Saving Mr. Banks True Story - Real P.L. Travers, Walt Disney Feud Birthplace: New York City, New York, USA Death: August 4, 1991, Harbor, Washington, USA [Mary Poppins was] already beloved for what she was—plain, vain and incorruptible—(and now) transmogrified into a soubrette. ... And how was it that Mary Poppins herself, the image of propriety, came to dance a can-can on the roof-top displaying all her underwear? A child wrote, after seeing the film, ‘I think Mary Poppins behaved in a very indecorous manner.’ Indecorous indeed! -Author P.L. Travers Questioning the Story: Who is "Mr. Banks" from the movie's title? Mr. Banks is the patriarch of the London family that Mary Poppins helps in the book and movie. Author P.L. Travers based the Mr. Banks character in part on her own father, Travers Goff, portrayed by Colin Farrell in the film Saving Mr. Banks. Did Walt Disney really promise his children he'd turn P.L. Travers book Mary Poppins into a movie?

Walt had assured his daughters (pictured above) that their beloved Mary Poppins would unleash her magic on the big screen. Yes. Our research into the Saving Mr. Banks true story confirmed that Walt Disney indeed promised his daughters (pictured right) that he'd turn their favorite book, Mary Poppins, into a movie. He had no idea that it would take twenty years to do it. How long did it take Walt Disney and his team to convince author P.L. Travers to let them turn her book into a movie? After nearly twenty years of courting P.L. Travers via letters and phone calls, she finally gave in to Walt Disney's pleas. Upon her arrival in California, it took two weeks for Walt Disney and his team to convince author Pamela Lyndon Travers to allow them to turn her beloved book Mary Poppins into a movie. Similar to what is seen in Saving Mr. Banks, her 1961 visit proved grueling for Disney and his team.

"I find myself getting angry when I relive it," says songwriter Richard Sherman, actor Jason Schwartzman's real life counterpart, "My stomach tightens when I talk about it." -SFGate.com Did Ralph the limo driver (portrayed by Paul Giamatti) actually exist? Producer Ian Collie revealed that Ralph (Paul Giamatti) is an amalgamation of several of P.L.'s drivers. Actor Paul Giamatti says that the character was included in the film because the screenwriter and the producers wanted someone who P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) could warm up to. -Glamour.com What made author P.L. Travers change her mind about letting Walt turn her book into a movie? As explained in the Saving Mr. Banks movie, the royalties from her book were dwindling and her lawyer encouraged her to allow Disney to adapt the book for the screen. She agreed and was given a $100,000 advance, in addition to being guaranteed five percent of the film's royalties, which resulted in her becoming a multi-millionaire. She was also given the chance to personally approve the script. -DailyMail.co.uk The real P.L. Travers had never been a fan of Walt Disney.

In her review of Disney's first full-length animated feature film, 1937's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, she wrote, "Oh, he's clever, this Disney! ... The very pith of his secret is the enlargement of the animal world and a corresponding deflation of all human values. There is a profound cynicism at the root of his, as of all, sentimentality." -The Secret Life of Mary Poppins Did the real P.L. Travers not want animation in the movie version of her book? Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews in one of several Mary Poppins scenes that incorporated animation. Yes. In the movie, P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) wonders aloud as to how Mr. Disney plans to train penguins to dance for the screen version of Mary Poppins. Upon learning that the penguins featured in the live-action film will be incorporated using animation, she sternly objects, "No animation." The real P.L. Travers was indeed against the use of animation in Mary Poppins.

Upset that the character of Mary in the movie's script was too pretty and lacked the harsher aspects of her character from the book, she was equally appalled at the animated scenes, which she considered Disney fluff that detracted from the more serious tone of her story. If Travers had script approval, how did the animation end up in the Mary Poppins film? Whether it was trickery by Walt Disney or simply a lack of knowledge on Travers's part, the terms of their agreement gave Pamela Lyndon Travers script approval but not film editing rights. Travers had approved the script figuring that she could decide what stayed in the film. "When do we start cutting it?" Travers asked Walt after screening the movie. Disney explained to her that she only had script approval but not film editing rights. Knowing that his version would surely win over audiences, he refused to make the changes Travers wanted. This infuriated the author. -MentalFloss.com Once an aspiring actress, Travers is pictured as Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1920s). What is P.L. Travers full name? The Saving Mr. Banks true story reveals that Pamela Lyndon Travers (P. L.

Travers) was born Helen Lyndon Goff (known to her family as Lyndon) in Maryborough, Queensland, Australia on August 9, 1899. At the age of seventeen, she was performing on stage in Australia and New Zealand with a Shakespearean touring company. It was around that time that she adopted the stage name Pamela Lyndon Travers. The last name Travers was the first name of her father, Travers Goff, a bank employee who died of influenza when she was a child. The name Pamela was popular at the time and was her own invention. Using her first and middle initials as a writer was not uncommon at the time in Britain, especially for women who wanted their work to be appreciated from a gender-neutral standpoint. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling (Joanne Kathleen Rowling), an admirer of Travers, carried on her tradition by doing the same thing. However, it should be noted that Rowling was not given a middle name at birth. The 'K' comes from her grandmother's name 'Kathleen' and was suggested by the publisher out of fear that potential readers would be less receptive to a wizarding story penned by a woman. Was P.L.

Travers's father really an alcoholic bank employee? Yes. P.L. Travers's father, Travers Robert Goff (portrayed by Colin Farrell in the movie), was a heavy drinker. As noted by biographer Valerie Lawson in her book Mary Poppins, She Wrote (available in the right column), Travers Goff was a bank manager before being demoted to a bank clerk, dying of influenza in his early forties and leaving his family destitute. P.L. Travers was only seven at the time of her father's death. -Telegraph What happened to P.L. Travers family after her father died? A young P.L. Travers (Annie Buckley) in the Saving Mr. Banks movie (left) and in real life (right) circa 1906. P.L. Travers's mother, born Margaret Morehead (portrayed by Ruth Wilson in the Saving Mr. Banks movie), hailed from an affluent sugar refining dynasty. However, Margaret had lost most of her inheritance when the Queensland National Bank was discovered insolvent.

