I am very excited to share my conversation with Elisabeth Galvin about her upcoming biography of P. L. Travers, the creator of Mary Poppins. This time, our conversation takes place in video form, a medium I avoided for a long time but have now come to accept as one I need to embrace.
In this interview, which I am sharing below, Elisabeth and I explore what first drew her to Travers, her research process, and the unexpected material she uncovered while tracing the life of a writer who has fascinated readers for generations.
We also talk about the people she met along the way who knew Travers personally, and how their memories and stories brought new texture and meaning to this biography. Travers’s complexity is portrayed in a gentle and respectful way, as Elisabeth is keenly aware of the responsibility that comes with writing a biography and of the difficulty of portraying with care and honesty a person one has never met. Elisabeth’s writing is also deeply atmospheric, carrying the reader through an almost visual experience of time and place. It is a delightful read, and I sincerely hope this book finds its way into the hands of many readers.
There is an additional reason for my excitement. I had the honor of writing the introduction to this biography, as well as an entire chapter on Travers’s spiritual beliefs, a subject very dear to my heart. I have been immersed in the world of Travers and Mary Poppins for over ten years, and I am convinced there is still much left to uncover. Travers lived a long and productive creative life, yet today she is often remembered only for Mary Poppins. I believe she is an author worth rediscovering. I also believe she was truthful when she said she did not write Mary Poppins with children in mind, and that these stories continue to hold important lessons for adult readers.
I hope you enjoy my conversation with Elisabeth Galvin, and that you will consider subscribing to The Mary Poppins Effect for more reflections and stories exploring the world of Mary Poppins and its connections to other literary worlds.
This weekend I visited an immersive exhibition in Montreal devoted to the world of Sherlock Holmes, the legendary detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was both fun and educational, but as any bookworm would probably agree, there is something almost transcendental about seeing in real life the desk at which Conan Doyle wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories. I only wish I could have touched it. There was also his richly ornate inkwell set, along with many other interesting objects.
Beyond the objects themselves, the exhibition led me to reflect on an unexpected connection between Sherlock Holmes and Mary Poppins. One section included a video recording of Conan Doyle speaking about his creation and about the correspondence he received from readers. He explained that he was surprised by the number of people who were convinced that Sherlock Holmes was a real, living human being. He received letters addressed directly to Holmes, letters requesting his autograph, letters written to his friend Dr. Watson, and even letters from women offering to become his housekeepers.
This immediately reminded me of an interview with P. L. Travers in which she said that people wrote to her asking whether Mary Poppins could be sent to their home to help with the raising of their young children. When I first read this, I assumed that people were simply being whimsical and indulging in wishful thinking, but were still aware that Mary Poppins is a fictional character. Surely they could not truly believe that Mary Poppins was a living, breathing being in our world, even though I was convinced of it myself as a child.
Now, hearing that readers reacted in the same way to another fictional character, I have come to a different conclusion. This longing to meet such characters in person may be the strongest proof of a truly successful literary creation, one that feels original and extraordinary. It makes me wonder whether P. L. Travers was aware of this striking similarity between her experience as an author and that of Conan Doyle.
There are other curious parallels as well. Both writers were interested in the occult, though in different forms, and both shared a belief in an invisible dimension beyond ordinary perception. Both authors refused to treat imagination as mere fantasy. They seemed to believe that imagined figures could carry truth, presence, and meaning that felt real to readers. That kind of openness allows characters to feel alive rather than invented, which may explain why readers wrote letters as if Sherlock Holmes and Mary Poppins actually existed.
And lastly, Sherlock Holmes’s creator wanted recognition for his historical novels and did not want to write as many Sherlock stories as he did. Similarly, P. L. Travers wrote other books and essays on myth and fairy tales and complained that people only wanted Mary Poppins stories from her. Both fictional characters became larger than their creators, and the relationship between creator and creation was riddled with ambiguous feelings. Isn’t it funny how what brings outer success does not always equate to inner fulfilment?
I hope you enjoyed reading this post and will consider subscribing to The Mary Poppins Effect for more stories exploring the world of Mary Poppins and its connections to other literary worlds.
I wish I were as talented a storyteller as P. L. Travers, able to gift you a magical story this holiday season, but my brain is analytical and reflective. So instead of enchantment, what I am offering is a comparative analysis of the first version of “Happy Ever After,” a Mary Poppins story by P. L. Travers first published privately for friends in 1940 and later included in Mary Poppins Opens the Door, the third book in the series, published in 1943.
The first edition of “Happy Ever After” was limited to one thousand copies privately published by the author for her friends and her publishers as a New Year’s greeting. What a lovely idea, and how lucky were those who received it!
When I first sat down to read the original version, I did not know what to expect, though I suspected there would be some differences from the story I had read in Mary Poppins Opens the Door. Naturally, I was curious to see what had changed and perhaps even to investigate the differences and what they might reveal.
It turned out that the original story is very similar, with most of the differences being largely stylistic. That will likely come as no surprise to any writer. Editing, polishing, and improving a text can be a never-ending process, especially when one struggles with perfectionism or insecurity, which may simply be two sides of the same coin. However, I noticed two significant discrepancies between the two versions of the story and these are the ones that I want to tell you about.
Nowhere in the Mary Poppins books is the exact age of the Banks children stated. The reader understands that Jane and Michael are preschoolers, since they spend most of their time with Mary Poppins in the nursery or in the park. John and Barbara grow from babies to toddlers, and the youngest Banks child, Annabel, appears in the second book, Mary Poppins Comes Back (1935).
But in the 1940 edition of “Happy Ever After,” P. L. Travers reveals how she imagines the ages of the children, and interestingly she seems to forget about Annabel. Or perhaps she intended the story to take place between Mary Poppins’s first visit to the Banks family in Mary Poppins (1934) and her second visit in Mary Poppins Comes Back (1935).
“It was the latest day of the Old Year. Upstairs in the nursery of Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane, Jane Banks who was seven, Michael Banks who was five and John and Barabra Banks who were twins and two-and-a-half, were being undressed.”
This is certainly the kind of detail only a Mary Poppins enthusiast like me would notice, but I take enormous pleasure in diving deeply into these stories and sharing my findings with you. I hope you enjoy reading about them as much as I enjoy discovering them.
Another interesting difference between the two versions is that in the 1940 edition, P. L. Travers describes at length how the children perceive Mary Poppins. In the later version, which I find more successful, she conveys the same idea more succinctly and in a way that feels more revealing. Here are the two passages in order.
“She moved about the nursery, folding up the scattered clothes and tidying away the toys. To look at her – with her coal-black hair, her china-blue eyes, her bright pink cheeks and her turned-up nose that was like the nose for a Dutch Doll – you would never imagine that she was anything but a perfectly ordinary person. But Jane and Michael and John and Barbara knew better. For had she not, when she first arrived at Number Seventeen, mounted the stairs by sliding up the banisters? And was it not certain that on her second visit she had appeared from Nowhere on the end of a string, looking more like a kite than a human being? How could a perfectly normal ordinary person be capable of such extraordinary behaviour? Impossible. Jane and Michael and John and Barbara knew very well how extraordinary she was but they did not speak of it for there were things about Mary Poppins that could never be explained. And it was no use talking to her about it for Mary Poppins, as everybody knows, never told anybody anything.”
The passage comes across as clunky and overly explained, and P. L. Travers may have added extra detail for friends unfamiliar with Mary Poppins, but she later trimmed it from 182 words to 94 in the second version of the story.
