Smarter than the average big bear

"He only understands Persian and Polish," the colonel in charge told him. Deciding it was as well to "complete the roster", Archie asked to see the corporal all the same. The colonel dispatched two men to fetch him then sat, smiling, as Archie began to wonder – what kind of an animal was this soldier that he needed two men to escort him?

Archie was standing with his back to the door minutes later when he heard one of his colleagues gasp. He looked up to see his sergeant major's face had turned white. Turning around, he found himself face-to-face with the mighty Corporal Wojtek – an eight-foot tall brown bear, chained to his escorts.

Now a sprightly 93, Archie's eyes light up as he tells the story of events at Winfield Camp, near Berwick-upon-Tweed, in the months after the end of the Second World War. "I looked over my shoulder and there was this enormous thing that dwarfed me," he recalls with a smile, in his room at the Erskine veterans' residence in Gilmerton. "The colonel said, 'You'll have to forgive our little joke'."

In 1946 Archie, from Morningside, was tasked with helping the Poles prepare for life after the war in Britain, testing their English to see who was ready to find regular work. Wojtek was just the most memorable of the troops he met – an animal adopted by the Polish soldiers as their mascot.

Those who stayed at Winfield have described Wojtek (sometimes spelt Voytek or Voychek) drinking bottled beer and even catching lit cigarettes in his mouth and enjoying a good smoke.

He loved to wrestle playfully with the soldiers and seemed to understand when the men called out to him in Polish.

Wojtek had been given to the Polish Army by a boy they helped as they made their way through the Persian mountains to join allied forces in North Africa.

The bear remained with the soldiers as they fought at the Battle of Monte Cassino in 1944 – a key victory that opened the road to Rome for the allies.

It's claimed that he bravely carried boxes of live shells to the gun emplacements and passed artillery boxes and food sacks from truck to truck, undeterred by the deafening boom of explosions.

But by the war's end in 1945, Wojtek was living with the other Polish soldiers at Winfield Aerodrome on Sunwick Farm, near Hutton in Berwickshire.

Archie, who served with the 8th Army Signals HQ, laughs off the suggestions that Wojtek used to smoke and drink beer – but has equally colourful tales to tell.

"He wasn't the pub drinking, smoking, circus animal they are trying to make out," he says. "The beer bottles he drank from were filled with tea.

The Polish soldiers would spar with him. He'd take on four at a time but there were no claws ever."

Though the war had ended, it was resolved Wojtek would not go back to Poland, now in the grip of a severe Communist regime, until it was free. So, ahead of the harsh Scottish winter, Archie had to find a new indoor home for him.

He rang the celebrated Edinburgh Zoo keeper Tom Gillespie and asked him to inspect Wojtek, but Archie had a hard time trying to convince him that he wasn't pulling his leg.

Archie says: "He was loath to come because he said brown bears couldn't survive in this country. We had to give him 50 but he eventually came. When he arrived we took him to the bear, which was chained to an oak tree in the middle of a field."

The keeper pronounced Wojtek "a perfect specimen", saying the zoo would be only too pleased to accept him. Archie later accompanied a Polish soldier, Frisch, to visit Wojtek there, where he found him happy and well.

"Frisch took a violin and spoke to him in Polish," says Archie. "You could see his little ears going back and forth and as Frisch played, Wojtek's paws went back and forth. It was wonderful to see."

Archie who went on to have a long career in bookselling was in Australia visiting relatives when Wojtek passed away at the age of 21 in 1963, after putting smiles on the faces of zoo visitors for nearly two decades.

"It was the saddest thing when I came back and the bear had gone," Archie says. "Wherever he was, he brought a lot of joy to a lot of people. Reports I heard were that he thoroughly enjoyed himself at the zoo."

What does Archie think about reported Hollywood interest in making a film about Wojtek?

"I think the Poles should get in there first," he says. "I'd go to see it but I wouldn't want to see him maligned. Hollywood producers have their own minds about things. They'll probably have him cooking meals at the camp."

THE DAY I MET AN 'AMAZING MAN' CALLED RUDYARD KIPLING

ONE of the most memorable moments of Archie Brown's long career as a bookseller occurred when he was a 17-year-old apprentice.

He worked at James Thin's bookshop, now Blackwell's, where the manager would begin the day by lining up his young apprentices to ask what they were reading.

One day in 1932 Archie was ominously summoned to the manager's office. "It was like being sent to the Head, I thought what have I done now? It was very unusual to be taken into the private room," he recalls. There, with Mr Thin, sat a man in his 60s wearing the thickest spectacles Archie had ever seen, who introduced himself as Rudyard Kipling.

He handed Archie an illuminated copy of his inspirational poem, If, and said: "Perhaps this will help you in the years ahead."

Archie explains: "He sent for me because Mr Thin had told him I was reading 'Kim' by Kipling at the time."

Archie kept the copy throughout the war, where he had a "very secret job, still under the Official Secrets Act to this day".

"It was a talking point for me during the war," says Archie, "An amazing man."