A LONG-FORGOTTEN poem written by Winnie the Pooh author AA Milne in World War One has been discovered in the archives of The Tank Museum in Bovington.

It was penned for and performed at a fundraising performance in November 1918 in support of the Tanks Corps Prisoners of War Fund – but was then filed away and forgotten.

Even ardent AA Milne enthusiasts were unaware of its existence, and its emergence has caused a great deal of excitement.

Alan Alexander Milne served as an officer in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in WWI and, after being invalided out in 1916, was recruited by M17b – a secret propaganda unit.

There he joined other writers who churned out positive articles, pamphlets and updates to boost morale for the nation and her troops.

This poem, about the innovative new British weapons, the ‘wonderful tanks’, was discovered in the museum archive by research assistant Sheldon Rogers in a box of papers that once belonged to Hugh Elles – the pioneering first commander of the Tank Corps.

Sheldon said: “We believe this poem was written specifically for a fundraising matinee that took place on November 7 1918.

“Although the programme had been catalogued, the significance of its contents had been overlooked, and no one seemed to have any knowledge of this poem, which was written before Milne had achieved fame with Winnie the Pooh.”

She added: “It is clearly a piece of propaganda and designed to celebrate the tank, which was a British invention and was of massive interest at the time.

“But more importantly he celebrates the men who served in the tanks. He had been wounded himself and knew what conditions were like.”

Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, who lives close to Bovington, said: “It’s interesting to see how our perception of objects compares with those of people from another era. I do not doubt his motives were all to the good.

“Alan Milne was an extraordinary character who has great interest to us because his son, Christopher, was a great friend of my father-in-law.”

The poem was written six years before Milne’s most famous creation, Winnie-the-Pooh, first appeared in Punch magazine. The typed poem was found on a yellowing sheet of paper and was titled simply ‘POEM’, with ‘By A. A. Milne’ at the bottom. Milne, who was born in 1882, served in the Home Guard in World War Two.