“She moved about the Nursery, folding up the scattered clothes and tidying the toys. The children lay cosily in their beds, watching the crackling wing of her apron as it whisked about the room. Her eyes were blue and her cheeks were pink and her nose turned up with a perky air like the nose of a Dutch Doll. To look at her, they thought to themselves, you would never imagine she was anything but a person. But, as you know and I know, they had every reason to believe that Appearances are Deceptive.”
What a valuable lesson for children and one that resonates deeply, yet is often forgotten as we grow older. The importance of looking beyond outward appearances and not relying solely on what meets the eye is especially relevant in today’s world, where social media shapes so much of our perception. We are constantly exposed to carefully curated images and stories that can distort what is real and influence how we view ourselves and others.
It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of comparing and judging based on these surface impressions. Many of us have likely experienced firsthand how the tendency to compare ourselves with others can disrupt our relationships and undermine genuine connections. Although it is natural to observe and compare, I find that the rise of social media has intensified these impulses, often resulting in feelings of envy, dissatisfaction, and a sense of inadequacy. Ultimately, the gentle reminder from Mary Poppins to look deeper and not be deceived by appearances is a lesson we would all do well to remember, especially in our modern, image-driven world.
I often wonder what would P.L. Travers think of the world we now live in.
Now I would like to share some examples of the stylistic changes made in the story, even though I cannot fully explain the reasons behind these edits:
In the 1940 version, the nursery characters that come to life on New Year’s Eve are drawn from Nursery Rhymes Old and New, a Victorian era edition of classic English nursery rhymes. In the 1943 version, however, the characters come from Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes, which refers not to a single book but a long-standing tradition of collections featuring familiar English rhymes and characters.
In the 1940 version Admiral Boom blows a trumpet in the frosty air while in the 1943 story he clangs a ship bell.
In the 1940 version, Barbara’s monkey toy is called Sissie, while in the later version the toy is renamed Pinnie.
In the first version, when the children follow their toys to the park where characters from fairy tales and nursery rhymes have gathered to celebrate a magical moment of happy ever after, the brief crack between the first and last stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, they are greeted by the Frog Who Would a-Wooing Go. In the second version, however, they are welcomed instead by the Three Blind Mice and the Farmer’s Wife.
There are several similar small changes in the second version of the story, although the reasons for them are not entirely clear. Even so, the heart of the narrative remains unchanged, reminding us that we each must work to reconcile the opposing forces within our inner and outer lives.
Wishing you all a happy ending of the old year and an even happier start of the new year.
I feel like “Lucky Thursday,” one of the stories in Mary Poppins in the Park (the fourth book in the series) published in 1952, is the perfect story to revisit during this misty time of year. Hopefully you will find my musings entertaining enough to forget the grey hues of November at least for a little while.
“Lucky Thursday,” is one of four stories in the Mary Poppins books in which P.L. Travers explores the tricky nature of wishes and the unsettling truth that they sometimes come true in ways we never intended. However, as much as this theme deserves a deeper dive and one that I will certainly take on another occasion, in this post I want to show you something a bit different. I want to tell you about a curious connection between the eerie elements in this Mary Poppins story and a French fairy tale written by Madame d’Aulnoy in the late seventeenth century.
In “Lucky Thursday,” Michael Banks, who has been stuck alone all day with a cold in the nursery, makes three wishes on the first star in the night sky. The next day, strange events begin to unfold, but he does not realize the connection between them and the wishes he made the night before in a moment of frustration until it is almost too late. One of his three wishes is to be far away from his siblings. That wish is granted, and he soon finds himself in a very strange place, as you will see.
I did not have the chance to read Mary Poppins in the Park as a child. My copy of Mary Poppins included only the first two books in the series, so I cannot compare my reading experiences, but the strong uncanny elements in “Lucky Thursday” impressed me even as an adult reader. I couldn’t stop wondering how on earth P. L. Travers dreamed up the idea of an alien abduction of Michael Banks who lands on a planet ruled by cats. (You see, practical questions like this often pop into my head while I’m stuck in traffic on my daily commute.) For a long time, and until quite recently, I had no answer to this question as P. L. Travers was famously private about the inspiration behind her stories.
Let me give you a little bit of context. After a day stuck in the nursery, Michael Banks is feeling better and joins Mary Poppins and his siblings on their usual visit to the Park. There, while Mary Poppins sits quietly reading What a Lady Should Know, he takes a silver whistle from her open handbag without asking permission and strolls farther into the park, where he can enjoy playing with it undisturbed.
A cat with a “black and yellow coat” that “shone in the sunny mist, more like dapples of light and shadow than ordinary fur,” which Michael had noticed on the windowsill the night before, guides him farther into the Park. A steaming vapor rises from the earth and envelops them both. Prompted by the cat, Michael jumps into the air and suddenly feels himself lifted upward into empty space. Moments later, he lands on the steps of a golden palace on the Cat Planet, which turns out to be the very first star on which he had made his three wishes the night before.
The golden castle is inhabited by the Cat King, the Cat Queen, their three daughters, and many cat courtiers. At first, everything seems amusing to Michael until he is offered a meal of a dead mouse, a bat, and small raw fish, all served on golden plates, along with milk in a saucer. It is then that he realizes the cats are far from friendly. Soon after, he discovers the horrifying truth about his position at their court: all the cats’ food is prepared by enslaved children who, like him, had wished upon a star to be away from their families.
Michael is offered a chance to escape his predicament, but only if he can solve three riddles. Should he succeed, he is told, he must marry one of the King’s daughters. Michael finds the answers to the riddles easily enough, but he has no desire at all to marry a cat. His refusal is not well received by his hosts. The offended cats begin to hiss and close in on him, and they might have torn him to pieces had he not blown the silver whistle to summon Mary Poppins to his aid.
“Lucky Thursday” is a strange and uncanny story, and it is not impossible that P. L. Travers came up with the idea of a royal court of cats on her own. However, when I recently read Madame d’Aulnoy’s fairy tale The White Cat, the similarity of the setting made me wonder: could P. L. Travers, who was deeply immersed in fairy tale lore, have borrowed this motif from Madame d’Aulnoy’s tale? Writers often draw inspiration from one another. Human creativity does not exist in a vacuum, for ideas, like bees, cross-pollinate among our minds.
The fairy tale The White Cat unfolds in a distant kingdom where a prince, sent on a quest by his father, meets the White Cat, a princess presiding over a court of cats and bodiless hands serving as attendants. Unlike Michael, the prince is offered human food while the cats dine on dead mice and the White Cat helps the prince in his quest. He eventually falls in love with her and when he declares his love, she asks him to cut off her head and tail. He initially refuses to do so, but at last he complies, and by doing so, he breaks the spell that bound her, revealing that the White Cat is, in fact, a princess.
The similarities between the settings in these two stories, a golden palace in one and a castle of gleaming gemstones in the other, each with a royal court of cats and both situated in distant locations, are too striking in my opinion to be mere coincidence.
As is often the case with P. L. Travers, one question leads to another. If she knew about the fairy tales of Madame d’Aulnoy, why didn’t she mention her in her writings? She often spoke of the Brothers Grimm. A possible explanation might be that she dismissed Madame d’Aulnoy because she was inventing her stories rather than retelling old tales from anonymous sources, as the Brothers Grimm did.
But little did she know that even the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault had taken inspiration from Madame d’Aulnoy and her circle of women writers, who called themselves “the fairies” and were, in fact, the first to coin the term fairy tales.
