Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 78. J. M. Barrie - The Man Behind Peter Pan

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78. J. M. Barrie - The Man Behind Peter Pan · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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Speaker 1: You're listening to an airwave media podcast. Hi everybody, and
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Speaker 1: welcome to Hooded What Now the history podcast That's not
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Speaker 1: your history class with me your host Katie Charlewood, history
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Speaker 1: harlot and reader of books. To all of my returning listeners,
0:31
Speaker 1: welcome back, and to all of the new people here.
0:35
Speaker 1: Consider this a warning. So the language on here can
0:39
Speaker 1: get a little bit colorful, and if you have an
0:42
Speaker 1: issue with expletives, you might want to exit stage left. Okay, cool, No,
0:50
Speaker 1: we've got that sorted. Hey everybody, how is everybody doing?
0:54
Speaker 1: Have you voted for me and the Listener's Choice and
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Speaker 1: the podcast awards yet, well, the Irish Podcast Awards And
1:04
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1:07
Speaker 1: fill in the form, You type in my name, who
1:10
Speaker 1: did what? Now? You click on my wi face, You
1:14
Speaker 1: put in your email address, and then you click the
1:17
Speaker 1: link in your email. It's basically to make sure people
1:20
Speaker 1: don't like multi vote and things like that, and so
1:23
Speaker 1: somebody doesn't like spam vote five hundred times. And it
1:27
Speaker 1: would be absolutely amazing if you did that, because you know,
1:31
Speaker 1: I would very much appreciate that. It'd be good, you know.
1:35
Speaker 1: But the shortlist goes out on the fourteenth of September,
1:41
Speaker 1: So that's gonna be fun to see if I made it,
1:44
Speaker 1: you know, it's gonna be an interesting one, especially considering
1:48
Speaker 1: people seem to forget then I'm from Ireland, like I'm
1:52
Speaker 1: from Donegall. I have lived in Doneygall the majority of
1:56
Speaker 1: my life. I grew up here. I speak Irish pearly,
2:01
Speaker 1: but I speak it. You know, my kids are Irish.
2:05
Speaker 1: You know. It's just like people hear the accent and
2:10
Speaker 1: they just assume that I'm you know, from elsewhere. Doesn't
2:15
Speaker 1: matter how many times is it doesn't matter how many
2:18
Speaker 1: you know, fucking Irish monuments I'm in front of, or
2:22
Speaker 1: Irish history I discuss like people don't don't pick it up.
2:28
Speaker 1: I h'd somebody. I had somebody comment on one of
2:31
Speaker 1: my like Instagram videos and they were like, oh, that's
2:36
Speaker 1: that's why you're always you know, in Ireland. I never
2:41
Speaker 1: put two and two together. I don't know what kind
2:45
Speaker 1: of job you think I have that I'm constantly jumping
2:48
Speaker 1: countries like yeah, but it's funny. It's funny and as
2:53
Speaker 1: some of you can probably tell, my voice till asn't
2:56
Speaker 1: fully back yet. It does not help that when I
3:00
Speaker 1: read bedtime stories to my children, I have to do
3:05
Speaker 1: the voices. It's a thing. I have to do the voices.
3:09
Speaker 1: So we're currently reading Code Name Bananas. I did not
3:12
Speaker 1: choose it because it's set in World War Two. My
3:15
Speaker 1: kids chose it. I'm it did me a while to
3:19
Speaker 1: get into David Williams books, because for a long time
3:22
Speaker 1: my kids struggled even to read row Now because so
3:26
Speaker 1: many of the characters were mean, Like it took me
3:30
Speaker 1: a year to convince my kids to let me read
3:32
Speaker 1: them Matilda because they were so worried because like, all
3:37
Speaker 1: this horrible stuff was happening to this child. And my
3:40
Speaker 1: son was just like, why are they so mean? Why
3:44
Speaker 1: are they doing this to her? I don't want to
3:46
Speaker 1: hear this. This is too sad. And I was like, okay,
3:49
Speaker 1: you're empathizing with Matilda already. Okay, cool googooo goo goo
3:53
Speaker 1: google coo. But eventually we got through it. And you know,
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Speaker 1: the best books are written through trauma, right, Yeah, but yes,
4:04
Speaker 1: so I have to do the voices, and so, like
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Speaker 1: uncle said, he told that this because apparently I'm like
4:12
Speaker 1: a really bad way Winston. I don't know why. I
4:14
Speaker 1: don't know why I do it? Like I choose voices
4:20
Speaker 1: that are generally as strained to do, like why would
4:23
Speaker 1: I do that to myself? Why I yet I do?
4:29
Speaker 1: But I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, quit your
4:31
Speaker 1: shipper Chapper, in fact me, In fact you I Well,
4:34
Speaker 1: but first we've got to get our source on. Our
4:37
Speaker 1: sources are J. M. Barry and the Lost Boys by
4:41
Speaker 1: Andrew Berkin, J M. Barry, The du Marieres and the
4:46
Speaker 1: Dark Side of Neverland by Pierce Durgeon, The Real Peter
4:51
Speaker 1: Pan by Parker James, The Barry Inspiration by Patrick Chalmers,
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Speaker 1: Hide and Seek with the Angels, A Life of J. M.
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Speaker 1: Barry by Lisa Cheney, And of course I wrote favorite
5:05
Speaker 1: biography dot Com I use it in comfortably good. Then
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Speaker 1: let's begin. I'm about to ruin some childhoods with this one.
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Speaker 1: I mean, if you ever read Peter Pan, like any
5:18
Speaker 1: of the original stories, didn't this this should not be
5:22
Speaker 1: too surprising for you because the over you know, simplified
5:27
Speaker 1: saccharin sort of Disney version, which still involves kidnapping and
5:32
Speaker 1: attempted murder. I'm just I'm just saying, might be worth
5:38
Speaker 1: taking a critical eye on that. But yes, the writer
5:44
Speaker 1: of Peter Pan and creator of the name Wendy supposedly
5:50
Speaker 1: I've got a feeling about that. But yeah. James Matthew Barry.
5:57
Speaker 1: He was born on the ninth of May eighteen sixty
6:00
Speaker 1: in Kerriemuir and Angus in Scotland, to David Barry and
6:05
Speaker 1: Margaret Ogilvy. So Barry started off with relatively humble beginnings.
6:09
Speaker 1: I mean he's Angus first of all, and secondly his
6:13
Speaker 1: dad's a weaver and his mum she's a housewife. Now
6:17
Speaker 1: his dad is fairly successful, well enough that all of
6:22
Speaker 1: the Barry children are educated. Now. James Matthew Barry j
6:28
Speaker 1: and Barry. He is I think the ninth out of
6:31
Speaker 1: ten children, although two had passed away before he was born,
6:35
Speaker 1: so there's only making him the seventh living child. It's
6:42
Speaker 1: just math, yes, so he's nine like chronologically, but he's
6:48
Speaker 1: the seventh living child. Yes, Okay, good, we got that sorted.
6:54
Speaker 1: So all of the living Barry children they are they're schooled,
7:01
Speaker 1: they're educated, and so they learn the three rs. You know, reading, writing, arithmetic.