Margaret and her three daughters left their large Queensland, Australia home, where they had servants and a horse-drawn carriage, for a tin-roofed shack where they relied on the charity of various aunts. -DailyMail.co.uk Did P.L. Travers's mother really contemplate suicide after Travers's father's death? Yes. Following the death of P.L. Travers's father from influenza when she was seven, her mother, stricken with grief, informed her that she was going to drown herself in a nearby lake, telling her daughter to look after her two younger sisters, Moya and Biddy. Margaret Goff's suicide attempt was unsuccessful and she returned home, but the event left a permanent scar on young P.L. (then known as Lyndon). Was Mary Poppins really based on P.L. Travers's great aunt? Mary Poppins (left), as seen on the book's original cover, was partially inspired by Travers's Great Aunt Ellie. Yes. Mary Poppins herself was at least partially inspired by Helen Morehead, a maid and great aunt who had come to stay with P.L. Travers and her two sisters after her mother's suicide attempt.

Referred to as Aunt Ellie, she was a reliable relative who brought order and discipline to the household. Much like Mary Poppins in the books, she was also formidable, bossy and stern. In addition, she carried with her a parrot umbrella. -The Secret Life of Mary Poppins Did P.L. Travers base Mr. and Mrs. Banks from the Mary Poppins story on her own parents? Pamela Lyndon Travers always claimed that her difficult upbringing had little influence on the story. "I don't know that it's based on my personal life," said Travers in 1977. "I think Mr. Banks is a little bit like my father, and Mrs. Banks in her most flustered is perhaps a little bit like my mother; but really, I don't think it's based on my childhood." -The Secret Life of Mary Poppins Travers was well-known for being extremely secretive about both her life and her inspirations for her book Mary Poppins, often re-imagining her past as something that it never was. Travers once wrote, "If you are looking for autobiographical facts.

Mary Poppins is the story of my life." As more was learned about her past, it became clear that her statement was far from the truth. -Telegraph.co.uk Was P.L. Travers really as difficult as the movie implies? Yes. As author Valerie Lawson indicates in her book Mary Poppins, She Wrote, the real P.L. Travers fruitlessly tried to protect her creation from being corrupted by the influences of Walt Disney and pop culture. Lawson explains that the Mary Poppins character in Travers's books "was tart and sharp, rude, plain and vain." She demonstrates characteristics that are more similar to P.L. Travers than to Julie Andrews. During our investigation into the Saving Mr. Banks true story, we discovered that some of the things that Travers objected to with regard to the Mary Poppins movie included the animated horse and pig; the song "Let's Go Fly a Kite"; the notion that Mary Poppins would have a romance with a mere chimneysweep; turning Mrs. Banks into a suffragette; naming Mrs.

Banks Cynthia instead of Winifred (Travers won that battle); the grandness of the Banks house; certain American words and phrases; and the casting of Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews (she felt Andrews was too pretty compared to the plain, short and thin lady in the book). -MentalFloss.com Was "Let's Go Fly a Kite" the song that won over Poppins author P.L. Travers? No. In the Saving Mr. Banks movie, P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) begins tapping her toes when she first hears "Let's Go Fly a Kite." However, according to Poppins songwriter Richard M. Sherman (portrayed by Jason Schwartzman in the film), "Feed the Birds" was actually the song that broke her. -SFGate.com Did actor Jason Schwartzman really perform the songs in the movie? Yes. Actor Jason Schwartzman, who portrays songwriter Richard Sherman in the Saving Mr. Banks movie, is really singing songs like "Feed the Birds" in the film and he is actually the one playing the piano too. "Jason and I did a lot of talking," the real Richard Sherman says. "He listened and watched me play.

He's a musician himself, a drummer, but he plays the piano a little - more in a jazz style." -SFGate.com Robert (B.J. Novack) and Richard Sherman (Jason Schwartzman) composing in the movie (left). The real Sherman Brothers, Robert (standing) and Richard (sitting), working on a song together at Disney (right). Why does Robert Sherman (B.J. Novak) walk with a limp in the movie? In the movie, Pamela Travers (Emma Thompson) makes a snide remark after learning that Robert Sherman (B.J. Novak) had been shot in the leg. "It's hardly surprising," she says. According to the real Robert Sherman's obituary, his limp was the result of being shot in the knee while charging a hill during World War II, for which he was awarded a Purple Heart. At only nineteen years of age, he had also taken part in the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp. Did Travers really dislike the songs used in the film? Yes. "She hated everything," says songwriter Richard Sherman. Like in the movie, the real P.L.

Travers insisted that they not make up words, including having the chimney sweep Bert (portrayed by Dick Van Dyke in the 1964 Mary Poppins film) rhyming "responstable" with "constable." -Variety.com What other Disney songs were the Sherman Brothers responsible for? In addition to all of the Mary Poppins songs, including "A Spoonful of Sugar," "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" and the Oscar-winning "Chim Chim Cher-ee," songwriting brothers Robert and Richard Sherman also wrote "Trust in Me" from The Jungle Book; "The Age of Not Believing" from Bedknobs & Broomsticks; "Winnie the Pooh"; and the most well-known of them all, "It's a Small World," the Disneyland theme song. "I've been in India, I've been in Brussels, all over the world, people know that song," says the real Richard Sherman. "I think (people) want to either kiss us or kill us for having written "It's a Small World." -Variety.com Was P.L. Travers really not invited to the Mary Poppins premiere? P.L.

Travers (right) with Walt Disney and Julie Andrews, who Travers believed was too pretty to be Mary Poppins. Yes. Although she did show up and attend (crying in anger and frustration by the end), P.L. Travers was never formally invited to the 1964 Mary Poppins premiere. After repeatedly contacting the studio during the production to voice her objections and to attack the movie's director and producers, Disney decided it was best that she wasn't at the premiere. -DailyMail.co.uk Did Travers continue insisting that the animated sequences be cut, even at the film's premiere? Yes. After seeing the film on the night of the premiere, a distraught Travers went up to Walt Disney and demanded that the animation be cut from the film. "Pamela, that ship has sailed," Disney replied before walking away. Pamela Travers's feud with Walt Disney would continue up to and beyond her death, prohibiting Disney from adapting any more of her books and vigorously protecting the stage rights to Mary Poppins (she would eventually turn the rights over to British theater producer Cameron Mackintosh in 1993). Did the real P.L. Travers weep at the Mary Poppins movie premiere? Yes.