I learned about Madame D’Aulnoy and the other fairies, Henriette-Julie Murat, Charlotte-Rose La Force, Marie-Jeanne L’Heriter, Catherine Bernard, Catherine Duran and Louise D’Auneil from Jane Harrington’s wonderful new book Women of the Fairy Tale Resistence, The Forgotten Founding Mothers of the Fairy Tale and the Stories That They Spun.
Harrington’s book is a must-read for any fairy tale aficionado. I was deeply fascinated to discover the lives of these women writers in Paris who challenged social norms during the reign of Louis XIV, the Sun King. Their lives were far from easy, yet despite the many obstacles they faced, their voices sustained them. Although men tried to erase their names from history, their writings have endured, offering a vivid glimpse into their struggles to find true love and live happily ever after.
The research conducted by Harrington is truly remarkable. I was astonished to learn that Charles Perrault, whose fairy tales I devoured as a child (I still have my old Bulgarian editions), borrowed from her stories without giving her any credit. According to Harrington, L’Héritier often remarked that Perrault had plundered her work. One of the tales I loved as a child, “Diamonds and Toads,” is in fact a simplified retelling of “Blanche,” a story written by Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier, who, incidentally, was also his relative.
I wonder what P. L. Travers would have thought of Harrington’s book and of the lives of these women writers. If she dismissed Madame d’Aulnoy because she was a writer of fairy tales rather than a “reteller,” that only adds to the paradoxes in Travers’s thinking. After all, she herself was a writer of fairy tales. Of course, she would have argued that the Mary Poppins stories are not fairy tales, and perhaps from an academic standpoint they do not fit the definition, not even as literary fairy tales, which are often written adaptations of stories from oral traditions.
P.L. Travers was influenced by myth, mysticism, and Gurdjieff’s spiritual teachings. She thought in mythic rather than folkloric terms, but her stories are an original combination of fairy-tale motifs with mythic cosmology and spiritual allegory.
In conclusion, the Mary Poppins stories are not traditional fairy tales but rather hybrid modern literary wonder tales that adapt the structure and spirit of fairy tales to explore mythic and metaphysical themes within a domestic setting. And this is why they are so fascinating to explore.
I wish I could talk about all this with P. L. Travers, but even if that were possible, there is no guarantee she would answer my questions.
After all, she was known for avoiding direct answers.
That’s it for now—thanks so much for reading! If this post brought you a little joy, go ahead and click the subscribe button in the bottom-right corner of your screen so you don’t miss any future posts. You can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Substack for more peeks into the magical world of Mary Poppins, P. L. Travers, and other enchanting literary adventures.
This post continues the story about my first Mary Poppins–themed trip to London with my daughter in the summer of 2023. In last month’s post, I shared our visit to P. L. Travers’s former homes at 50 Smith Street and 29 Shawfield Street in Chelsea. If you haven’t read it yet, you can find it here.
In this blog post, we will visit St Paul’s Cathedral, stroll through Poppin’s Court near Fleet Street, shop for parrot-headed umbrellas at James Smith & Sons and admire the Mary Poppins statue in Leicester Square Gardens.
St Paul Cathedral, London
If you find yourself in London, a visit to St Paul’s Cathedral is, in my humble opinion, an absolute must. Its grandeur is astonishing—from the soaring colonnades to the magnificent domed ceiling—and the vast interior, adorned with intricate mosaics, takes your breath away the moment you step inside.
In The Bird Woman, Mary Poppins takes the Banks children to visit their father who works at the bank, where he, as described in the very first Mary Poppins story, East Wind, “sat on a large chair in front of a large desk and made money. All day long he worked, cutting out pennies and shillings and half-crowns and threepenny-bits.”
I wish the idea of looking up banks around St Paul’s Cathedral had occurred to me while I was there, but it didn’t—so this will have to go on my list for my next trip to London. I’m talking about the bank where I believe P. L. Travers imagined Mr. Banks working: the Ludgate Hill branch of the City Bank at 45–47 Ludgate Hill, which, according to Memoirs of a Metro Girl, is now a wine bar.
The picture above was taken by Metro Girl and is shared here with her permission 🙂
How do I know this was the bank P. L. Travers had in mind when she wrote “The Bird Woman”? Because she writes: ‘They were walking up Ludgate Hill on the way to pay a visit to Mr. Banks in the City.’
In The Bird Woman we learn that Mr. Banks is entirely absorbed in material pursuits and has no time for small pleasures. But we can hardly blame him—he is the sole provider for his ever-growing family (by the second book in the series, the Banks family counts five children). Hoping to offer him a rare moment of joy and respite, Mary Poppins and the children plan an outing for tea and Shortbread Fingers. Yet Jane and Michael are far more excited by the possibility of meeting the Bird Woman and her pigeons outside St Paul’s Cathedral than by the promised tea and shortbread.
Because of the sharp contrast between the Bird Woman’s quiet act of feeding the birds and Mr. Banks’s worldly occupation, The Bird Woman takes on a distinctly spiritual undertone for the adult reader. The doves, traditionally associated with the Holy Spirit in Christianity, serve here as a visual metaphor for the nourishment of the soul. Clearly, P.L. Travers is concerned with our human struggle to balance material responsibilities with the quest for spiritual fulfilment.
Yet for carefree Jane and Michael, the Bird Woman and her doves are simply companions to delight in and play with. For them, the magic of the day is found in this gentle, enchanting encounter—an experience that carries them beyond the ordinary and into a realm of wonder.
I love how P. L. Travers conveys Jane and Michael’s understanding of the doves, while at the same time revealing her own gift for remembering how to see the world through the eyes of the child she once was.
“There were fussy and chatty grey doves like Grand-mothers; and brown, rough-voiced pigeons like Uncles; and grey, cackling, no-I’ve-no-money-today pigeons like Fathers. And the silly, anxious, soft blue doves were like Mothers. That’s what Jane and Michael thought, anyway.”
Jane and Michael (and probably P.L. Travers) relate to the animal world far more naturally—and kindlier—than most adults. To them, the birds are not pests but companions, each a living being with its own character. We, on the other hand, tend to brush past pigeons and doves as if they were mere annoyances, hardly pausing to see them at all—too busy rushing for the train or speeding down the highway, intent on our own version of cutting pennies and shillings.
I experienced my own version of feeding the birds—not at St. Paul’s Cathedral, but in St. James’s Park. While we were there, a little girl, slightly older than Jane and Michael Banks, had a bag full of seeds. She was not only feeding the birds but also offering seeds to passersby who, like me, wanted to join in the experience. It was deeply touching, and here is a short clip of me feeding the birds.
Feeding the birds in St. Jame’s Park
Many of the characters in the Mary Poppins stories—if not all—have their roots in the real-life experiences and encounters of P.L. Travers. She rarely revealed these inspirations openly, though hints occasionally surfaced in interviews she gave throughout her long writing career.
I have never come across an interview in which P. L. Travers spoke about the origin of the Bird Woman. However, I did find an old picture of a man standing outside St Paul’s, his arms and shoulders alive with pigeons as he feeds them. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, while working as a freelance journalist near Fleet Street, P. L. Travers often passed by St Paul’s Cathedral, and I can’t help but wonder whether this man might have been the true inspiration behind the Bird Woman.