7:08
Speaker 1: You know, it was basically a base level of education
7:11
Speaker 1: to have any sort of formal or professional career like
7:15
Speaker 1: you had to be able to read and write at
7:17
Speaker 1: this point because if you wanted to sign a contract,
7:21
Speaker 1: or if you wanted to do your banking, or you know,
7:24
Speaker 1: lots of things involve having to know numbers and words.
7:29
Speaker 1: You know. I feel like that's a very very simple
7:31
Speaker 1: way to put it. But not everybody had that option.
7:36
Speaker 1: But you find sort of from the mid eighteen hundreds onwards,
7:40
Speaker 1: there was a greater push into education, and a lot
7:45
Speaker 1: of it was run by like churches and chargeable foundations,
7:49
Speaker 1: but it started to get a little bit secular sort
7:54
Speaker 1: of after that, to slowly but surely bring in sort
7:59
Speaker 1: of national education like it was on its way. Wasn't
8:02
Speaker 1: there yet, but it was on its way. Have you
8:05
Speaker 1: ever asked yourself what makes a great writer? And we'll
8:08
Speaker 1: have the answer for you. Trauma, Like every great writer
8:13
Speaker 1: of a children's book right has suffered just horrific trauma.
8:18
Speaker 1: They have seen someone die. Usually we're not just children's authors,
8:22
Speaker 1: but like authors in general. Listen, Okay, so you've got
8:24
Speaker 1: like J. M. Barry and row Dal and JRR. Tolkien
8:28
Speaker 1: and Mary Shelley, like lots of people who have witnessed,
8:32
Speaker 1: you know, horrific death and suffered trauma makes good writers.
8:38
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that you should force yourself to undergo
8:41
Speaker 1: some form of you know, calamitous and soul crushing event,
8:45
Speaker 1: you know, just that you'll be better with a pen
8:47
Speaker 1: and paper. I am saying, though the evidence would suggest
8:52
Speaker 1: that it helps nobody. Seriously, don't don't do that. Don't
8:55
Speaker 1: go seeking the bad vibes. Just stay, just stay away,
8:59
Speaker 1: and the fun lane where there's flowers and candy flows
9:03
Speaker 1: and I don't know, mediocre tapioca, I don't know, I
9:07
Speaker 1: don't know. But anyway, back to Gembari. So when he
9:11
Speaker 1: is six or seven years old, he's out ice skating
9:15
Speaker 1: with his older brother, who's I think thirteen, Yeah, he's
9:21
Speaker 1: thirteen because it's the day before his fourteenth birthday and
9:25
Speaker 1: David he's ice skating and somehow collides with another skater
9:32
Speaker 1: and David ends up falling on the ice and cracking
9:36
Speaker 1: his skull and dying. So this absolutely devastates his mother, Margaret,
9:45
Speaker 1: because David was her favorite and his death created such
9:52
Speaker 1: a massive grief in her that she just could not
9:56
Speaker 1: connect to the rest of her children, especially James Matthew.
10:03
Speaker 1: Because James Matthew Barry. She also laid the blame of
10:08
Speaker 1: the event on him because he was with them. I mean,
10:11
Speaker 1: he's six years old. That is certainly some depression level grief,
10:16
Speaker 1: because it's not rational to blame a sex year old
10:21
Speaker 1: for the accidental death of a thirteen year old, Like
10:25
Speaker 1: it's not it's not a logical, rational like way to be.
10:29
Speaker 1: But losing a child is not a rational event, Like
10:36
Speaker 1: it's not something that should happen because we live life
10:40
Speaker 1: in a very chronological fashion, like you you know, you're
10:44
Speaker 1: you're expected to her family. Then you die, and then
10:49
Speaker 1: your children live on, and then they have children and
10:52
Speaker 1: then they die like it's supposed to be like you know,
10:56
Speaker 1: this circle of life or whatever. But and it said
11:00
Speaker 1: there is no greater pain than burying a child. Am
11:05
Speaker 1: I surprised in this? Absolutely fucking not. Because any form
11:11
Speaker 1: of mental illness gets you sent to the sanitorium. So
11:14
Speaker 1: you know, there's not really a lot of options for
11:18
Speaker 1: the concept of mental health, even though we know that
11:22
Speaker 1: they were discussing it from fucking Elizabethan Times, Merchant of Venice.
11:27
Speaker 1: It's what I'm saying, point being skip to this. She
11:31
Speaker 1: is suffering, she doesn't know how to deal with it,
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Speaker 1: and nobody knows how to help her with it, because
11:36
Speaker 1: you know, it's the fucking eighteen hundreds and Barry he
11:41
Speaker 1: doesn't know how to deal with this, and so he
11:44
Speaker 1: tries to gain that love and attention and affection from
11:52
Speaker 1: his mother. And because he's six years old and cannot
11:56
Speaker 1: fucking understand what's going on around him, and he's so
11:59
Speaker 1: desperate for his mother love, he starts wearing his brother's
12:02
Speaker 1: clothes and he starts acting like him, and he's trying to,
12:09
Speaker 1: I don't know, not like replace him, but like trying
12:11
Speaker 1: to emulate him in order for his mom to show
12:15
Speaker 1: him that love. But Barrie realizes that he's not his
12:20
Speaker 1: brother and his mother won't feel the same way about him,
12:26
Speaker 1: and that's something he then has to deal with from
12:31
Speaker 1: such a young age. That's not to see him and
12:34
Speaker 1: his mom didn't like eventually connect they did, and it
12:37
Speaker 1: would be over stories. So she would read him the
12:40
Speaker 1: novels that she had loved as a child, and that
12:44
Speaker 1: was how they managed to have something. But this moment,
12:51
Speaker 1: this trauma, and this lack of affection he received, it
12:55
Speaker 1: really plants the seed in him and it affects him
12:59
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life. Now when he's eight,
13:01
Speaker 1: he basically ends up in the care of two of
13:04
Speaker 1: his older siblings, so Alexander and Marianne, because they teach
13:09
Speaker 1: at the Glasgow Academy. So when he's eight, he goes
13:14
Speaker 1: there and he studies there for like two years, and
13:18
Speaker 1: then when he's ten, he goes back home where he
13:21
Speaker 1: studies at Forfar Academy and he's there for another four
13:25
Speaker 1: years before he heads to Dumfries. But when he's in Dumfries,
13:30
Speaker 1: he's again looked after by his older siblings Alexander and Marianne,
13:36
Speaker 1: and this is where he really starts getting into novellas
13:40
Speaker 1: and novels and like the Penny Dreadfuls. He is into this,
13:46
Speaker 1: and mean he's a teenager and it's like the cool
13:49
Speaker 1: thing of the time, like I don't know, like comics
13:53
Speaker 1: in the fifties and Sega Mega drives in the nineties. Now,
13:58
Speaker 1: when he's in Dumfries, him and some schoolmates the end
14:02
Speaker 1: up starting this sort of drama club and it's kind
14:05
Speaker 1: of like the beginnings of what's going to be sort
14:08
Speaker 1: of the basis of Neverland in Peter Pan and Hook
14:12
Speaker 1: and all that. It kind of all springs from here.
14:15
Speaker 1: But life isn't all fun games and amateur dramatics. Oh no, No,
14:21
Speaker 1: of course Barry was making sure he was educated. But
14:25
Speaker 1: in his spare time, when he wasn't doing any of that,
14:27
Speaker 1: he was, you know, stalking a historian, that's right, Thomas Carlyle.