Travers's disapproval and anger over the inclusion of partially animated scenes in the film caused her to weep by the end of the 1964 Hollywood movie premiere of Mary Poppins (Telegraph.co.uk). In a letter to her lawyer, Travers described her horror over what she had seen at the premiere, "As chalk is to cheese, so is the film to the book. Tears ran down my cheeks because it was all so distorted. I was so shocked I felt that I would never write---let alone smile---again!" (The Secret Life of Mary Poppins) In a rare 1977 interview, P.L. Travers commented on the legacy of the film, "I've seen it once or twice, and I've learned to live with it. It's glamorous and it's a good film on its own level, but I don't think it is very like my books." -The Secret Life of Mary Poppins I heard that P.L. Travers ruined the lives of two boys. Is that true? Though it was not shown in the film, author P.L. Travers did not weave similar magical tales when it came to her personal life.

In 1940, she became aware of a destitute family that she knew in Ireland who were looking for someone to adopt their infant identical twins. The children had been born to an irresponsible father and an inept mother, and were in the care of their grandparents who were having trouble coping with the responsibility of raising four children. They arranged for a family friend from London, Pamela Lyndon Travers, to adopt both of the infant twins, at least that was their understanding. Travers was approaching her 40th birthday and had given up hope on finding a lasting relationship that might produce biological children. She was attracted to the literary lineage of the twins. Trying to choose between two identical twins, P.L. Travers selected her adopted son Camillus based on advice from her astrologer. She refused to take them both. The twins were the grandchildren of Joseph Hone, an Irish writer and the biographer of poet W.B. Yeats, Travers's idol whom she knew personally. Upon her arrival in Ireland, Travers chose to adopt only Camillus Hone, but not his twin brother Anthony, subsequently splitting up the pair.

She based which one to choose on the advice of her astrologer, who had advised her to select the first-born boy. While Camillus Hone (pictured at right with Travers in the 1940s) was whisk off to a life of wealth and privilege in London, his brother Anthony was left to be cared for by neglectful relatives. "Pamela Travers saw herself as Mary Poppins and thought she could play Poppins with poor little Camillus," says the boys' oldest brother, Joseph Hone. "I don't think Travers was fit to bring up children." Appalled by her new son crying at night, at one point Travers considered sending the infant to a babies home in Tunbridge Wells. She eventually got along better with the child, but still shipped him off to boarding school while she continued to focus on her career. -Telegraph.co.uk The twins reunited at age seventeen when Tony showed up unannounced on P.L. Travers's doorstep to meet his brother Camillus. Travers had previously told Camillus that he was her own and that his father had died of an accident in the colonies where he was a wealthy sugar magnate.

The two brothers had little in common other than a fondness for alcohol and would only see each other occasionally in the years that followed. Camillus eventually developed a drinking problem and spent six months in prison after being arrested for driving drunk without a license. His twin brother Anthony would also develop an alcohol problem, which would cost him his family and his career in public relations. Prior to Anthony's death, his ex-wife Frances would tend to his basic needs as she listened to him "moaning" about his brother's good fortune. -DailyMail.co.uk Ironically, Camillus's widow, also named Frances, says that he had been left "disappointed and sad" after being made aware that he had been plucked from his natural family. "He would have liked to belong to them because they were artistic and interesting, and as he grew up he didn't have any brothers, sisters or aunts and uncles, or a Daddy — only her." -DailyMail.co.uk Did P.L. Travers stipulate in her will that Mary Poppins not be touched by Disney again? P.L. Travers, who lived to be 96, is pictured in the years prior to her death in 1996. For the most part, yes.

According to the Saving Mr. Banks true story, in her last will and testament Pamela Lyndon Travers stipulated that if a stage musical was to be made, that no one from the original film production was to be involved. This included the Sherman Brothers, the songwriting team behind the Poppins classics. She also stipulated that only English-born writers could be used, no Americans. -MentalFloss.com I heard that Travers's publisher was the son of Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie? This is true. P.L. Travers's connection to Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie wasn't only reflected in the similarities between Mary Poppins and Barrie's high-flying Pan. Travers's publisher was Peter Davies , the adopted son of J.M. Barrie and the inspiration for Peter Pan (Davies later committed suicide partially as the result of his lifelong association with the Pan character). P.L. Travers Audio & the Saving Mr. Banks Movie Trailer After learning about the Saving Mr. Banks true story above, enjoy the related videos below, including the movie trailer and excerpts from P.L. Travers's Disney meetings. P. L. Travers - Wikiquote P. L.

Travers Jump to: navigation , search You do not chop off a section of your imaginative substance and make a book specifically for children , for — if you are honest — you have no idea where childhood ends and maturity begins . It is all endless and all one . Pamela Lyndon Travers ( August 9 1899 – April 23 1996 ) was a British author, born Helen Lyndon Goff in Maryborough, Queensland, Australia , most famous as the creator of the " Mary Poppins " series of stories. See also Thinking is linking. We pass. But what the bee knows , the wisdom that sustains our passing life — however much we deny or ignore it — that for ever remains. You can ask me anything you like about my work , but I'll never talk about myself . The silky hush of intimate things, fragrant with my fragrance, steal softly down, so loth to rob me of my last dear concealment. From a poem (c. 1920) in the Australian publication The Triad, as quoted in Out of the Sky She Came: The Life of P.L.