St Paul’s Cathedral, as P.L. Travers writes in The Bird Woman, was built long ago by “A man with a bird’s name. Wren it was, but he was no relation to Jenny.” That man, of course, was Sir Christopher Wren, England’s most celebrated architect of his day. When my daughter and I visited St Paul’s Cathedral in the summer of 2023, we saw a lovely exhibit inside about Sir Christopher Wren and the reconstruction of the building after the Great Fire of London in 1666.
Wren designed the Great Model of the cathedral in 1672–73. The version you see in the picture below was executed by William Cleere and a team of thirteen joiners. This design differed from the original in style, evolving from the “Greek Cross” plan by extending the nave and adding a domed bell tower.
King Charles II, who awarded the reconstruction contract to Wren, requested a slight modification: the domed bell tower had to be replaced with a traditional spire. But Wren was not a man easily discouraged. Once the plans were approved and the contract signed, and construction was well under way, he discovered a loophole in the fine print: it permitted ornamental rather than essential changes. So, he made his alterations accordingly.
St Paul’s Cathedral is also Wren’s final resting place. Below is a photo of a copy of Wren’s death mask—the original is preserved at All Souls College in Oxford. A little morbid, perhaps, yet also a fascinating human attempt at transcending death.
Now who is Jenny Wren? What did P.L. Travers meant by saying that Wren was not related to Jenny? The reference is a pun woven by P.L. Travers—one I had completely missed, since English folklore and nursery rhymes were not part of my upbringing. For those who may also be unfamiliar: the wren, a tiny brown bird, was affectionately called “Jenny Wren” in English tradition. She appears in old songs and nursery rhymes, often paired with Robin Redbreast as husband and wife.
Children in P.L. Travers’s time would have instantly recognized “Jenny Wren” as shorthand for the little wren, and the playful wordplay would have delighted them. It signals to young readers that the world is whimsical, alive with hidden connections. The pun weaves together architecture (Wren), folklore (Jenny Wren), and the story’s imagery of birds and the mystical Bird Woman—perfect for a chapter set at St. Paul’s amid flocks of pigeons.
And for adult readers, there’s yet another layer: an echo of Dickens. Jenny Wren is also a character in Our Mutual Friend. That reference escaped me as well, but this Dickens novel has now joined my ever-expanding TBR list.
Poppin’s Court
Not far from St Paul’s Cathedral, just off Fleet Street, you will come across a narrow lane called Poppin’s Court. When P.L. Travers first came to London she worked as a free-lance journalist on a street near Fleet Street and she must have passed by Poppin’s Court on her way to St Paul’s Cathedral, and it is, as her friend Brian Sibley wrote, possible that this is how she came up with the idea for the name of her famous nanny.
Back in 2023, when my daughter and I visited Poppin’s Court, there was a Poppins Café, which may still be there. Sadly (for me), it had nothing to do with Mary Poppins. I would have loved to visit a Mary Poppins–inspired tea room based on the books.
Leicester Square Gardens
If you have time, be sure to stop by Leicester Square, where you’ll find several statues capturing iconic movie moments from different decades since the 1920s — and of course, one of them is Mary Poppins. Although the Mary Poppins statue in Leicester Square celebrates the film character rather than the one from the books, I couldn’t resist trying to ‘fly away’ on her umbrella.
Since this Mary Poppins statue was created many years after P.L. Travers’s death, we can only guess what she might have thought of it. What we do know is that she once wished for a statue of her character in London—though her dream location was Kensington Gardens. I will tell you more about that in a future post on this blog.
James Smith & Sons Umbrellas
If you want to get a parrot-headed umbrella like Mary Poppins’, you should definitely visit James Smith & Sons Umbrellas, a tiny shop founded back in 1830. I have no idea whether P.L. Travers knew about this shop or if she ever visited it. According to her own account, the inspiration for the parrot-headed umbrella came from a childhood memory of a servant’s umbrella in the Travers household in Australia (and maybe by something else, which I also plan to tell you about in a future post). But whether or not P. L. Travers ever visited this shop, I thoroughly enjoyed our own visit — dampened only by the scaffolding on the facade, which was under renovation.
Here is a picture of a parrot-headed umbrella standing proudly beside another famous fictional character. I was tempted to purchase both, but the price tag quickly discouraged me. But two years later I am still thinking about this parrot headed umbrella …
That’s it for now—thank you for reading! If this post brought you a little joy, just click the subscribe button in the bottom-right corner of your screen and join me for the next stop in my Mary Poppins adventures through London and beyond. You can also follow along on Facebook and Instagram for more glimpses into the magical world of Mary Poppins and P.L. Travers.
If you’re a devoted fan of Mary Poppins and P.L. Travers—like I am—or if you have a passion for literary travel, this blog post is for you. Through sharing my travel experiences, I hope to offer you some inspiration for visiting locations in London and its surroundings that are deeply connected to the enchanting world of Mary Poppins and her creator.
My Mary Poppins-Themed Trips to London and its Surroundings
In the summer of 2023, I finally fulfilled my long-held dream of visiting London—and the cherry on top was that my daughter decided to join me on the adventure. The trip was inspired by my love for P.L. Travers and Mary Poppins, and my daughter’s enthusiasm for Harry Potter. We also carved out time for some book shopping, exploring iconic historical landmarks, and visiting the Charles Dickens Museum. However, in this blog post, I’ll be focusing specifically on the Mary Poppins side of our journey.
So, let’s begin with a truly special address for any Mary Poppins fan.
50 Smith Street, Chelsea, London
P.L. Travers lived at 50 Smith Street, Chelsea, London with her adopted son, Camillus, from 1946 to 1962. It was here that she wrote Mary Poppins in the Park, the fourth book in the series. Today, the building proudly bears an English Heritage blue plaque in honour of her literary legacy. I used to come across photos of fans on its doorstep shared on social media, and I must admit, I always looked at them with a hint of envy. But now, it was my turn to see the place where she once lived and to experience history in a truly sensory way.
I remember fighting the urge to break into a run as we emerged from the Tube station and began walking down King’s Road. I glanced at the shop windows lining the sidewalks and the red double-decker buses on the street, their colours unusually vivid in the bright daylight, like freshly painted canvases. Even my daughter could sense my heightened emotional state and the spring in my step, and she teased me, ‘You do realise you’re not actually going to meet her in person?’ And I knew she was right—but this was the closest I could ever get to meeting her in the physical world.
In fact, I could hardly believe I was finally just steps away from something I had dreamed about for years—and had often doubted would ever come true. For one reason or another, it was never the right time; something always held me back from booking the trip. This may sound strange to experienced travellers, but I’m not much of a traveller myself—and Canada is a long way from London. So, this first trip to London was a big deal for me on many levels and as it turned out, the experience was truly transformative.
Now you can imagine my disappointment when we reached the corner of Smith Street and I saw a huge construction box blocking the entrance to 50 Smith Street.
The only positive thing, as suggested by a friend who saw the picture afterwards, was that there was a blown-up reproduction of the blue commemorative plaque on display, but that was probably just a friend’s way of trying to lift my spirits.
In a moment of madness (and ignoring my daughter’s rational arguments), I dialed the number displayed on the notice in the window of the construction box. It said that all visitors or anyone seeking access could call the number on the notice. Well, I was definitely a visitor wanting access. The person on the other end of the line clearly didn’t agree—they actually dared to hang up on me. Needless to say, I was offended, but as I gradually came to my senses, I realised not only was I acting a bit unhinged, but I also had a second chance just a few minutes’ walk down King’s Road: Number 29 Shawfield Street, the last residence of P.L. Travers. There really was no need to get so agitated.