14:34
Speaker 1: So he was this like absolutely massive deal at the time.
14:37
Speaker 1: He was an essayist and historian and Barry he kind
14:42
Speaker 1: of has this whole hero worship thing, and so he's
14:45
Speaker 1: literally following this dude around the streets of Dumfries. Like
14:52
Speaker 1: people notice this is happening. I mean, this famous villa
14:57
Speaker 1: is being followed by this way dinky Hitler. Like yeah,
15:02
Speaker 1: so Jim Barry, he only ends up being like five
15:04
Speaker 1: three five four. He's he's not a tall man even
15:08
Speaker 1: for the era. He's not. He hasn't even hit average, right,
15:12
Speaker 1: So he is he's toty. He's teeny totty, right, He's
15:17
Speaker 1: a wee toty James By and he is following this
15:21
Speaker 1: stood around like desperate to kind of get his hands
15:25
Speaker 1: on him, like he has this plan where he wants
15:28
Speaker 1: to touch him just so he can tell people that
15:32
Speaker 1: he has touched him. Like I want to say, not
15:36
Speaker 1: in a creepy way. But I don't know in any
15:39
Speaker 1: scenario in which that is not really bloody creepy, you know.
15:44
Speaker 1: So Barry decides that he absolutely, one hundred percent wants
15:47
Speaker 1: to be an author, but you know, not everybody makes it,
15:51
Speaker 1: and his family are like, you need to get a
15:54
Speaker 1: day job before you can, you know, not quit your
15:57
Speaker 1: day job. And so his family try to get him
16:00
Speaker 1: to join the ministry, like that is what they're trying
16:03
Speaker 1: to do. They're like, please, please get a profession, join
16:07
Speaker 1: the ministry. You know, the church is always looking to
16:10
Speaker 1: pay people for stuff and not just hush money. So
16:14
Speaker 1: Barry does end up attending University Edinburgh, you know actually,
16:19
Speaker 1: but he's studying literature, which is which is the compromise
16:23
Speaker 1: they've worked out, and so Barry graduates with a Master
16:27
Speaker 1: of Arts in eighteen eighty two, after which his sister
16:32
Speaker 1: finds him a job because she's reading the scotsmand newspaper
16:35
Speaker 1: and she sees that the Nottingham Journal is looking for
16:38
Speaker 1: a staff writer, and so she gets him to apply
16:42
Speaker 1: and it does and he gets it, and so he's
16:44
Speaker 1: working there for about a year year and a half,
16:47
Speaker 1: they're thereabouts. But when he's back working in Kerriemere. He
16:50
Speaker 1: sends these stories to the Saint James Quette, which is
16:54
Speaker 1: the London newspaper, and it's all about like places about
16:59
Speaker 1: where his mom grew the stories that she told him,
17:02
Speaker 1: and they become the basis of like a bunch of
17:04
Speaker 1: his like Scottish hey books later on, like the Thrums
17:08
Speaker 1: and whatnot. So these are really popular, and you know,
17:12
Speaker 1: it's very fashionable. It's very fashionable in the mid eighteen
17:17
Speaker 1: hundreds to be Scottish, right, it's a big thing, like
17:20
Speaker 1: Tartan has come back. It's Queen Victoria likes it, you
17:24
Speaker 1: know what I mean. It's it's around and so that
17:28
Speaker 1: Scottish thing is very popular. And so this leads to
17:31
Speaker 1: a series of stories and things are going well, okay,
17:35
Speaker 1: so this is actually pretty funny. So like he starts
17:38
Speaker 1: making friends and making connections, like he becomes pals with
17:43
Speaker 1: George Bernard Shaw, who ends up being his neighbor. By
17:45
Speaker 1: the way, he's got HG. Wells. He has just a
17:51
Speaker 1: consistent correspondence with Robert Louis Stevenson. Yeah, uh huh, of
17:57
Speaker 1: course of course he does. Why wouldn't he And he
18:01
Speaker 1: ends up sort of rubbing elbows with all of these
18:04
Speaker 1: just literary giants or what are going to be known
18:08
Speaker 1: as literary giants, right, And so he ends up setting
18:12
Speaker 1: up a cricket club, like an amateur cricket club for
18:17
Speaker 1: people with you know, similar ability to him. So not great,
18:23
Speaker 1: We're not we're not going to be taking home the
18:26
Speaker 1: ashes anytime soon. But yeah, like he makes he makes
18:31
Speaker 1: this team, this amateur cricket team called the allah Akberries.
18:35
Speaker 1: Right now, I know what you're thinking. What. Yeah, so
18:43
Speaker 1: he thought allah akbar meant Heaven help us, right, and
18:49
Speaker 1: it means I think it means God is great. I'm
18:51
Speaker 1: not fluent in Arabic. Just just a heads up. It's
18:56
Speaker 1: one of the few languages that I don't think I
19:00
Speaker 1: could even hazard a guess it's what the words are, like,
19:05
Speaker 1: it has a different stem than what I'm used to.
19:08
Speaker 1: But yeah, so he has a cricket team called the
19:13
Speaker 1: allah Akberries, which feels vaguely racist. I just feel like
19:21
Speaker 1: it just feels weird, especially coming out my tongue. It
19:24
Speaker 1: feels weird. Yeah. So yeah, all of these authors are
19:29
Speaker 1: on the team at one point or another. So we
19:31
Speaker 1: have like Ridyard Kipling. Okay, now it's definitely racist. Arthur
19:37
Speaker 1: Conan Doyle A mon Yes, the guy who wrote Whinnie
19:43
Speaker 1: the Poop, Walter Rally ah oh for Tennyson and then
19:54
Speaker 1: and and oh PG Woodhouse. So like Jeeves, the guy
19:58
Speaker 1: who invented Jeeves, like H Well also on this team.
20:01
Speaker 1: Like how would imagine imagine you're about to play cricket.
20:06
Speaker 1: I mean, you're probably from a certain social class if
20:08
Speaker 1: you're gonna play cricket. But you're about to play cricket
20:13
Speaker 1: and I don't know You've got the bat, the cricket bat.
20:18
Speaker 1: It's a bat, right, it's a bat, and you're standing
20:21
Speaker 1: in front of your wicket and H. G. Wells or
20:28
Speaker 1: even better, like the writer of Wannie the Pooh is
20:31
Speaker 1: about to throw the cricket ball at you like which
20:34
Speaker 1: For years, I shit you not. I was convinced was
20:37
Speaker 1: a shiny red apple. And I was so confused because
20:41
Speaker 1: I couldn't understand why it didn't like smush when it
20:46
Speaker 1: hit the cricket bat. I didn't. I didn't get ah, yes, yes,
20:53
Speaker 1: let's just throw fruit at each other, the ultimate deck
21:00
Speaker 1: fruit with sports. I mean, what did I think squash was?
21:05
Speaker 1: I mean, clearly not the port taste of people but yeah,
21:11
Speaker 1: because he starts making these connections, he starts dipping his
21:15
Speaker 1: toe back into theater. So he's writing plays and stuff.