Travers, Creator of Mary Poppins (1999) by Valerie Lawson, ISBN 0743298160 ] It is clear from Gurdjieff 's writings that hypnotism, mesmerism and various arcane methods of expanding consciousness must have played a large part in the studies of the Seekers of Truth . None of these processes, however, is to be thought of as having any bearing on what is called Black Magic , which, according to Gurdjieff, "has always one definite characteristic. It is the tendency to use people for some, even the best of aims, without their knowledge and understanding , either by producing in them faith and infatuation or by acting upon them through fear . There is, in fact, neither red, green nor yellow magic .

There is " doing ." Only "doing" is magic." Properly to realise the scale of what Gurdjieff meant by magic, one has to remember his continually repeated aphorism, "Only he who can be can do," and its corollary that, lacking this fundamental verb, nothing is "done," things simply "happen." "Gurdjieff" in Man, Myth and Magic : Encyclopedia of the Supernatural (1970) Could it be ... that the hero is one who is willing to set out, take the first step, shoulder something? Perhaps the hero is one who puts his foot upon a path not knowing what he may expect from life but in some way feeling in his bones that life expects something of him. "The World of the Hero" (1976) A writer is, after all, only half his book . The other half is the reader and from the reader the writer learns .

As quoted in The New York Times (2 July 1978) A great friend of mine at the beginning of our friendship (he was himself a poet ) said to me very defiantly, "I have to tell you that I loathe children's books." And I said to him, "Well, won't you just read this just for my sake?" And he said grumpily, "Oh, very well, send it to me." I did, and I got a letter back saying: "Why didn't you tell me? Mary Poppins with her cool green core of sex has me enthralled forever." Interview by Edwina Burness and Jerry Griswold, The Paris Review No. 86 (Winter 1982) “ Myth , Symbol , and Tradition ” was the phrase I originally wrote at the top of the page, for editors like large, cloudy titles. Then I looked at what I had written and, wordlessly, the words reproached me. I hope I had the grace to blush at my own presumption and their portentousness. How could I, if I lived for a thousand years, attempt to cover more than a hectare of that enormous landscape?

So, I let out the air , in a manner of speaking, dwindled to my appropriate size, and gave myself over to that process which, for lack of a more erudite term, I have coined the phrase “ Thinking is linking.” I thought of Kerenyi — “Mythology occupies a higher position in the bios, the Existence, of a people in which it is still alive than poetry, storytelling or any other art.” And of Malinowski — “Myth is not merely a story told, but a reality lived.” And, along with those, the word “Pollen,” the most pervasive substance in the world, kept knocking at my ear. Or rather, not knocking, but humming. What hums? What buzzes? What travels the world? Suddenly I found what I sought. “What the bee knows,” I told myself. “That is what I’m after.” But even as I patted my back, I found myself cursing, and not for the first time, the artful trickiness of words, their capriciousness, their lack of conscience. Betray them and they will betray you.

Be true to them and, without compunction, they will also betray you, foxily turning all the tables, thumbing syntactical noses. For — note bene! — if you speak or write about What The Bee Knows, what the listener, or the reader, will get — indeed, cannot help but get — is Myth, Symbol, and Tradition! You see the paradox ? The words , by their very perfidy — which is also their honorable intention — have brought us to where we need to be. For, to stand in the presence of paradox, to be spiked on the horns of dilemma, between what is small and what is great, microcosm and macrocosm, or, if you like, the two ends of the stick, is the only posture we can assume in front of this ancient knowledge — one could even say everlasting knowledge. "What the Bee Knows" in Parabola : The Magazine of Myth and Tradition, Vol. VI, No.

1 (February 1981); later published in What the Bee Knows : Reflections on Myth, Symbol, and Story (1989) The Sphinx, the Pyramids, the stone temples are, all of them, ultimately, as flimsy as London Bridge; our cities but tents set up in the cosmos . We pass. But what the bee knows , the wisdom that sustains our passing life — however much we deny or ignore it — that for ever remains. What the Bee Knows : Reflections on Myth, Symbol, and Story (1989) The Irish, as a race, have the oral tradition in their blood . A direct question to them is an anathema, but in other cases, a mere syllable of a hero 's name will elicit whole chapters of stories . As quoted in No Word for Time: The Way of the Algonquin People (2001) by Evan T. Pritchard You do not chop off a section of your imaginative substance and make a book specifically for children , for — if you are honest — you have no idea where childhood ends and maturity begins . It is all endless and all one .

As quoted in Sticks and Stones : The Troublesome Success of Children's Literature from Slovenly Peter to Harry Potter (2002) by Jack Zipes You can ask me anything you like about my work, but I'll never talk about myself. As quoted by Valerie Lawson, in an interview: "The Mystic Life of P.L. Travers" (7 May 2003) For me there are no answers, only questions, and I am grateful that the questions go on and on. I don't look for an answer, because I don't think there is one. I'm very glad to be the bearer of a question. Mary Poppins (1934)[ edit ] "How funny ! I've never seen that happen before," said Michael. Such a thing, Jane and Michael knew , had never been done before. …They gazed curiously at the strange new visitor. ISBN 0152017178 Tonight the small are free from the great and the great protect the small We are all made of the same stuff, remember , we of the Jungle , you of the City .

The same substance composes us — the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird , the beast , the star — we are all one , all moving to the same end . Remember that when you no longer remember me, my child . If you want to find Cherry-Tree Lane all you have to do is ask the Policeman at the cross-roads. He will push his helmet slightly to one side, scratch his head thoughtfully, and then he will point his huge white-gloved finger and say: "First to your right, second to your left, sharp right again, and you're there. Good-morning." And sure enough, if you follow his directions exactly, you will be there — right in the middle of Cherry-Tree Lane, where the houses run down one side and the Park runs down the other and the cherry-trees go dancing right down the middle. If you are looking for Number Seventeen — and it is more than likely that you will be, for this book is all about that particular house — you will very soon find it. Ch. 1 "East-Wind" Jane and Michael sat at the window watching for Mr.