29 Shawfield Street, Chelsea, London
P.L. Travers lived at number 29 Shawfield Street for the last thirty years of her life and it is in her the study on the second floor that she wrote Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane and Mary Poppins and the House Next Door, the last two books in the series.
As we turned the corner onto King’s Road and began walking toward Number 29 Shawfield Street, I felt a tinge of sadness that only deepened when I saw the front door, no longer pink as it had been when P.L. Travers lived there. We walked back and forth along the sidewalk, trying—but not quite succeeding—to be circumspect. After all, how circumspect can you really be when snapping selfies in front of someone’s front door?
It was a weekday, and I had convinced myself that the residents of Number 29 were probably at work. But then, a postman happened to walk by and rang the doorbell—and suddenly, the door opened. Feeling a bit embarrassed, we crossed to the other side of the street and sat on the edge of the sidewalk, while I continued to stare intently at the front door.
How I envied all those who had visited her here and, even if only briefly, had been granted a glimpse into her personal world. Below are two personal accounts from people who visited her home and the lasting impression it made on them.
“She lives in a small Georgian house in Chelsea. Her sitting room, where she received me, is light, airy and sparsely furnished. She sits on the corner of a long sofa the rest of which is covered with stacks of books, letters, various publications. On the creamy wall hang a Paul Klee, portraits of great grandmothers and aunts, a drawing of P.L. Travers by AE (George Russell), a Tree of Life by one of her students … The mantle piece is covered with photographs of family and friends, including many children.”
Looking Back, by Shusha Guppy
“P.L. Travers lives in a quiet, small period house in the Chelsea section of London, and everything in her home contributes to a visitor sensing the emptiness of plenitude and the plentitude of emptiness – exemplified in, her upstairs study, by several beautiful Japanese scroll and screen paintings, mostly by Sengai: a willow almost breaking in the wind; six persimmons; a cock crowing to the morning and a little hen bird nearby; the depiction of the syllable mu (literally meaning “not” or “without” and referring to a famous Zen koan and the extraordinary “Ten Oxherding Pictures” (attributed to the twelfth- century Chinese Zen master Kaku-an Shi-en).
Pipers at the Gates of Dawn, by Jonathan Cott
I tried to picture her stepping out of the front door, then slowly descending the three steps. I imagine her gaze fixed on the pavement as she walks down the street, her mind clearly elsewhere. Then she stops. Something has caught her eye. It must be the small star embedded in the sidewalk. She smiles. She loved pointing it out to friends who came to visit, inviting them to find it too—as if it were a secret only she could truly see.
How many people before me had walked that same stretch of pavement, searching for the star? And how many had actually found it? Not being able to see it myself was somewhat of a letdown. Could it be that she made it up? Or had time and countless footsteps worn it away?
Then I remembered reading a blog post by her friend, writer Brian Sibley in which he recounts his first encounter with her and, at the very end of his recollections, mentions the star on the pavement.
“Light was failing, but I found it, at last: just as Pamela had said – a star-shape, faintly but clearly marked in the surface of a paving stone. Doubtless it was some rouge imprint on the surface from the manufacturing of the cement paving-stone, but I was remembering the words of the old snake, the Hamadryad, on that night of the full moon when Mary Poppins took Jane and Michael to the zoo: ‘We are all made of the same stuff… The tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star – we are all one, all moving to the same end…’ ”
Chelsea Physic Garden, London
London’s oldest botanical garden, the Chelsea Physic Garden, is just around the corner from 29 Shawfield Street. It was founded in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries with the mission to grow medicinal plants for study and healing. Located in London, the garden played a key role in botanical research, plant exchange, and the advancement of medical science. Chelsea Physic Garden was open to the public in 1987 with the aim to increase public awareness and support for its historical and scientific significance.
I don’t know for sure if P.L. Travers ever visited the garden, she was 88 years old at the time, but it is possible. What I do know is that in her eighties she was very interested in the medicinal and magical properties of plants, probably motivated by a desire to find a cure, or at least some relief from her digestive problems. Her granddaughter Kitty, recalling childhood memories in an interview for the BBC, said her grandmother was always drinking strange teas and concoctions. These were probably the infusions she made from the herbs she cultivated on her balcony at 29 Shawfield Street.
In an interview she gave to South East at Six, a local BBC teatime news bulletin for viewers in London and the South East, promoting her book Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane, we see P.L. Travers at the end of the video standing on her balcony, gathering herbs into a small wicker basket, a wooden birdhouse behind her. The balcony has a quiet, romantic storybook charm befitting of a writer steeped in fairy tales and mythology.
While the herbs aren’t central characters in the plot of Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane, they do take on a magical, symbolic role during the Midsummer’s Eve adventure of the Banks children. The book also includes at its end a list of herbs with both common and Latin names that are mentioned in the story—a tangible nod to P.L. Travers’s knowledge of plants.
Occasionally, she also gave herbs as a gift to friends who came to visit her at her home.
“At the time I visited P.L. Travers in July 1979, I was feeling perplexed and confused about several things in my life, whose murkiness contrasted sharply with the clarity of the pictures in her study. (…) She also took me to her garden in the back, where she was growing more than twenty varieties of herbs, many of which appear in her recent Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane. (“Taste all of them,” she suggested, “they will do you good.”) Then, as a friendly gesture, she cut off some rosemary sprigs and gave them to me (“This will last forever and bring you good luck. It means “To Remember”)
Pipers at the Gates of Dawn, by Jonathan Cott
This is all for now. I hope you enjoyed reading this post and that you’ll return to read more about Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers, and my adventures as I continue to explore their world. In the next blog post, I’ll be continuing the story of my Mary Poppins-themed trips to London and its surroundings, so stay tuned! And do let me know if you go on a Mary Poppins adventure of your own—or if you enjoy literary trips in general.
This blog post is going to be slightly more personal than usual as I want to share with you one of the many Mary Poppins effects in my personal life. These, for me magical, effects are incontestably transformative and have greatly enriched my inner life and personal happiness. That said, I am not suggesting that all personal challenges have vanished, but my ability to sustain and show resilience comes directly from these various effects.
First and foremost, reconnecting with my childhood reading of “Mary Poppins” reminded me of my deep love for magic and fairy tales. It also made me realize that my daily life had, sadly, become quite dull and ordinary. It’s not that I wasn’t surrounded by people and events—my life was filled with all the things that keep us busy and distracted. Of course, my family is a great source of love and support, and I am forever grateful to them, but there was an emptiness within me that couldn’t be filled by anyone, no matter how loving they were. It just dawned on me (and perhaps this realization had been building up inside of me for some time) that I felt constrained. Faced with this moment of recognition I had to acknowledge the need for more joy and wonder in my life.
But where to find them?
I decided to go search for them in the places where I had found them as a child. The day had come when I was finally old enough to start reading fairy tales again, to paraphrase a quote by C.S. Lewis. I felt goosebumps when I first read this quote by C.S. Lewis because the truth of his words resonated so deeply with my own experience.
Then, organically, one thing led to another, and I found myself collecting old books of fairy tales and fantastical adventures, something that I would never have thought I would be doing a few years ago, as it was so remote from the spheres in which I operated.
The moments I spend reading fairy tales and fantasy novels, or treasure hunting for old books, are pure bliss—a breath of fresh air in my daily life. It’s not just an escape from the ordinary; these activities also allow me to see the world in a new light. Looking at my bookshelves fills me not only with joy but with a sense of groundedness—a feeling of coming home. And I owe it all to P.L. Travers and her Mary Poppins.