21:19
Speaker 1: Some of them are doing well, some of them are
21:21
Speaker 1: absolutely tanking, because of course they are. And I mean
21:26
Speaker 1: it's it's the theater. Like not everything is going to
21:28
Speaker 1: be a winner, like not everything is Hamilton. Listen, of
21:34
Speaker 1: all the things I chose, I went with Hamilton. That
21:36
Speaker 1: being said, I'm going to say this now, I think
21:40
Speaker 1: you could make a very good musical from the Kaiser
21:44
Speaker 1: Chief songs. I'm just saying, Ricky Wilson, hit me up,
21:49
Speaker 1: I have ideas for a jukebox musical. I'm just saying
21:55
Speaker 1: it could work. I've got this. But yes. So he starts,
22:01
Speaker 1: you know, dipping his toe into theater and he's he's
22:04
Speaker 1: writing plays and whatnot. And it's here that he's introduced
22:10
Speaker 1: to an actress called Mary Ansel. So he's trying to
22:16
Speaker 1: get a decent actress for this play Walker London, and
22:22
Speaker 1: so he asks Jerome k Jerome, you know, if he
22:26
Speaker 1: knows a pretty actress who could play the part and
22:30
Speaker 1: enter stage right one Mary Ansel. So the two of
22:36
Speaker 1: them become acquainted, they become relatively friendly, and he ends
22:44
Speaker 1: up being incredibly ill sort of between eighteen ninety three
22:49
Speaker 1: and eighteen eighty four, and it's Mary who actually helps
22:52
Speaker 1: look after him. And so after he's back, you know,
22:57
Speaker 1: at full speed again, they end up getting married in
23:01
Speaker 1: kerry Muir on the ninth of July eighteen ninety four,
23:06
Speaker 1: and basically, you know, he's well again. They get married
23:12
Speaker 1: and she decides, I don't really need to be acting anymore.
23:15
Speaker 1: I'm a wife, and so no harm to her because
23:18
Speaker 1: it's you know, the past and that's how things wear.
23:22
Speaker 1: But yeah, so she's she's there, and so it's this
23:29
Speaker 1: teeny tiny ceremony, right, it's in his parents' house and
23:35
Speaker 1: it's this small, intimate wedding and so they're married, but
23:42
Speaker 1: the marriage is not consummated like it's This is not
23:48
Speaker 1: for dispute. Here is a direct quote from his wife.
23:53
Speaker 1: Love in its fullest sense could never be felt by
23:57
Speaker 1: him or experience. And this is relating to two things actually,
24:04
Speaker 1: One the fact that he's impotent and or possibly asexual.
24:10
Speaker 1: We're not sure about that specifically, but he's definitely impotent.
24:17
Speaker 1: But the other part it relates to is the fact
24:20
Speaker 1: that he doesn't appear to have any romantic love, hence
24:27
Speaker 1: the possible asexual connection. However, now what he lacks in
24:33
Speaker 1: sort of empathy, he makes up for in abundance with
24:38
Speaker 1: you know, cunning and manipulation. I am fairly certain that J. M.
24:43
Speaker 1: Barry got married not because he was in love, but
24:47
Speaker 1: because it would look good. Like if he was a
24:51
Speaker 1: married man, if he had a wife, he would seem typical,
24:58
Speaker 1: you know, he would project the idea of who he
25:03
Speaker 1: wanted people to see. He was a respectable family man.
25:08
Speaker 1: Sure he was married, he had a beautiful wife. The
25:12
Speaker 1: very same year he's married, this book comes out and
25:16
Speaker 1: it really captures Barry's attention. It's called Trilby by George Dumourier. Yes, yes,
25:23
Speaker 1: the grandfather of Daphney du Murier, writer of Rebecca. But yeah,
25:28
Speaker 1: Barry is basically fan girling over Demurier. And after Trouby
25:34
Speaker 1: becomes this big success and things are going great, ah
25:39
Speaker 1: dmuriw only really gets two years to enjoy this because
25:42
Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety six he dies. Two years of enjoying
25:47
Speaker 1: success and then death and an attempt to get closer
25:51
Speaker 1: to du Maurier before he passed away. Obviously, J M.
25:55
Speaker 1: Barry his wife Mary and their Saint Bernard dog Porthos
26:01
Speaker 1: had moved to Kensington in London, sort of very close
26:05
Speaker 1: to Kensington Gardens where he would often walk the dog. Now,
26:09
Speaker 1: he had supposedly bought this dog for his wife, but
26:12
Speaker 1: he's you know, had a habit of spending more time
26:14
Speaker 1: with it than she did, one more time with it
26:18
Speaker 1: than he did with her, you know. And then one
26:21
Speaker 1: day as he was walking Porthos, how does he come
26:24
Speaker 1: across but Lollewellyn Davies's children. What a crazy random happens
26:31
Speaker 1: dance that these children, the grandchildren of the George de Mourier,
26:37
Speaker 1: happened to be in such close proximity. How convenient. So
26:45
Speaker 1: he comes across George and well John but they called
26:50
Speaker 1: him Jack for whatever reason. So there are five children
26:56
Speaker 1: all in all at this point there's three George, John
27:00
Speaker 1: and Peter. So Peter is a baby, Yeah he's a baby.
27:06
Speaker 1: George is four, Jack is three, and yeah, Peter is
27:12
Speaker 1: a baby. So he comes across them and there nanny
27:16
Speaker 1: and he starts performing with the Saint Bernard. So they're
27:21
Speaker 1: doing this like playfight, and he just amazes them. Whow
27:30
Speaker 1: And then he conveniently keeps meeting them in the park,
27:35
Speaker 1: and then and then and then, how fucking serendipitous is
27:42
Speaker 1: it that he just happens upon their mother and father
27:48
Speaker 1: at a dinner party? What are the chances? So he
27:54
Speaker 1: meets Sylvia and Arthur and he kind of doesn't really
28:00
Speaker 1: connect with Arthur. He founds Sylvia seat of sneaking away
28:04
Speaker 1: some sweets, saying there for her boys, and he's like, yes,
28:09
Speaker 1: I have an inn. So Llewellyn Davies, the llewell and
28:14
Speaker 1: Davies family, they're not the most financially secure of people.
28:19
Speaker 1: He's a struggling lawyer. I thought she's a housewife. So
28:23
Speaker 1: they're trying to make kens meet and JM. Barry is
28:28
Speaker 1: relatively well known and in financially secure man. So he
28:33
Speaker 1: is at this dinner party right which he absolutely did
28:35
Speaker 1: not engineer in any way whatsoever called and he proclaims
28:41
Speaker 1: that Sylvia is the most beautiful creature he has ever met.
28:46
Speaker 1: That's not a weird thing to say to somebody's wife
28:49
Speaker 1: in Victorian London. But yeah, Barry is really starting to
28:53
Speaker 1: get more success and he is doing well financially. So
28:59
Speaker 1: in nineteen one hundred, he and Mary and Borthos the dog,
29:03
Speaker 1: they move to one hundred Bayswater Road and it is
29:08
Speaker 1: directly overlooking Kensington Gardens. It is fansy. So the same
29:15
Speaker 1: year Mary finds this cottage, black Light cottage up in Surrey,
29:20
Speaker 1: and it's just like a nice summer home. It's where
29:24
Speaker 1: Barry can entertain his cricketing friends and of course the
29:28
Speaker 1: Llewellyn Davies family, who again not the most financially secure.
