Winnie the Pooh author worked for British military intelligence

Secret documents saved from a skip have shed new light on Winnie the Pooh author AA Milne's clandestine role as a propagandist in the First World War, the Daily Mail reported.

All evidence of MI7b, the secret military intelligence unit where AA Milne was based, was feared lost - because government officials ordered the destruction of its entire archive.

But 150 classified documents were taken home by Captain James Lloyd and remained a secret for nearly 100 years, including a never-before seen satirical poem by Milne.

It imagines what famous great writers like Tennyson and Shakespeare would have written had they been propaganda writers in MI7b.

Milne became a pacifist after the war and the verse shows his struggle with the work he undertook.

The secret stash of files were due to be dumped into a skip during a house clear-out, but fortunately was rescued by Captain Lloyd's great nephew Jeremy Arter, 61.

The document-filled trunk is the only surviving evidence of MI7b's existence and provides a crucial insight into how the children's author responsible for Winnie the Pooh worked for Military Intelligence.

Mr Arter, who coincidentally also worked in army propaganda as a Major in the Royal Army Educational Corps, said: 'Much of the household belongings were due to go in a skip.

'I was about to throw everything away but, leafing through, I saw a book with MI7b written on it and decided to take a closer look.

'The Green Book' was a tongue-in-cheek comic created by the MI7b writers when their unit was disbanded at the end of the war.

Before his propaganda work, Milne served with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment.

MI7b was established in 1916 to sustain support for the war when the enormous numbers of soldiers were being killed and anti-war movements were sweeping war-torn Europe.