Banks to come home, and listening to the sound of the East Wind blowing through the naked branches of the cherry-trees in the Lane. The trees themselves, turning and bending in the half light, looked as though they had gone mad and were dancing their roots out of the ground. "There he is!" said Michael, pointing suddenly to a shape that banged heavily against the gate. Jane peered through the gathering darkness. "That's not Daddy," she said. "It's somebody else." Then the shape, tossed and bent under the wind, lifted the latch of the gate, and they could see that it belonged to a woman, who was holding her hat on with one hand and carrying a bag in the other. As they watched, Jane and Michael saw a curious thing happen. As soon as the shape was inside the gate the wind seemed to catch her up into the air and fling her at the house. It was as though it had flung her first at the gate, waited for her to open it, and then had lifted and thrown her, bag and all, at the front door. The watching children heard a terrific bang, and as she landed the whole house shook. "How funny! I've never seen that happen before," said Michael. Ch.

1 "East-Wind" Presently they saw their Mother coming out of the drawing-room with a visitor following her. Jane and Michael could see that the newcomer had shiny black hair — "Rather like a wooden Dutch doll," whispered Jane. And that she was thin, with large feet and hands, and small, rather peering blue-eyes. "You'll find that they are very nice children," Mrs. Banks was saying. Michael's elbow gave a sharp dig at Jane's ribs. "And that they give no trouble at all," continued Mrs. Banks uncertainly, as if she herself didn't really believe what she was saying. They heard the visitor sniff as though she didn't either. "Now, about reference —" Mrs. Banks went on. "Oh, I make it a rule never to give references," said the other firmly. Ch. 1 "East-Wind" Mrs. Banks did not notice what was happening behind her, but Jane and Michael, watching from the top landing, had an excellent view of the extraordinary thing the visitor now did. Certainly she followed Mrs. Banks upstairs, but not in the usual way.

With her large bag in her hands she slid gracefully up the banisters, and arrived at the landing at the same time as Mrs. Banks. Such a thing, Jane and Michael knew, had never been done before. Down, of course, for they had often done it themselves. But up — never! They gazed curiously at the strange new visitor. Ch. 1 "East-Wind" What I want to know is this: Are the stars gold paper or is the gold paper stars? Jane in Ch. 8 "Mrs. Corry" Tonight the small are free from the great and the great protect the small. Hamadryad, the King Cobra in Ch. 10 "Full-Moon" It may be that to eat and be eaten are the same thing in the end . My wisdom tells me that this is probably so. We are all made of the same stuff, remember , we of the Jungle , you of the City . The same substance composes us — the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird , the beast , the star — we are all one , all moving to the same end . Remember that when you no longer remember me, my child . Hamadryad, the King Cobra in Ch.

10 "Full-Moon" "Bird and beast and stone and star — we are all one , all one —" murmured the Hamadryad, softly folding his hood about him as he himself swayed between the children. "Child and serpent, star and stone — all one." Ch. 10 "Full-Moon" This darkness will not last forever . There will some day come a Fifth of November — or another date, it doesn't matter — when fires will burn in a chain of brightness… Mary Poppins herself had flown away, but the gifts she had brought would remain for always . The Fifth of November is Guy Fawkes' Day in England . In peacetime it is celebrated with bonfires on the greens, fireworks in the parks and the carrying of "guys" through the streets. "Guys" are stuffed, straw figures of unpopular persons; and after they have been shown to everybody they are burnt in the bonfires amid great acclamation. The children black their faces and put on comical clothes, and go about begging for a Penny for the Guy. Only the very meanest people refuse to give pennies and these are always visited by Extreme Bad Luck.

The Original Guy Fawkes was one of the men who took part in the Gunpowder Plot . This was a conspiracy for blowing up King James I and the Houses of Parliament on November 5th, 1605. The plot was discovered, however, before any damage was done. The only result was that King James and his Parliament went on living but Guy Fawkes, poor man, did not. He was executed with the other conspirators. Nevertheless, it is Guy Fawkes who is remembered today and King James who is forgotten. For since that time, the Fifth of November in England, like the Fourth of July in America, has been devoted to Fireworks. From 1605 till 1939 every village green in the shires had a bonfire on Guy Fawkes' Day. NOTE (on Guy Fawkes' Day ) In the village where I live, in Sussex , we made our bonfire in the Vicarage paddock and every year, as soon as it was lit, the Vicar's cow would begin to dance . She danced while the flames rose up to the sky , she danced till the ashes were black and cold.

And the next morning — it was always the same — the Vicar would have no milk for his breakfast. It is strange to think of a simple cow rejoicing at the saving of Parliament so many years ago. NOTE Since 1939, however, there have been no bonfires on the village greens. No fireworks gleam in the blackened parks and the streets are dark and silent. But this darkness will not last forever . There will some day come a Fifth of November — or another date, it doesn't matter — when fires will burn in a chain of brightness from Land's End to John O' Groats . The children will dance and leap about them as they did in the times before. They will take each other by the hand and watch the rockets breaking, and afterwards they will go home singing to the houses full of light... NOTE (on Guy Fawkes' Day, during World War II ) Mary Poppins herself had flown away, but the gifts she had brought would remain for always .. Ch. 8 "The Other Door" We'll never forget you, Mary Poppins! Ch. 8 "The Other Door" The Paris Review interview (1982)[ edit ] I’ve always been interested in the Mother Goddess .

It is only through the ordinary that the extraordinary can make itself perceived . Remember that all the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty-Dumpty together again. There’s such a tremendous truth in that. Friend Monkey is really my favorite of all my books because the Hindu myth on which it is based is my favorite — the myth of the Monkey Lord who loved so much that he created chaos wherever he went. I’ve always been interested in the Mother Goddess . Not long ago, a young person, whom I don’t know very well, sent a message to a mutual friend that said: “I’m an addict of Mary Poppins , and I want you to ask P. L. Travers if Mary Poppins is not really the Mother Goddess.” So, I sent back a message: “Well, I’ve only recently come to see that. She is either the Mother Goddess or one of her creatures — that is, if we’re going to look for mythological or fairy-tale origins of Mary Poppins.” I’ve spent years thinking about it because the questions I’ve been asked, very perceptive questions by readers, have led me to examine what I wrote. The book was entirely spontaneous and not invented, not thought out.