29:34
Speaker 1: So what he does is Barry spends a lot more
29:37
Speaker 1: time with Sylvia. He's telling the children's stories. And then
29:41
Speaker 1: at this point Michael is born, and then Nicholas ends
29:45
Speaker 1: up being born in nineteen oh three. Okay, so yes,
29:49
Speaker 1: so there's gonna be five sons in total, George, John, Peter,
29:54
Speaker 1: and Nicholas. John is also Jack. I don't know why,
29:58
Speaker 1: it just is okay, lotatistics accept the past for this
30:01
Speaker 1: weird name swapping situation. It's not as if they're shortening it,
30:07
Speaker 1: and it's not as if it's, you know, a nickname
30:09
Speaker 1: of funniness unless Jack means something else. I don't know,
30:13
Speaker 1: maybe it does, oh, maybe it does. Anyway, So they
30:21
Speaker 1: have this little summer home or they're doing all this stuff,
30:23
Speaker 1: and then they've got the house you know, in London,
30:27
Speaker 1: and he is treating the Llewellans like he's sharing them
30:32
Speaker 1: with gifts and taking them on holidays, like he is
30:36
Speaker 1: spending a lot of time. He has weaseled his way
30:40
Speaker 1: into this family and they're basically like, this is uncle Jim.
30:45
Speaker 1: This is Jimmy. Yeah, yeah, Jim, Jimmy Jim Jimminy Jim Jim.
30:50
Speaker 1: That's right, you you keep being an absolute weirdough. So
30:55
Speaker 1: when it came to the Llewellyn Davies boys, right, he
30:59
Speaker 1: would tell them stories about baby Peter. So it started
31:01
Speaker 1: off with George and John Jack and baby Peter. So
31:06
Speaker 1: he would tell stories of how Peter was a baby
31:09
Speaker 1: who could fly, and this becomes the inspiration for a
31:12
Speaker 1: little White Bird and it's also why I'm Peter pan
31:16
Speaker 1: Nana the dog is a Saint Bernard, just like Porthos. Ah. Yeah.
31:22
Speaker 1: So basically it all starts off like this, and this
31:27
Speaker 1: inspires him to have two back to back successes in
31:31
Speaker 1: nineteen oh one and nineteen oh two, so quality street.
31:37
Speaker 1: This is after many, many years of failing in the theater.
31:40
Speaker 1: So I think at one point he writes a play
31:44
Speaker 1: that is so bad and is just so upsetting that
31:48
Speaker 1: he has to convince Conan Doyle to revise it and
31:50
Speaker 1: rewrite it for him because it's just so shit, right, Ah,
31:55
Speaker 1: let's get the man who believe in fairies to be
31:57
Speaker 1: read it cool. So he is writing these plays, what
32:04
Speaker 1: was it The Quality Street and then Admiral Crichton, and
32:08
Speaker 1: they are fucking amazing. There's social commentary, there's you know, humor,
32:14
Speaker 1: there's pain. It's brilliant, it's amazing. And in nineteen oh
32:19
Speaker 1: two he writes the book Little White Bird. This is
32:23
Speaker 1: the origin of Peter Pan. Yes, it does involve a
32:26
Speaker 1: flying baby. It's a lot of it's weird. It's weird,
32:30
Speaker 1: but it's you can tell the start of something is there.
32:33
Speaker 1: And this brings on to Peter Pan The Boy who
32:36
Speaker 1: Wouldn't Grow Up, which is a stage play, and this
32:39
Speaker 1: brings in the character of Wendy. Now Wendy exists because
32:44
Speaker 1: of Margaret Henley. So she's this week girl who has
32:47
Speaker 1: a speech impediment. She can't pronounce her ours right like
32:49
Speaker 1: Jonathan Ross, and so she's trying to say my friendy
32:54
Speaker 1: but ends up saying my frendy. And apparently this is
32:59
Speaker 1: the origin of the name. However, I've had many elderly
33:03
Speaker 1: people argue with me many times enough for me to
33:07
Speaker 1: consider that this is a possibility that Wendy is also
33:12
Speaker 1: short for Gwendolen, Like somebody said that at one point
33:17
Speaker 1: in history, and I can't disprove it, so I'm gonna
33:23
Speaker 1: have to go with it. It's a possibility, you know.
33:27
Speaker 1: So yeah, this this play of Peter Pan the Boy
33:30
Speaker 1: You Didn't Grow Up, It's it's sort of put out
33:34
Speaker 1: there as a play for kids, right, but there's so
33:39
Speaker 1: many dark themes and dark metaphors in this that it's
33:45
Speaker 1: clearly not for children. But yes, this play is such
33:50
Speaker 1: a massive, massive hit that it just basically sets up
33:54
Speaker 1: by for life, like he just ends up having success
33:58
Speaker 1: after success, hit after a hit. But things are not
34:03
Speaker 1: all peachey in the Barry household. So he is constantly
34:07
Speaker 1: fighting for censorship right because he's against censorship in theaters,
34:12
Speaker 1: which has caused so many issues over the years, And
34:15
Speaker 1: he ends up hiring the Secretary Gilbert Cannon, in order
34:19
Speaker 1: to fight like Chamberlain and all of the censorship right.
34:24
Speaker 1: And we're gonna get back to him in a minute,
34:26
Speaker 1: back to Llewellyn Davies. So Arthur is really unhappy about
34:31
Speaker 1: this special relationship that is cultivated between his wife, Sylvia
34:38
Speaker 1: and JM. Barry. He also isn't too keen on how
34:42
Speaker 1: much time he's spending with his kids, like he's spending
34:46
Speaker 1: a lot of time with the children. And yeah, and
34:50
Speaker 1: his kids' names are ending up in JM. Barry's books
34:55
Speaker 1: and plays, and he's not too happy about that for him.
35:00
Speaker 1: In nineteen oh seven, he dies from face cancer. You know,
35:06
Speaker 1: you heard me right, face cancer, because of course he does,
35:11
Speaker 1: of course he does. And so Sylvia is a widow
35:16
Speaker 1: and a mother of five children. Luckily she has you know,
35:20
Speaker 1: the nurse and the dmieres and decent income you know
35:25
Speaker 1: from her husband's late husband's estate, and J. M. Barry
35:30
Speaker 1: there to help and support her when she needs it.
35:34
Speaker 1: So sometime around nineteen o wait, mid nineteen o wait,
35:40
Speaker 1: and affair happens between Barrie's wife Mary and his secretary
35:48
Speaker 1: Gilbert Cannon. So Gilbert, by the way, is twenty years
35:53
Speaker 1: younger than Mary, so she's cougaring it at this point.
36:00
Speaker 1: So he is younger, and he's showing an interest in
36:03
Speaker 1: her that she's simply not getting anywhere else. So, as
36:08
Speaker 1: far as we know, as far as we know, Mary's
36:12
Speaker 1: urging up until this point, right, because she could have
36:15
Speaker 1: been doing stuff with other people. Hymns to say jam
36:18
Speaker 1: Barry wouldn't know. He never touched her. So she is
36:24
Speaker 1: having this affair with this man who is twenty years
36:26
Speaker 1: younger than her. You go, Mary, you know, you get
36:31
Speaker 1: your oil checked. I don't know. I was gonna say
36:33
Speaker 1: get your oil greased, but that does not seem right.