Here, I’m sharing some pictures of the books in my modest collection, which I hope will expand over time.
The Brown Fairy Book by Andrew Lang. Illustration below is by H.J. Ford.
Below is a picture of the cover of Princes and Princesses by Andrew Lang.
Illustration below by H.J. Ford.
Below is the cover of Myths & Legends of Japan by F. Hadland Davis.
Illustration below by Evelyn Paul.
While reading interviews given by P.L. Travers, I discovered that our childhood readings intersected, despite our cultural and generational differences. We both read Beatrix Potter, the Brothers Grimm, and Andersen’s fairy tales, to name a few, only I read them translated in Bulgarian. This realization brought back memories of the fairy tales from my own childhood, with their beautiful illustrations, and I felt a deep grief for having left behind the most cherished treasure of all—my books.
My initial response to counter this grief was to dismiss it as childish. I told myself I had to accept certain losses in life. On a practical level, I also thought it unrealistic to expect I could find copies of these books now that I live so far from my birthplace. But was I being childish? Was this a loss that needed to be accepted, or was it the kind of loss that could be retrieved? P.L. Travers herself pondered the theme of loss often, and in her later years, she would say that all that is lost is somewhere.
I decided to give it a try, and with the help of the internet, I’m happy to report that, after a couple of years, I was able to reconstruct most of my childhood fairy tale book collection. I successfully found old copies of the editions I had as a child, as well as some new reprints of those same editions.
These were the books my mother read to me at bedtime and the ones I learned to read with, before I got acquainted with Mary Poppins.
Below are pictures of the illustrations in my copy of Sleeping Beauty. The illustrator is Italian artist Gianni Benvenuti. This was P.L. Travers’s favourite fairy tale. She even wrote her own retelling of it and I wrote two blog posts about it back in 2017; you can read one of them here, and if you’re interested, the other is easily found on the website of this blog.
Cinderella was my personal favourite fairy tale as a child, followed closely by Snow White, mostly because Snow White had dark hair like mine. The illustrations below are also by Benvenuti.
The illustrations of Snow White below are by Sandro Nardini.
And these are my two books of Andersen’s fairy tales. One is quite tattered, and the illustrations aren’t as beautiful as in the other, but I still enjoyed the stories. P.L. Travers loved Andersen’s fairy tales as a child, but as an adult, she had a different view. She believed Andersen undermined the vitality of his stories through his constant appeal for pity. It’s an interesting perspective, but one I don’t share.
The illustrations above are by Lyuben Zidarov. And the illustrations below are by Libico Maraja.
Here is now Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. I must have been around three years old when my mother read Beatrix Potter’s stories to me, and I remember the illustrations captivated me with such magnetic force. I wish I had P.L. Travers’s lyrical talent to describe the experience. It’s hard to put emotional states and impressions into words, but it truly felt as if I was part of the picture. It’s a strange feeling to remember the state yet not be able to recreate the experience. I still enjoy the illustrations, but our perceptions do grow duller as we age.
P.L. Travers adored Beatrix Potter and wrote a review of The Tale of Beatrix Potter by Margaret Lane. I wrote a blog post about it some time ago, you can read it here.
This is all for now. I’ll share more of my childhood book collection in a future post. In the meantime, take care, and I hope you’ll return to read more about Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers, and my adventures as I continue to explore their world.
When I first read Mary Poppins and Mary Poppins Comes Back (which were printed in one volume) as a child, I was not able to enjoy the original illustrations by Mary Shepard, as they were not included in the Bulgarian translation published in 1980. Instead, they were replaced by illustrations by Lyuben Dimanov.
I don’t think I liked Dimanov’s illustrations as a child because I have no memory of them, and I do remember a lot of the illustrations from my childhood books. All I remember is that the book was very thick, and it felt like proof that I was really good at reading. It was only a couple of years ago when I retrieved an old copy of my childhood edition of Mary Poppins that I realized the original illustrations were not in it.
Now that I am acquainted with the original illustrations, I find it difficult to enjoy Dimanov’s interpretations of the characters. For one, I find the figures a bit too angular, and their proportions too exaggerated. Moreover, in my opinion, he took his artistic liberties to the extreme. In fact, one has to wonder if he even read the stories, or how he could portray Mary Poppins with long, curly, flowing hair like a lion’s mane.
I’m certain P.L. Travers would have been upset if she had seen these illustrations—or maybe she did. I wish I could show them to her and ask her opinion. What we do know is that she was very particular about how Mary Poppins was depicted and insisted on her being represented exactly as she had imagined her.
In fact, P.L. Travers was so particular about the character, and Mary Shepard was such an inexperienced artist at the start of the project, that the emergence of Mary Poppins in visual form was not without its growing pains.
P.L. Travers wanted Mary Poppins to be plain, yet graceful, and to help the young visual artist grasp her vision of the character, they took many walks in the park to observe nannies pushing prams. Yet despite Shepard’s heartfelt efforts, P.L. Travers was not satisfied with the sketches and it wasn’t until she found a wooden doll with bright black hair, bright blue eyes, and a turned-up nose, and showed it to Shepard, that Mary Poppins finally took shape.
The working relationship between P.L. Travers and Mary Shepard spanned over 50 years, during which Shepard illustrated all the Mary Poppins books, including the Latin translation of Mary Poppins, a children’s cookbook, an alphabet book, and a coloring book published in 1969. I had been searching online for this coloring book for a long time, and then, one day, I was fortunate enough to find an unused copy on Facebook Marketplace of all places.
Oh, the joy of finding it and coloring the illustrations! Of course, I kept the original coloring book pristine and worked on photocopied pages, in case anyone is curious. I want to keep it as a collectible, but I also love the idea of having the chance to color the illustrations again whenever the mood strikes. The time I spent coloring reminded me of how much I loved it as a child. It also reminded me of my struggles of not crossing over the lines—though, as it turns out, I still struggle with that! But perfection isn’t the point. The point is enjoyment and playfulness at any age!
While coloring the pictures, I suddenly noticed something interesting in one of the illustrations that struck me as quite indicative of the nature of the relationship between Mary Shepard and P.L. Travers. Reportedly their relationship was a difficult one, P.L. Travers being portrayed as domineering and Mary Shepard as an underestimated, self-effacing artist. I believe that a glimpse of their relationship dynamic is reflected in one of the illustrations in the story “Balloons and Balloons”. This story first appears in the second book Mary Poppins Comes Back first published in 1935. Below is a picture of the illustration from the book.
The picture shows several of the Mary Poppins characters holding balloons with their names on them, floating through the air, with Mary Poppins as the central figure holding the largest balloon. But if you look up closely you will notice the two intruders in this picture. In the bottom left corner, you can see P.L. Travers and Mary Shepard joining the party. According to P.L. Travers, as she once told an interviewer, it was Mary Shepard’s idea to include them both in the illustration. (Personally, I think this was a genius idea.)
Notice how, in this picture, the two women are facing each other. Mary Shepard’s figure is slightly smaller, and her body curves in a way that seems to mold to the shape of P.L. Travers’ figure. Now, look at the picture below from the 1969 coloring book, keeping in mind that at the time, Shepard was bitter about not receiving any money from Disney for the movie adaptation of the character.
The figures are notably different in size and body language. P.L. Travers is larger and holds a bigger balloon. Her body flows gracefully through the air, with the string of her balloon twirling as she holds it effortlessly, without any strain. On the other hand, Mary Shepard, much smaller, is holding onto a short, tight string and appears tense, as if hanging on for dear life. Not only that, but she has her back turned to P.L. Travers.