I never said, “Well, I’ll write a story about Mother Goddess and call it Mary Poppins.” It didn’t happen like that. I cannot summon up inspiration; I myself am summoned. Once, when I was in the United States, I went to see a psychologist . It was during the war when I was feeling very cut off. I thought, Well, these people in psychology always want to see the kinds of things you’ve done, so I took as many of my books as were then written. I went and met the man, and he gave me another appointment. And at the next appointment the books were handed back to me with the words: “You know, you don’t really need me. All you need to do is read your own books.” That was so interesting to me. I began to see, thinking about it, that people who write spontaneously as I do, not with invention, never really read their own books to learn from them. And I set myself to reading them. Every now and then I found myself saying, “But this is true. How did she know?” And then I realized that she is me.

Now I can say much more about Mary Poppins because what was known to me in my blood and instincts has now come up to the surface in my head. It is only through the ordinary that the extraordinary can make itself perceived. I think if she comes from anywhere that has a name , it is out of myth . And myth has been my study and joy ever since — oh, the age, I would think . . . of three. I’ve studied it all my life. No culture can satisfactorily move along its forward course without its myths, which are its teachings, its fundamental dealing with the truth of things, and the one reality that underlies everything. She doesn’t hold back anything from them. When they beg her not to depart, she reminds them that nothing lasts forever. She’s as truthful as the nursery rhymes. Remember that all the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty-Dumpty together again. There’s such a tremendous truth in that. It goes into children in some part of them that they don’t know, and indeed perhaps we don’t know. But eventually they realize — and that’s the great truth.

My Zen master, because I’ve studied Zen for a long time, told me that every one (and all the stories weren’t written then) of the Mary Poppins stories is in essence a Zen story . And someone else, who is a bit of a Don Juan , told me that every one of the stories is a moment of tremendous sexual passion, because it begins with such tension and then it is reconciled and resolved in a way that is gloriously sensual. … A great friend of mine at the beginning of our friendship (he was himself a poet) said to me very defiantly, “I have to tell you that I loathe children’s books.” And I said to him, “Well, won’t you just read this just for my sake?” And he said grumpily, “Oh, very well, send it to me.” I did, and I got a letter back saying: “Why didn’t you tell me? Mary Poppins with her cool green core of sex has me enthralled forever.” Friend Monkey is really my favorite of all my books because the Hindu myth on which it is based is my favorite — the myth of the Monkey Lord who loved so much that he created chaos wherever he went.

… when you read the Ramayana you’ll come across the story of Hanuman on which I built my version of that very old myth. I love Friend Monkey. I love the story of Hanuman. For many years, it remained in my very blood because he’s someone who loves too much and can’t help it. I don’t know where I first heard of him, but the story remained with me and I knew it would come out of me somehow or other. But I didn’t know what shape it would take. I never wrote my books especially for children. … When I sat down to write Mary Poppins or any of the other books, I did not know children would read them. I’m sure there must be a field of “children’s literature” — I hear about it so often — but sometimes I wonder if it isn’t a label created by publishers and booksellers who also have the impossible presumption to put on books such notes as “from five to seven” or “from nine to twelve.” How can they know when a book will appeal to such and such an age? If you look at other so-called children’s authors, you’ll see they never wrote directly for children.

Though Lewis Carroll dedicated his book to Alice , I feel it was an afterthought once the whole was already committed to paper. Beatrix Potter declared, “I write to please myself!” And I think the same can be said of Milne or Tolkien or Laura Ingalls Wilder . I certainly had no specific child in mind when I wrote Mary Poppins. How could I? If I were writing for the Japanese child who reads it in a land without staircases, how could I have written of a nanny who slides up the banister? If I were writing for the African child who reads the book in Swahili, how could I have written of umbrellas for a child who has never seen or used one? But I suppose if there is something in my books that appeals to children, it is the result of my not having to go back to my childhood; I can, as it were, turn aside and consult it ( James Joyce once wrote, “My childhood bends beside me”). If we’re completely honest, not sentimental or nostalgic, we have no idea where childhood ends and maturity begins. It is one unending thread, not a life chopped up into sections out of touch with one another.

Once, when Maurice Sendak was being interviewed on television a little after the success of Where the Wild Things Are , he was asked the usual questions: Do you have children? Do you like children? After a pause, he said with simple dignity: “I was a child.” That says it all. I make a point of writing , if only a little, every day, as a kind of discipline so that it is not a whim but a piece of work . I read myths and fairy tales and books about them a great deal now, but I very seldom read novels. I find modern novels bore me. I can read Tolstoy and the Russians, but mostly I read comparative mythology and comparative religion. I need matter to carry with me. When I write it’s more a process of listening. I don’t pretend that there is some spirit standing beside me that tells me things. More and more I’ve become convinced that the great treasure to possess is the unknown. I’m going to write, I hope, a lot about that. It’s with my unknowing that I come to the myths. If I came to them knowing, I would have nothing to learn.

But I bring my unknowing, which is a tangible thing, a clear space, something that’s been made room for out of the muddle of ordinary psychic stuff, an empty space. You know C. S. Lewis , whom I greatly admire, said there’s no such thing as creative writing. I’ve always agreed with that and always refuse to teach it when given the opportunity. He said there is, in fact, only one Creator and we mix. That’s our function, to mix the elements He has given us. See how wonderfully anonymous that leaves us? You can’t say, “I did this; this gross matrix of flesh and blood and sinews and nerves did this.” What nonsense! I’m given these things to make a pattern out of. Something gave it to me. I’ve always loved the idea of the craftsman, the anonymous man. For instance, I’ve always wanted my books to be called the work of Anon , because Anon is my favorite literary character. If you look through an anthology of poems that go from the far past into the present time, you’ll see that all the poems signed “Anon” have a very specific flavor that is one flavor all the way through the centuries.