36:36
Speaker 1: You go get your oil greased? What the fuck is that?
36:40
Speaker 1: I don't know. So I'm not condoning affairs, by the way,
36:45
Speaker 1: but I think if you're both emotionally and physically neglected
36:50
Speaker 1: throughout fifteen years of marriage, maybe time to look at
36:54
Speaker 1: other options. I'm just saying. But yeah, she wasn't greatly
37:00
Speaker 1: treated during the marriage, and he showed her little affection
37:06
Speaker 1: and little you know, attention. So sidebar. This is actually
37:11
Speaker 1: a pretty juicy sort of Victorian Edwardian gossip because originally,
37:16
Speaker 1: right Gilbert was trying to woo Kathleen Bruce, who was
37:21
Speaker 1: also being courted by Robert Falcon Scott the Explorer. Right,
37:28
Speaker 1: so when she agrees to Mary Scott, He's like, Okay, fine, cool,
37:34
Speaker 1: I'll just get with Mary then so they start having
37:37
Speaker 1: this torrid affair Mary and Gilbert. Yeah, and when Jmbarry
37:45
Speaker 1: finds out about it, he is absolutely pissed. He demands
37:49
Speaker 1: that she calls off the affair and she's like no.
37:55
Speaker 1: He then offers a separation is to not have like
37:59
Speaker 1: divorce in the papers, and she's also like no. Jem
38:05
Speaker 1: Barry is trying to avoid scandal and divorce. Unfortunately, that's
38:09
Speaker 1: not gonna happen because you're a famous man in the
38:13
Speaker 1: early twentieth century. So I think it's October nineteen oh nine.
38:17
Speaker 1: They eventually get divorced, and it is big news. However,
38:24
Speaker 1: because he has so many you know, influential friends and
38:28
Speaker 1: people on high places. They write to like all of
38:32
Speaker 1: the newspapers. And again this is the time when newspapers
38:34
Speaker 1: are constantly being like printed, and like three newspapers end
38:41
Speaker 1: up printing the story, but the majority of them don't
38:45
Speaker 1: out of respect and like is it George Bernard Shaw.
38:50
Speaker 1: He ends up like making this character based on Gilbert
38:55
Speaker 1: in one of his plays just as a sort of
38:58
Speaker 1: fuck you. And also throughout this, through this whole scandal
39:03
Speaker 1: of divorce, H G. Wells is writing to Barry and
39:09
Speaker 1: trying us to support him through this time. But yeah,
39:13
Speaker 1: he ends up suing for divorce on the basis of infidelity,
39:16
Speaker 1: which is funny because if he is the one who
39:18
Speaker 1: had been cheating or had been like seen to be cheating,
39:22
Speaker 1: very different case, she wouldn't be able to divorce him, Like,
39:26
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be an option for her. I'm just saying.
39:29
Speaker 1: So Mary, she actually ends up marrying Gilbert Cannon. Now
39:33
Speaker 1: it's not the best of relationships because you know, he's
39:36
Speaker 1: twenty years younger and he ends up having like affairs
39:39
Speaker 1: and stuff. But like throughout this JM. Barry, he keeps
39:46
Speaker 1: supporting Mary. Like we could say this is altruistic, we
39:51
Speaker 1: could say this is out the goodness of his heart.
39:54
Speaker 1: But he gives her a yearly allowance once she gives
39:59
Speaker 1: her on their wedding anniversary at a private dinner. Like imagine,
40:06
Speaker 1: just imagine that I will provide you with money, but
40:11
Speaker 1: only if you come and see me privately and you
40:17
Speaker 1: have to physically accept the cash from my hands. Just
40:24
Speaker 1: take a moment for that to marrin it. Okay, okay, good.
40:31
Speaker 1: So it's about this time as well that Sylvia llewell
40:36
Speaker 1: And Davies becomes incredibly ill. And at this point Uncle
40:42
Speaker 1: Jim Jim Jimmy Jim, Jimm Andy Jim Jim. He is
40:46
Speaker 1: paying for the boys' education, He's buying their gifts, he
40:52
Speaker 1: is covering their living expenses. He's doing all this financial support,
40:57
Speaker 1: which is weird to someone that he's not technically involved
41:03
Speaker 1: with in any way. And so he's focusing his attention
41:08
Speaker 1: on the boys. Now as the boys grow, especially when
41:13
Speaker 1: they get to the age of ten, he's really into
41:16
Speaker 1: the age of ten. I don't know why. It's kind
41:19
Speaker 1: of like I want to say, Elvis and his weird
41:21
Speaker 1: thing for like fourteen year old girls, but like not
41:25
Speaker 1: in a sexual way, but JM. Barry, he becomes fixated
41:30
Speaker 1: on each child and then like hitting ten ten is
41:34
Speaker 1: the favorite thing for him. But like they age out
41:37
Speaker 1: and he becomes less interested in them as they get older,
41:44
Speaker 1: because like he is obsessed with their like boyishness and
41:48
Speaker 1: their boisterousness and you know that stereotypical like young boy energy.
41:56
Speaker 1: So first he's like super into George and Michael, and
42:01
Speaker 1: then Peter and so on and so forth. Right, and
42:05
Speaker 1: in nineteen ten, when Sylvia passes away from lung cancer
42:10
Speaker 1: at the age of forty four, which incidentally was the
42:13
Speaker 1: same age that Arthur was when he passed away. Michael
42:17
Speaker 1: is ten years old. Like j M. Barry wrote letters
42:21
Speaker 1: to Michael telling him that he was his favorite. Again
42:26
Speaker 1: not weird, not weird at all, but knowing that she
42:30
Speaker 1: was not long with this world. Sylvia had left a
42:34
Speaker 1: will and testament stating that the boys would go into
42:37
Speaker 1: the care of Jenny. But James Matthew Barry said, fuck
42:42
Speaker 1: this for a game of soldiers. He was not going
42:46
Speaker 1: to let a legal document get in the way of
42:50
Speaker 1: what he wanted, which was the grandchildren of George de
42:55
Speaker 1: Mourier has lost boys. He gets his grubby little fingers
43:01
Speaker 1: on the will and then he forges a copy where
43:06
Speaker 1: the name Jenny is changed to Jimmy. But why did
43:10
Speaker 1: Barry have a copy of the will in the first place.
43:14
Speaker 1: Will He went around telling everybody that he and Sylvia
43:17
Speaker 1: were engaged before she died. Now there was no engagement notice,
43:22
Speaker 1: there was nothing out there, nothing to imply that there
43:26
Speaker 1: was any formal agreement or any engagement plan for either
43:31
Speaker 1: of them. Like, there's no there's no evidence to this,
43:36
Speaker 1: just him saying it after she died. But yeah, let's
43:41
Speaker 1: talk about this will for a second, Okay, So Sylvia's
43:44
Speaker 1: last Will and Testament says that jam Barry, along with
43:52
Speaker 1: her brother, her mother, and then her brother in law,
43:56
Speaker 1: so Arthur's brother, all four of them would become the
43:59
Speaker 1: guardian and trustees for the children because you know, it's
44:04
Speaker 1: all cool and basically to say that all of them
44:07
Speaker 1: had to be treated with respect and to be honest
44:10
Speaker 1: with them, and you know, so on and so forth.
