I have a very special love for the book Peter Pan - probably comes from being called Wendy. I don’t know when I first read the book, or how many times I have re-read it since, but it always amazes me each time.

The book was also, apparently, my dad’s favourite book when he was a boy and his younger brother was named Peter at his insistence! (not sure if I’m Wendy for the same reasons!). My dad is John so we only need a Michael for the set.

I always identified much more with Peter Pan than with Wendy - fighting pirates and indians sounded much more fun than having a Wendy house and looking after Lost Boys.

About 11 years ago I moved to Marlow in Buckinghamshire and in exploring my new town came across this drinking fountain at the end of the High Street

The fountain has an inscription indicating it is a memorial to Charles Frohman and, intrigued, I did some research to find out who Charles Frohman was.

I discoverd that Charles Frohman was a Broadway stage producer who, in 1905, bought the rights to a play by James Matthew Barrie which no-one else would consider. The play was, of course, Peter Pan, and it made fortunes for Barrie and Frohman. If you’ve seen Finding Neverland then Dustin Hoffman plays Frohman.

Frohman loved Marlow more than any place in the world and spent all his holidays there. He had even picked out a place to be buried in All Saints Church yard however he was drowned when The Lusitania was torpedoed in 1915 his body washed up on the shore of Ireland and flown back to America.

After the war his friends decided to erect a memorial in the town he had wished to take his last rest in. The model for the sculpture on the memorial is supposedly Pauline Chase, an american actress who lived in Marlow and was one of the first people to play Peter Pan in Frohman’s original production. Pauline often stayed in Burnham Beeches but spent a lot of time in Marlow where she would be joined by Frohman, collecting him from the station in her car and taking him to The Compleat Angler.

So - another link with Peter Pan in my life!

A little over 6 years ago I met J (my husband) we talked about films and music and books and I discovered that he too was fascinated with the story of Peter Pan. In fact when we were first seeing each other one of his friends laughed when told my name was Wendy saying “well it would be, wouldn’t it!”

J too has read the book more times than he can remember and I bought him a 1st edition for 1st wedding anniversary.

In addition to his love for the book there is another Peter Pan connection in his family. His parents have two Newfoundland dogs, Bosun and Otto. For anyone who doesn’t know Nana in the Peter Pan story (the children’s nanny) is a Newfoundland dog and not a St Bernard as depicted in the Disney cartoon.

J M Barrie’s and his wife, Mary Ansell, seem to have had an unhappy, childless marriage and Mary appears to have redirected her affections towards her dogs - Porthos a St Bernard and his successor Luath, a Newfoundland. Nana was probably an amalgam of both these dogs. (In the film Finding Neverland they morph these two dogs into Porthos, a Newfoundland!)

As a piece of trivia for you - my name “Wendy”- was invented by Barrie in affection for a friend’s little girl, Margaret Henley, who called Barrie her “friendy” but with a child’s pronunciation of the “r” this became “fwendy” and so Wendy was born.

And now, J and I are preparing to adopt a family - our own Lost Boys (or Girls) as J puts it - somehow it seems fitting.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 at 11:06 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, Meme, Family, Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.