I wonder if P.L. Travers noticed these changes in their positioning in the illustration, or if this detail completely escaped her, or if she would have even cared about it. I haven’t had the chance to delve deeper into their relationship, so I’m relying on what others have written about the subject and while I’m aware that I’m speculating on the comparative interpretation of these two illustrations, it was, nevertheless, a fun insight to gain from my interaction with A Mary Poppins Story for Coloring.
As for P.L. Travers’s view that ‘what counts most is the text, not the picture,’ I both agree and disagree with her. It all depends on the angle from which you look at the question. Of course, there would be no picture of Mary Poppins without the story, but for children, the illustrations are almost as important as the text.
Perhaps it’s because P.L. Travers never intended the books to be read solely by children that she prioritized the text. Or, maybe it was because she was human and fallible, and possessive of Mary Poppins. After all, she once told an interviewer that a fictional character is like a child to an author. One thing is certain: despite their differences, both P.L. Travers and Mary Shepard must have both gained something positive from their collaboration. Otherwise, why continue for fifty years?
I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post and that you’ll subscribe to my blog, so you don’t miss the next installment. While I can’t commit to a regular posting schedule, one thing I can promise is that I’ll continue writing about all things Mary Poppins and P.L. Travers.
I am thrilled to share with you some biographical facts hidden in P.L. Travers’s book ‘I Go by Sea, I Go by Land’. I first read this fictionalized account of her evacuation from the UK to the United States during WWII in 2018.
Briefly, for those who are unfamiliar with the book, it is written in the form of diary entries from 11-year-old Sabrina who recounts her and her brothers’ evacuation to the United States during the Second World War. Sabrina and her brother are accompanied on their journey by Pel, a family friend who is a writer and the mother of a baby named Romulus. As revealed by Valerie Lawson in her biography of P.L. Travers, ‘Mary Poppins She Wrote’ Pel stands for P.L. and Romulus for P.L. Travers’s adopted son Camilus.
My second reading of ‘I Go by Sea, I Go by Land’ proved more fruitful than my first one. (This tends to happen when revisiting books.) At the very beginning of the book P.L. Travers writes that ‘the experiences recorded in the book are authentic’ and as the story is ‘a personal record (…) certain names have necessarily been altered.’ Taking P.L. Travers’s statement to the letter, I approached the story with the mindset of a detective, meticulously following every clue and detail. What follows is what I discovered about P.L. Travers’s visit to Montreal in the autumn of 1940.
Montreal is where my parents and I settled after leaving Bulgaria in the early 1990s, and although I no longer live in the city, it is where I work during the week and where I often spend time with friends. You can imagine the excitement I felt when I connected the dots between the hints in the book about the locations P.L. Travers visited and the people she encountered during her stay.
During her visit to Montreal, P.L. Travers stayed at the Windsor Hotel, where other famous authors, such as Charles Dickens and Mark Twain, had sojourned before her, although the story doesn’t say if she was aware of it. This is how she described the lobby of the hotel in ‘I Go by Sea, I Go by Land’ in the words of Sabrina who writes in her diary that the Hotel ‘is just like a Cathedral inside’.
Below is a picture of the lobby of the Windsor Hotel in 1878 taken by William Notmam and you can see why Sabrina (P.L. Travers) compares it to a Cathedral.
The Windsor Hotel was one of Canada’s most impressive buildings of the Second Empire style and was considered the best hotel in all the Dominion. It was a magnificent nine-story structure of sandstone and granite which span along the entire block of René-Lévesque (then Dorchester) Boulevard and Cypress Street, between Stanley and Peel (then Windsor) streets. To its guests it offered “palatial splendor with its gold-embossed lobby, six restaurants, two ballrooms, concert hall and 382 luxurious guest-rooms”.
Unfortunately, a fire devastated the hotel in 1957 and “the damages caused to the South wing were so great that the structure had to be demolished on August 12, 1959. All that remained was its 1908 North Annex – this portion of the former hotel still stands today.”
Below is a picture I took of it for this blog post.
Now, let’s turn to another revealing entry in Sabrina’s diary. She writes about how, upon their arrival at the hotel, they are greeted by the Red Cross. When Pel signs her name, a Red Cross representative named Letty recognizes her, suggesting that Pel is a famous author, and invites her to lunch at her home. Then the reader learns that Letty has four children, all boys and that her husband is ‘a famous doctor’ called Kent.
When Dr. Kent comes home, he offers the guests “cocktails of lemonade and coco-cola” and then takes Pel and the children for a drive to show them the river (Saint Lawrence River). At the end of the drive, at Pel’s request, he drops them off at the Cathedral. This is what Sabrina writes in her diary: ‘So she and James and I went in and there was water in two enormous sea-shells, very beautiful and fluted.’
The Cathedral in question is Mary Queen of the World Cathedral, which stands diagonally opposite form the Windsor building.
At its entrance stand two seashells filled with holy water. Below are the pictures I took for this blog:
Who was Dr. Kent?
Well, in my opinion, he could only have been Dr. Wilder Penfield, a neurosurgeon who revolutionized brain treatment. He became famous for his epilepsy operation, which came to be known as the “Montreal Procedure”.
I find his physical description in the book quite perceptive; it is exactly the impression Dr. Penfield gave me when I watched a documentary about him.
“He has the kind of face that makes you want to keep on looking at him. Very kind and twinkly and it seems to say to you ‘There now. Everything is all right. Don’t worry.’”
Dr. Penfield was born in 1891 in a middle-class family in Wisconsin, United States. He studied at Princeton and Oxford. He initially sought to establish his career in the United States, but it was not easy for a junior surgeon in an emerging medical field. At that time Montreal was a city with an internationally famous medical community but with no full-time brain surgeon. The only full-time brain surgeon in Canada had set up in Toronto.
The Royal Victoria Hospital went shopping for a brain surgeon in New York and in 1928 Dr. Penfield came to Montreal. In 1934, with the combined help of the Rockefeller Foundation, the City of Montreal and the Quebec government, he founded the Montreal Neurological Institute which is still in existence today.
Dr. Penfield had four children, two boys and two girls, who in 1940 were aged 22, 21, 14 and 13. In my opinion, P.L. Travers tried to keep Dr. Penfield’s identity anonymous by changing the genders of two of his children in the story.
But, there is another clue in “I Go by Sea, I Go by Land” that points in the direction of Dr. Penfield. During WWII his wife, Helen Kermott Penfield, was deeply engaged with a volunteer group helping émigrés from war-stricken Europe. She had joined the circle of the bourgeois Christian women of the United Church on February 20, 1940. In affiliation with St. James Church this group started a refugee committee which met on regular basis and Mrs. Penfield became very active from 1940 until 1943. On a pragmatic level she liaised with the Canadian Red Cross and arranged for collections of clothes and groceries. It seems more than likely that Letty was, in fact, Mrs. Penfield.
When considered together, these elements make a compelling case for a meeting between P.L. Travers and Dr. Penfield. Unfortunately, Dr. Penfield’s children have all passed away, so I couldn’t validate my theory. However, the coincidences are too significant to dismiss.
I hope you enjoyed reading this blogpost as much as I enjoyed writing it, and that you will come back to read more about P.L. Travers and Mary Poppins.
I am thrilled to tell you all about my recent conversation with renowned author Jane Yolen who had the opportunity to meet with P.L. Travers on two occasions, the first of which happened back in 1966. But first, let me share a bit about Yolen’s literary work.