44:15
Speaker 1: It also states that Mary Hodgson, who was the nurse
44:20
Speaker 1: for all five boys, to continue taking care of them,
44:25
Speaker 1: and that Hodgen's sister Jenny was supposed to come and
44:30
Speaker 1: help her. So when J M. Barry, he's copying this
44:36
Speaker 1: for the family so that they can see a copy
44:39
Speaker 1: of Sylvia's last Will and testament, and this is where
44:42
Speaker 1: he changes Jenny or Jenny to Jimmy, just to kind
44:47
Speaker 1: of reinforce that right. And so everyone is presented with
44:52
Speaker 1: this will, which seems pretty legit. You know, everyone still
44:56
Speaker 1: has access. No one seems like they're taking control. It
45:00
Speaker 1: all seems very fair, and so no one contests it
45:06
Speaker 1: because it does seem like a reasonable and logical thing.
45:11
Speaker 1: But Hodgson's the nurse and jim Barry. They do not
45:15
Speaker 1: get on. They absolutely do not, and she doesn't like
45:18
Speaker 1: the way he acts around the boys, like the boy's
45:22
Speaker 1: friends think that Barrie is absolutely creepy, like when he's
45:27
Speaker 1: walking with them, he makes them hold his hands and
45:31
Speaker 1: which many other children thought was a bit weird. So JM.
45:36
Speaker 1: Barry basically has control over the five llewell and Davies
45:42
Speaker 1: boys and this does not go well for the boys,
45:49
Speaker 1: so they struggle with him in the way that he
45:55
Speaker 1: treats them. And at this point in his life, Barry
45:58
Speaker 1: is doing really, really well. Actually he's rolling in dull
46:02
Speaker 1: and his plays are doing so well that in nineteen
46:06
Speaker 1: thirteen he ends up knighted, becoming a member of the
46:13
Speaker 1: Order of Merit. But then in nineteen fourteen the Great
46:18
Speaker 1: War World War One breaks out and it becomes quite
46:25
Speaker 1: clear quite quickly that things are not all peachy, and
46:31
Speaker 1: desperate to break away from Barrie's influence or anything related
46:35
Speaker 1: to him, both George and Peter Llewellyn Daviess sign up
46:41
Speaker 1: for war like this isn't conscription, this hasn't even been
46:45
Speaker 1: considered yet. They just need to go because fighting a
46:50
Speaker 1: war is preferable to having to live under Barry's thumb.
46:56
Speaker 1: And on the fifteenth of March nineteen fifteen, George llewell
47:00
Speaker 1: And Davies, at the age of twenty one, was shot
47:04
Speaker 1: by a German sniper in Flanders. Oh my goodness, I
47:09
Speaker 1: almost forgot Robert Falcon Scott. Yes, Scott's expedition to the
47:15
Speaker 1: South Pole. JM. Barry was actually the godfather to Scott's son,
47:21
Speaker 1: and when he was writing letters in the South Pole,
47:25
Speaker 1: he wrote one to J. M. Barry asking for him
47:28
Speaker 1: to take care of his wife and son and James
47:32
Speaker 1: Matthew Barry. He would keep this in his pocket like
47:35
Speaker 1: the majority of the time, ready to show anybody, like
47:39
Speaker 1: at any opportunity, like look look at my dead friend
47:43
Speaker 1: sent me like he was really proud of it, like
47:46
Speaker 1: it was a medal. In nineteen seventeen, just before the
47:50
Speaker 1: war is over, Barry ends up hiring Cynthia Asquith, the
47:57
Speaker 1: niece of Herbert Asquith, the Prime Minister or while the
48:03
Speaker 1: previous prime minister. He was Prime Minister until nineteen sixteen,
48:07
Speaker 1: and he hired Cynthia in nineteen seventeen because when it
48:10
Speaker 1: comes to getting a job, all roads lead to nepotism.
48:14
Speaker 1: In nineteen nineteen, Barry is elected rector of the University
48:20
Speaker 1: of Saint Andrew's for three years, and then in nineteen
48:23
Speaker 1: twenty one, tragedy strikes again. Michael, you know, his favorite
48:29
Speaker 1: out of Lillewell and Davy's siblings. He dies in a
48:34
Speaker 1: tragic and mysterious accident. So there's this pool which is
48:40
Speaker 1: known for being really fucking dangerous and Michael, as it
48:45
Speaker 1: turns out, afraid of water, like doesn't like being in
48:48
Speaker 1: the water, doesn't like to swim, genuinely terrified. And tis
48:53
Speaker 1: good friend Buxton, wonderful swimmer, perfect swimmer. And the two
49:01
Speaker 1: men are found and the water are deceased clasped around
49:07
Speaker 1: each other. So there are some suspicions and theories that
49:12
Speaker 1: this was a suicide pact because you know, they're homosexuals
49:17
Speaker 1: in the twentieth century. I say, like one of them
49:22
Speaker 1: got into difficulty, the other tried to save him, and
49:25
Speaker 1: they just didn't work. But clasped around each other though,
49:29
Speaker 1: Like that's the bit that you find in these papers,
49:33
Speaker 1: and it's hard to know whether this is just them
49:36
Speaker 1: playing with it or not. But this is an area
49:40
Speaker 1: that's heavily, heavily worned. I mean, young men are stupid.
49:43
Speaker 1: They do stupid things all the time. Right, let's jump
49:46
Speaker 1: off of buildings, Parker. Let's get an angel tattoo on
49:51
Speaker 1: my upper thigh. Wooh, live life on the edge. But
49:55
Speaker 1: was this a case of just bravado or was this
50:00
Speaker 1: two men ending their life together because they weren't going
50:03
Speaker 1: to be able to have one And considering this strange
50:06
Speaker 1: affections that Michael had been receiving from Barry, that may
50:11
Speaker 1: not be in a life that he wanted to return to,
50:14
Speaker 1: because like everything is paid for by Barry. Everything the
50:18
Speaker 1: money is coming from him, and it's difficult to have
50:23
Speaker 1: freedom when someone is holding your purse strings. So over
50:26
Speaker 1: the years, Barry is continuing with success after success, and
50:32
Speaker 1: back in nineteen eleven he had changed the sort of
50:34
Speaker 1: the Peter Pan play into a book, a novel, Peter
50:36
Speaker 1: and Wendy. Now in nineteen twenty nine he hands over
50:40
Speaker 1: the copyright for all of the Peter Pans stuff to
50:44
Speaker 1: Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital so they can continue to
50:47
Speaker 1: earn money off of any of the Peter Pants stuff.
50:50
Speaker 1: Like that's that's the point, which you know, fair enough,
50:56
Speaker 1: I can't fault him for that, Like that's it's something
51:01
Speaker 1: by the time the nineteen thirties rolled around, Barry is
51:04
Speaker 1: known as this sort of prolific children's writer. And so
51:07
Speaker 1: he meets the princesses, Princess Elizabeth who would go on
51:13
Speaker 1: to be Queen Elizabeth I and Princess Margaret, and so
51:16
Speaker 1: he's rekaling them with stories and tales, and Princess Margaret
51:21
Speaker 1: says direct quote that he is my greatest friend, and
51:27
Speaker 1: I am his greatest friend, like because he's charming, what
51:33
Speaker 1: a surprise, when a surprise. He's also again five to three,
51:37
Speaker 1: so he's not the most intimidating of you know, individuals.
