brake but it hasn't worked yet."
Any brake he made would certainly have worked, the real-life Christopher insisted in later years.
As a child, Milne junior had to learn to box to defend himself from his classmates and their jibes. Overall, A.A. Milne's books made his son's life such a misery that he eventually broke with his father and left London for Devon, where he and his wife ran a bookshop for 20 years.
Even there he could not entirely escape the unwanted fame: mothers would bring in their children to shake hands with "the original Christopher Robin". He would consent politely, but reluctantly, and would sign copies of his father's books for a fee of £10 - donated to the Save the Children fund.
Christopher Robin Milne was by all accounts a most reticent man, but he eventually published three volumes of autobiography, revealing the truth about his childhood, its disturbing aftermath, and his brave efforts to find his own true identity.
It was only after writing these works, he said, that he could finally come to terms with the embarrassment evoked by his dread namesake.
There is no room here to detail similar sad tales of misery caused by literary identification. Possibly the saddest involves the death of the Llewellyn Davies boy who could not cope with the story of Peter Pan - "that terrible masterpiece" - written by his mother's friend, J.M. Barrie.
Christopher Robin claimed that his father had climbed on his infant shoulders and filched his good name. "One day I will write verses about him and see how he likes it" he once declared.
The Garrick Club's duty is clear. The Own Back Foundation will ensure that people similarly victimised in fiction are given the chance to get even.