I think, perhaps arrogantly, of myself as “Anon.” I would like to think that Mary Poppins and the other books could be called back to make that change. But I suppose it’s too late for that. Myth, Symbol, and Meaning in Mary Poppins (2007)[ edit ] These men — Yeats , James Stephens , and the rest — had aristocratic minds . For them, the world was not fragmented. An idea did not suddenly grow … all alone and separate. Quotes of Travers from Myth, Symbol, and Meaning in Mary Poppins: The Governess as Provocateur (2007) by Giorgia Grilli These men — Yeats , James Stephens , and the rest — had aristocratic minds . For them, the world was not fragmented. An idea did not suddenly grow … all alone and separate. For them, all things had long family trees. They saw nothing shameful or silly in myths and fairy stories , nor did they shovel them out of sight and some cupboard marked "Only For Children." They were always willing to concede that there was more things in heaven and earth than philosophy dreamed of. They allowed for the unknown. And, as you can imagine, I took great heart from this.

It was Æ who showed me how to look and learn from one's own writing. "Popkins" he said once — he always called her just plain Popkins, whether deliberately mistaking the name or not I never knew. His humor was always subtle — " Popkins had she lived in another age, in the old times to which she certainly belongs, she would undoubtedly have had long golden tresses, a wreath of flowers in one hand , and perhaps a spear in the other. Her eyes would have been like the sea , her nose comely, and on her feet winged sandals. But, this age being the Kali Yuga , as the Indus call it — in our terms, the Iron Age — she comes in habiliments suited to it." Ch. 2, p. 38 The true fairytales … come straight out of myth; they are, as it were, minuscule reaffirmation of myths, or perhaps the myth made accessible to the local folky mind. One might say that fairytales are the myths falling into time and locality … is the same stuff, all the essentials are there, it is small, but perfect. Not minimized, not to be made digestible for children. Ch.

2, p. 39 Quotes about Travers[ edit ] Mary Poppins arrives with the wind , and intervenes in the lives of ordinary humans , making magic , but never admitting that it has taken place. ~ Mark Bostridge Travers's Mary Poppins was a natural phenomena , ancient as mountain ranges, on first-name terms with the primal powers of the universe , adored and respected by everything that saw the world as it was. And she was a mystery . … philosophically, I suspect now, the universe of Mary Poppins underpins all my writing … ~ Neil Gaiman Mary Poppins threatens to leave at a point of time which only she controls. She tells her charges she will be with them until the wind changes or until her necklace breaks. She never tells them where she has come from, where she intends to go or who she really is. But she leaves many clues. ~ Valerie Lawson Mary Poppins arrives with the wind , and intervenes in the lives of ordinary humans , making magic , but never admitting that it has taken place. She understands the language of animals and birds , and between her visits to mortals returns to some secret source.

Although the Poppins books have much in common with other works of children's literature — all the way back to the early 19th century and ETA Hoffmann 's inspiration of making toys come alive — Travers was adamant that she didn't write specifically for children , and that there was no such thing as children's books . Poppins, she said, "had come up of the same well of nothingness as the poetry , myths and legends that had absorbed me all my writing life ." This was something else that connected Travers to Disney , who maintained that his films were not directed at children, but at the innocence within us all. Was P L Travers the real Mary Poppins? - Telegraph Was P L Travers the real Mary Poppins? Justine Picardie 12:01AM GMT 28 Oct 2008 It is now 75 years since P L Travers created 'Mary Poppins', but her tale of dark magic remains as enchanting as ever.

What's more, writes Justine Picardie, it has a surprising relevance to our credit-crunched age If the mark of a classic is its ability to remain relevant for each generation – to be reinvented, as if by magic, at the same time as seeming reassuringly unchanged – then Mary Poppins is a triumphantly successful creation; or, as she herself put it, 'practically perfect in every way'. This autumn, 75 years after P L Travers first wrote Mary Poppins into life, Sir Cameron Mackintosh's musical version is touring the country and playing on Broadway, while the original book is being reissued by HarperCollins. As Mackintosh observes in his introduction to the novel's latest edition, 'Mary Poppins is, and always will be, unique; stern, dependable, businesslike, magical and yet eternally loveable.' But the original character, like her author, Pamela Travers, is far darker and more mysterious than Julie Andrews' sweetness and light in the Disney film; which might be one of many reasons for her continuing capacity to captivate us.

Mary Poppins inhabits the everyday world of nurseries, scented with toast and Sunlight soap, yet she also takes us to scarier places; for magic has always had its shadowy side, and often arises out of great crisis or times of intense need (as recognised by J K Rowling, an admirer of P L Travers, who adopted both her enigmatic disguise in initialling her first names, and also her theme of flight; just as Travers had herself been inspired by J M Barrie's Peter Pan ). It may not be coincidental, then, that the latest revival of Mary Poppins comes at a time when we are facing the most serious economic slump since the Great Depression; for although the Disney film version shifted the story from the impoverished 1930s to the golden days of Edwardian England, it also featured a catastrophic run on the bank where Mr Banks was employed – an event directly reflecting the era in which Travers wrote and set her novel, during the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash. Thus, on the very first page of Mary Poppins, we learn that the Banks family lives in 'the smallest house' in Cherry Tree Lane, and it is 'rather dilapidated and needs a coat of paint'.

Mr Banks – as is fitting in a story published when banks were as wobbly as they are now, and unemployment was soaring – must work very hard to keep his job: 'the City was a place where Mr Banks went every day – except Sundays, of course, and Bank Holidays – and while he was there he 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. And he brought them home with him in his little black bag. Sometimes he would give some to Jane and Michael for their money-boxes, and when he couldn't spare any he would say, "The Bank is broken"…' As it happens, the run on the bank was a Disney invention – and a brilliant one – but Travers, who wept at the film's Hollywood première in 1964 (whether out of annoyance, disapproval or grief), knew what it meant to live in the shadow of a broken bank, and the sorrow of a broken bank manager.