51:42
Speaker 1: So on the nineteenth of June nineteen thirty seven, James
51:49
Speaker 1: Matthew Barry dies of pneumonia in a nursing home in Marleybone.
51:56
Speaker 1: And when he passes away, he basically leaves the majority
51:59
Speaker 1: of his works, the copyright all that stuff to Cynthia
52:02
Speaker 1: asked with right, it all goes to her, excluding any
52:07
Speaker 1: of the Peter Pants stuff because that's already been given
52:10
Speaker 1: to the Ormond Street Hospital. Now, there were a few
52:13
Speaker 1: provisions in there for the llewell and Davies' children or
52:16
Speaker 1: the surviving ones, and also anything for Mary Ansel you know,
52:21
Speaker 1: for the rest of her life. On top of that,
52:25
Speaker 1: there was like five hundred quid left for a church
52:29
Speaker 1: in Caithness and you know bits here and there. Now
52:35
Speaker 1: after Barry's death a couple of years after that, Peter
52:41
Speaker 1: Llewell and Davies compiles this morgue, right, and so he
52:49
Speaker 1: has all of these family letters, He's got documents, papers,
52:56
Speaker 1: you know, and they're all peppered together with you know,
53:01
Speaker 1: sort of information and opinions and all this stuff. Very
53:05
Speaker 1: much a primary source, you know, you're getting all this
53:07
Speaker 1: information and yeah, yeah, he had a publishing house with
53:16
Speaker 1: you know, financial backing from Barie and he published Daphnie
53:20
Speaker 1: de Moury's books and you know, it was the whole thing.
53:23
Speaker 1: But Peter felt that his life was marred by the
53:27
Speaker 1: fact that he was the inspiration for Peter Pan, and
53:31
Speaker 1: he expected like more than just a legacy. He expected
53:34
Speaker 1: like more recompense because you know, he felt the notorbiety
53:41
Speaker 1: and everything else that came upon him for being the
53:44
Speaker 1: Peter of Peter Pan, especially considering like Peter Pan is
53:49
Speaker 1: an absolute psychopath like this, have you read the original
53:53
Speaker 1: Peter Pan, Like it's weird as fuck, Like Peter Pan,
54:00
Speaker 1: I shit you not. He seduces mothers who were desperate
54:05
Speaker 1: for his youth in order to steal their children, and
54:08
Speaker 1: so he takes them to Neverland, and when they start
54:12
Speaker 1: getting older, when they start to grow up, Peter straight
54:16
Speaker 1: up kills them, like, this is not a benevolent character. Okay, no,
54:23
Speaker 1: gingers don't have souls. I'm kidding, you're ginger. I love you,
54:26
Speaker 1: U unleisure my ex so much. Case no, I tolerate you.
54:32
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it's all this stuff for Peter, and
54:36
Speaker 1: he feels like this pressure on him all his life
54:39
Speaker 1: to be fucking Peter Pan. It's not a good thing
54:44
Speaker 1: to be labeled with. And so he's pissed off and
54:47
Speaker 1: this affected him all through his life to the point
54:52
Speaker 1: where it gets far too much for him to bear.
54:55
Speaker 1: And in nineteen sixty he throws himself in front of
55:00
Speaker 1: a trend, like just the years of this building up,
55:05
Speaker 1: and he had said, and he had said to his
55:09
Speaker 1: family and his children and whatnot that a lot of
55:14
Speaker 1: his issues stemmed from this whole Peter Pan situation. Luckily,
55:20
Speaker 1: Nicholas the Youngest was so young that when the first
55:23
Speaker 1: Peter Pan stuff came about didn't really affect him. It
55:27
Speaker 1: was only when Peter and Wendy came out that things
55:31
Speaker 1: really started to take hold. Now Nicholas ends up being
55:35
Speaker 1: like a consultant for Andrew Berkin's book, and he's the
55:39
Speaker 1: one who talks about how he's very sure that J. M.
55:45
Speaker 1: Barry wasn't a pedophile because there was no stirrings in
55:51
Speaker 1: his undercarriage, like because he was impotent, Like that's his
55:55
Speaker 1: whole thing. And again I'm not saying this whole thing
55:58
Speaker 1: was PEERI for like a nature. I think it's a
56:01
Speaker 1: weird obsession with control and the connection to prolific writers.
56:06
Speaker 1: I mean George Dumourier, like he was out selling Dickens,
56:10
Speaker 1: like he was the fucking top. And these were the
56:15
Speaker 1: kind of people that Barry wanted to consistently be associated with,
56:18
Speaker 1: connected with, and now he had the bloodline, and like
56:24
Speaker 1: Barry always seemed to be chasing this success, this magic
56:29
Speaker 1: that he wanted, and like, honestly and feels like the
56:33
Speaker 1: never in Neverland is Barry's own fucking happiness because he
56:38
Speaker 1: just can't reach it. But I don't know if he
56:42
Speaker 1: was like capable of it, to be honest, and seriously,
56:46
Speaker 1: all of those original versions of these stories that Jay
56:52
Speaker 1: and Barry created. They're so dark and we seem to
56:58
Speaker 1: have painted over them with King pixie dust. But anyway,
57:03
Speaker 1: before I ran on for another like twenty five minutes.
57:06
Speaker 1: So when's the story of Jmbarrie. There we go, Here
57:11
Speaker 1: we go. Ah. You liked my retelling of this information,
57:16
Speaker 1: feel free to wriate and review five stars if you
57:18
Speaker 1: haven't already voted for me in the Listener's Choice and
57:20
Speaker 1: the Irish Podcast Awards, that would be cool linking the
57:24
Speaker 1: description down below, don't forget. You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok.
57:31
Speaker 1: I was going to say Twitter, but now it's called
57:33
Speaker 1: something else. I'm on all those places. Yay, you can
57:38
Speaker 1: follow me there. I generally respond to stuff unless you
57:41
Speaker 1: send me memes or reels by people, because I don't
57:45
Speaker 1: look at stuff at a context like I need a
57:48
Speaker 1: valid reason to do it, Like there were like three
57:51
Speaker 1: people who send me memes, and I will pay attention
57:54
Speaker 1: no matter what. Everybody else though, No, I'm not gonna
57:57
Speaker 1: do it. But yeah there's that and this and recommendation time.
58:03
Speaker 1: I guess whatever you do. No, no Peter Pan recommendations.
58:08
Speaker 1: I will, however, consider the film Hook, which is an
58:12
Speaker 1: underrated classic starring Robin Williams. So that's your watching me.
58:17
Speaker 1: For reading, I'm going to suggest you read Rebecca by
58:21
Speaker 1: Daphne du Maurier cause it's a fucking good book. And
58:24
Speaker 1: for listening, listen to me. Actually no, listen to Mordern
58:29
Speaker 1: Most Irish. If I may have already recommended them last week,
58:33
Speaker 1: I don't care. I'm doing it again. They're fucking awesome, Okay,
58:36
Speaker 1: And with that, I am going to bid you farewell,
58:42
Speaker 1: good night, everybody, adios or re of where is em?
58:45
Speaker 1: My friends? Ah, by bye,