Yolen has written over 400 books for children and adults and is the recipient of many literary awards among which are the Caldecott Medal, two Nebula Awards, three World Fantasy Awards, the World Fantasy Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the Science Fiction Writers of America’s Grand Master Award.
She, like P.L. Travers, is a poet with a deep love for fairy tales and has penned several unique retellings and re-imaginings of these timeless stories, infusing them with her own creative touch. I’ll delve deeper into her retelling of Sleeping Beauty and her novel Curse of the Thirteenth Fey in a future blog post. As you may know, Sleeping Beauty was P.L. Travers’s favorite fairy tale, which she explored and analysed (pondered) in her 1975 book, About Sleeping Beauty.
Yolen first met P.L. Travers in 1966 on the famous night when Look Magazine was covering an open house evening with her and a few students from Smith College. At the time P.L. Travers was a writer-in-residence at Smith College and, according to Valerie Lawson, she was not having a good time there.
An article titled “A Visit with the Real Mary Poppins” by Joseph Roddy, was published in Look Magazine on December 13, 1966. A hint of P.L. Travers’s difficulty to connect with the students echoes in the lines of Roddy’s article: ‘P.L. – she would prefer being Anon but will endure the initials – gets the ones who memorized Blake, pondered Camus, are awash in The Hobbit and know every move Mary Poppins made.’ He goes on to write: ‘The talk leaps across centuries every night P.L. has open house in a dormitory suite brightened only by handsome girls and snappy lines.’
According to Yolen’s recollections, there were about fifteen women present, along with the journalist and the photographer from Look Magazine. Yolen was a sort of VIP guest that evening. She, her husband, and their four-month-old baby were accompanying P.L. Travers’s goddaughter, who had a personal invitation to the event.
Yolen’s first impression of P.L. Travers was that she behaved much like the Mary Poppins from the books—whom Yolen had read and loved as a child.
Today, people who have not read the books think of Mary Poppins as the pleasant and charming character from the movies. Then, if they read the books, they are taken aback by the harsher version of the original character. I notice this contrast frequently on social media and I think that it is unfortunate because the expectations set by the movies prevent the readers from appreciating the depths and complexities of the original character.
Mary Poppins is more than just a caregiver in the stories; she acts as a mediator between worlds, initiating the Banks children to the mysteries of life. This dual role creates a fascinating split-personality dynamic that captivates children and adds to the mystery of Mary Poppins’s magic. As a child I never questioned why Mary Poppins could be strict and abrupt with the Banks children; I instinctively understood that it was all part of a playful facade. Beneath it all, she was a good fairy, and I knew that the Banks children felt the same way.
As an adult rereading the Mary Poppins stories and learning about P.L. Travers’s life and spiritual beliefs, I realize that Mary Poppins could be no other way in our world. While others may have different interpretations of the character, the true magic of Mary Poppins lies precisely in her paradoxical nature. The same is true for P.L. Travers herself.
According to Yolen’s recollections of that memorable night, both aspects of P.L. Travers’s character came to the forefront. The anecdotes that follow are not reported in Roddy’s article.
A young student, who had the audacity to begin a question by admitting she hadn’t read the books but had only seen the film, was administered a spoon full of vinegar by P.L. Travers: ‘Then Dear, you KNOW NOTHING, and I suggest you do not say another word.’ ‘It felt almost like she had cursed the poor girl,’ said Yolen, ‘she was reduced to stunned silence’.
Admittedly, there might have been a gentler way to handle the situation, but the fact is that, two years earlier, the Disney film had left a deep wound in P.L. Travers’ psyche—one that had not yet begun to heal (no matter how much money she got out of it, people keep bringing up this argument all the time…) The young student was likely unaware of all this, but who attends a writer’s event without having read their work and then feels entitled to express opinions? Isn’t that rather rude as well?
As for the movie, Yolen recalls watching it with her husband in London and enjoying the music. She did however find Dick Van Dyke’s Cockney accent rather strange, and she thought that the Mary Poppins of her childhood would never sing, “A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.” She was right.
Mary Poppins never explains or sugarcoats anything. If medicine is required, it is administered with a stern demeanor that accepts no opposition, as the Banks children discover in the very first story “East Wind”. It is only after they swallow the medicine that they realize that it has magically transformed into their favorite flavor. For Jane it is lime-juice cordial, for Mickael it is strawberry ice and for the twins John and Barbara it is milk. This is the way of the real Mary Poppins.
Another amusing incident during the screening of the film by Yolen and her husband – and one that I’m sure P.L. Travers would have enjoyed hearing about – occurred when Yolen’s husband, a passionate bird watcher, suddenly stood up and exclaimed loudly during the scene where Julie Andrews is singing with the chirping audio-animatronic bird on her finger, ‘But this isn’t a British robin; it’s an American robin!’ The audience responded with laughter and approval.
Now let’s go back to the open house evening of 1966. After casting her chilling spell on the poor girl who knew nothing about Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers shape-shifted into a protective, motherly figure toward Yolen and her 4-month-old baby. When the baby began to cry, Yolen, not wanting to disturb the event, considered leaving, but P.L. Travers wouldn’t hear of it. She directed Yolen to her bedroom, where she could use the rocking chair and feed her daughter in peace. “She didn’t ask,” Yolen recalled, “she told,” and that, in fact, felt comforting. “It felt like I was in safe hands,” just as the Banks children felt safe in the care of Mary Poppins.
Years later, Yolen participated in a fundraising event for Parabola, a magazine co-founded by Ellen Dooling Draper and P.L. Travers. The event took place in New York, and Joseph Campbell was also in attendance. As a young writer and a collaborator of the magazine, Yolen was invited to the event. Unfortunately, her opportunities to engage with P.L. Travers were limited to brief exchanges of greetings, as P.L. Travers was busy hosting and entertaining the magazine’s patrons, revealing yet another side of her personality, the practical, business side!
Yolen recalls how Joseph Campbell leaped onto a chair and captivated the audience for more than half an hour with stories from around the world on the theme of giving. As I listened to Yolen’s vivid recounting, (she really is a great storyteller) I couldn’t help but yearn to travel back in time and experience the event firsthand. I wish I could have witnessed P.L. Travers’s reaction to Campbell’s performance. She, for some unknown reason, disliked him. It may have been motivated by feelings of rivalry; she was human, after all. Campbell was a scholar and a recognized expert in mythology, while she was self-taught, and although equally knowledgeable about myths and fairy tales, was not as popular as him. There may have been other reasons, but for now, they remain unknown.
It is fascinating to me how the paths of these two women writers intersected and how they were connected by their shared interests in fairy tales and love of poetry. One of Yolen’s poems, “Land of Miracles,” would certainly have been enjoyed by P.L. Travers, both for its origins and its message.
The poem was inspired by a serendipitous incident during a walk in a cemetery in Ireland. Yolen, who enjoys strolling in cemeteries, remembers how, on one such walk, she stumbled and steadied herself by leaning on a gravestone. She felt a sudden, electrifying sense of otherworldlines and then she realized with astonishment that the gravestone she had leaned on was that of the great magician and poet W.B. Yeats. This unexpected encounter inspired Yolen to write:
‘Yes, poetry matters. Words matter. Great buildings tumble. But story remains.’
I am deeply grateful for Jane Yolen’s generosity and for taking the time to reminisce about P.L.Travers, and I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post as much as I enjoyed writing it.