She was born in Queensland, Australia, in 1899, in the house attached to a branch of the Australian Joint Stock Bank, where her father worked. His name was Travers Robert Goff; his first daughter was born Helen Lyndon Goff (known to her family simply as Lyndon), but changed her name as a young actress and journalist to Pamela Lyndon Travers. After she became famous she rewrote her past, describing a childhood on a sugarcane plantation, and casting her father as a handsome Irishman. In truth, he was born in Deptford, south London, and as Travers' biographer, Valerie Lawson, reveals in Mary Poppins, She Wrote, there was no romantic plantation: 'her father was a bank manager before he was demoted to bank clerk. He died in his early forties, his life unfulfilled, his family left destitute.' He drank heavily, a habit that his employers disapproved of, and his already unstable position was made more precarious by the fact that the boom years of the old century were finished, and the threat of financial crisis loomed over the bank's employees, as well as its customers, many of whom were seeing their loans foreclosed.

His wife, Margaret, had also lost most of her inheritance when the Queensland National Bank, where her uncle was a director, was found insolvent. Related Articles Saving Mr Banks 28 Nov 2013 In January 1907 Travers Goff feared he was about to be demoted yet again; he became ill with a high fever, and died several days later. His daughter Lyndon was seven, the oldest of three little girls. Some time afterwards her mother, still grieving, ran out of the house during a thunderstorm, crying that she was going to drown herself in a nearby river. Lyndon wrapped a quilt around herself and her two younger sisters, and told them the story of a magical white horse that could fly even though it had no wings. Retelling this tale in adulthood, Travers identified it as the origin of her authorial identity; as Lawson observes, 'Lyndon believed the magic horse ran underground, and came up eventually as Mary Poppins.' Her mother returned home that night, but Lyndon was to make her escape.

After a brief stint as a secretary in a cashier's office – which she hated, dreading having to balance the books at the end of each day ('probably because of my early association with money, or rather the lack of it,' she later admitted) – she became an actress, adopting a new name and touring Australia with a repertory company. By 1924 she was also writing journalism and poetry, and sailed to England, hoping to earn a living in London. Hardworking and quick-witted, she found buyers for her articles and submitted poems to the Irish Statesman. Its editor, the poet George Russell, was to become a lasting influence: after she travelled to Dublin to meet him, he introduced her to Yeats, and to the study of spiritualism, theosophy and various other forms of mysticism, which fascinated Travers for the rest of her life. Russell also introduced her to Madge Burnand, the daughter of one of his friends, and the two women formed a close friendship. There has been speculation that this may have been a lesbian relationship, along with a subsequent attachment to an American named Jessie Orage, but Pamela remained as tight-lipped on her affairs of the heart as Mary Poppins.

At any rate, in 1931 Madge and Pamela moved out of their rented flat in London and set up home together in a thatched Sussex cottage; and it was there, in the winter of 1933, while recovering from pleurisy, that she began to write Mary Poppins. The story – which was to continue over the course of eight books – revolves around a household in the Depression, whose inhabitants are also somewhat depressed. True, Mrs Banks is not suicidal, and Mr Banks is not an alcoholic, but the family nevertheless reveals some of the same strains as the author's own childhood. There are four children – Jane, the eldest, then Michael, the twins and a baby on the way – and although there are servants ('Mrs Brill to cook for them, and Ellen to lay the tables'), chaos is always close at hand. 'Mr Banks… said to Mrs Banks that she could either have a nice, clean, comfortable house or four children.

But not both, for he couldn't afford it.' When Mary Poppins arrives, she is 'a shape… in the gathering darkness', picked up by the wind and blown to the front door: 'the watching children heard a terrific bang, and as she landed the whole house shook.' Once inside, she immediately reveals her magical powers – sliding up the banisters towards the nursery and pulling a vast number of accoutrements out of an apparently empty carpet bag – yet this Mary Poppins is far more troubling than Julie Andrews in the Disney film. She is vain and imperious, takes offence at the mildest questioning, doses the children with a mysterious potion and leads them into danger as often as she rescues them. But her authority is absolute: 'you could not look at Mary Poppins and disobey her. There was something strange and extraordinary about her – something that was frightening and at the same time most exciting.' Nowadays any nanny who behaved in a similar fashion would be regarded with the utmost suspicion, yet such is the magic of Mary Poppins that she has become a byword for excellence in childcare. This message is reinforced in Cameron Mackintosh's musical version – as in the earlier Disney film – when she performs a miraculous healing of a troubled family.

Disney had turned Mrs Banks into a suffragette – much to Travers' annoyance – and Mackintosh has Mr Banks being fired by the bank after a risky investment decision; in both versions Mary Poppins makes the parents realise what truly matters – their children, above all else – and domestic harmony is restored, so that the nanny can depart, leaving mother safely at home with the family and father reinstated at work. But Travers' own writing was far more subversive than that, as you might expect from a resolutely single parent, who adopted a baby boy in 1939, and showed rather fewer childcare skills than her fictional heroine: she was appalled when her new son cried at night, and talked of sending him to a babies' home in Tunbridge Wells. Their relationship improved thereafter, but, even so, he was dispatched to boarding school while Travers continued to concentrate on her career; by the time he was 20, he had a drinking problem and spent six months in prison for driving drunk without a licence.

'If you are looking for autobiographical facts,' Travers once wrote, 'Mary Poppins is the story of my life.' Given her tendency to re-imagine her past, and her refusal to submit to direct questioning by interviewers, this identification with Mary Poppins seems entirely appropriate – an elusive figure who comes out of the sky, and flies away when the wind changes. Like Peter Pan, she has a sinister side (it is, incidentally, often overlooked that Travers' publisher was Peter Davies, J M Barrie's adopted son, and the inspiration for Peter Pan); and her magic allows children to take flight, but also lands them in perilous places. According to Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath spoke often of Mary Poppins, seeing her as 'the fairy godmother of her childhood'; but there is also something of the bad fairy about her – just a touch, yet enough to keep us spellbound. And what, I wonder, would Mary Poppins make of her continuing hold over generations of children?

She would take it as her due, of course, while remaining secretive as always, for as Pamela Travers made clear in her first story, 'nobody ever knew what Mary Poppins felt about it, for Mary Poppins never told anybody anything…'

Question: a Give either of the forenames of the author of Mary Poppins, PL Travers?
Answer: Pamela Lyndon