Travers never married. [18] Though she had numerous fleeting relationships with men throughout her life, she lived for more than a decade with Madge Burnand, daughter of Sir Francis Burnand, a playwright and the former editor of Punch. They shared a London flat from 1927 to 1934, then moved to Pound Cottage near Mayfield, East Sussex, where Travers published the first of the Mary Poppins books. Their relationship, in the words of one biographer, was "intense", but equally ambiguous. Still, Saving Mr. Banksis an entertaining film, though it’s been said that in real life, Travers was even more of a pill than the portrayal by Emma Thompson. Bird Woman: An old woman who sits on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral and feeds the birds. She sells bags of crumbs to passers-by for tuppence a bag. Her catch-phrase is 'feed the birds, tuppence a bag'. She appears a few times throughout the books and is good friends with Mary. It is later revealed that she is the mother of the Park Keeper and her real name is Mrs. Smith. She appears in the 1964 film played by Jane Darwell (in her final film appearance) and is the subject of the song " Feed the Birds" sung by Poppins. She also plays a similar role in the musical, where she sings the song "Feed the Birds" as a duet with Mary. In 1925, Travers was fortunate to meet the great poet George William Russell (pen name AE). He was the editor of the newspaper, the Irish Statesman. Impressed by her talent, he published some of Travers’s poems. Russell also introduced her to Yeats, who was instrumental in provoking her interest in mysticism. This interest had profound influence on Travers’s life later. Fox, Margalit (1996-04-25). "P. L. Travers, Creator of the Magical and Beloved Nanny Mary Poppins, Is Dead at 96". The New York Times.

The Red Cow: A self-described 'model cow' whom Mary Poppins remembers as a good friend of her mother. A fallen star once became caught on her horn, causing her to dance uncontrollably until in desperation she jumped over the moon. Unexpectedly, she finds she misses the happy feeling that dancing gave her, and on the advice of Mary Poppins's mother, she decides to search for another star. In Mary Poppins, Michael sees the Red Cow walking down Cherry Tree Lane in search of a star, leading Mary Poppins to tell her story to the children.

Mary Poppins is not nice. She arrives, to be the nanny for the four Banks children, riding a puff of wind; she understands, and can be understood by, animals; she can take you round the world in about two minutes; and the medicine she gives you will taste like whatever your heart desires (lime-juice cordial for Jane Banks; milk for the infant Banks twins) — but a spoonful of sugar, to quote the very sugary movie, is nowhere in sight. Travers had a very rich fantasy life. She had a vivid imagination. She loved the animals and the fairy tales. Sometimes, she used to call herself a hen. She developed the habit of reading at a very young age. She used to read YB Yeats as her bedtime story. She was a admirer of the author, J.M Barrie, who created the character Peter Pan. Following her father's death, Goff, along with her mother and sisters, moved to Bowral, New South Wales, in 1907, and she attended the local branch of the Sydney Church of England Grammar School. [15] She boarded at the now-defunct Normanhurst School in Ashfield, a suburb of Sydney, from 1912. At Normanhurst, she began to love theatre. In 1914 she published an article in the Normanhurst School Magazine, her first, and later that year directed a school concert. The following year, Goff played the role of Bottom in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. She became a prefect and sought to have a successful career as an actress. [16] [17] Goff's first employment was at the Australian Gas Light Company as a cashier. [18] Between 1918 and 1924 she resided at 40 Pembroke Street, Ashfield. [19] In 1920 Goff appeared in her first pantomime. [20] The following year she was hired to work in a Shakespearean Company run by Allan Wilkie based in Sydney. [21] Career [ edit ] Travers began publishing her poems in Australian periodicals, when she was still a teenager. She improved her writing skills by writing for newspapers and magazines like Triad and “The Bulletin”. She adopted the name of PL Travers (Pamela Lyndon Travers, which was shortened to PL to hide her gender). She had a reputation of being an accomplished actress and dancer. She left for England in 1924, after touring New Zealand and Australia. She joined Allan Wilkie’s Shakespearean Company, as she was a great fan of Allan Wilkie.

The 2013 motion picture Saving Mr. Banks is a dramatised retelling of both the working process during the planning of Mary Poppins and of Travers's early life, drawing parallels with Mary Poppins and that of the author's childhood. The movie stars Emma Thompson as P. L. Travers and Tom Hanks as Walt Disney. Neither was she sentimental. Poppins had little time for the Bird Woman, the vagrant stationed on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral, and on the issue of avian welfare in the capital went further even than Dawes Sr – “Feed the birds and what have you got? Fat birds!” – by suggesting they should be baked in a pie. Through her connection to Russell, she became friends with poet William Butler Yeats and studied mythology with G.I. Gurdjieff. Helen Lyndon Goff, also known as Lyndon, was born on 9 August 1899 in Maryborough, Queensland, Australia, at her family's home. [4] Her mother, Margaret Agnes Goff (née Morehead), was Australian and the niece of Boyd Dunlop Morehead, Premier of Queensland from 1888 to 1890. [ citation needed] Her father, Travers Robert Goff, was unsuccessful as a bank manager owing to his alcoholism, and was eventually demoted to the position of bank clerk. [5] The two had been married on 9 November 1898, nine months before Helen was born. [4] The name Helen came from a maternal great-grandmother and great-aunt. Although she was born in Australia, Goff considered herself Irish and later expressed the sentiment that her birth had been "misplaced". [6]

Childhood woven with fairy tales

He is often consumed in his work and, throughout the film, was shown to neglect his children. But he was not a static character; his attitude changed throughout the film to finally becoming the type of affectionate father that most children would wish for, shown most prominently with him fixing his children's kite and taking them to go fly it outside. Though this is not the character specifically created in the books, he is represented well. Though he came across as brash and harsh and remained that way in the books, Disney felt that would be a pessimistic persona to portray. I’ve always thought that Mary Poppins is David Tomlinson’s movie as much as it is Julie Andrews’. When, as Mr Banks, he gets his hat punched inside out and his bosses destroy his umbrella, he plays the scene with a pathos that, to a child of seven or eight, does terrible violence to the notion of parental infallibility. Tomlinson is the great heart of the movie, the warmth to Andrews’ splinter of ice, who, while sustaining the film’s line in jokey verbosity, still manages to be moving. In the early 1920s, she was published in the literary magazine The Bulletin. It was during this time she adopted the stage name Pamela and gained a reputation as a dancer and Shakespearean actress, supporting herself as a journalist.

P. L. Travers - papers, ca. 1899–1988, 4.5 metres of textual material (28 boxes) - manuscript, typescript, and printed Clippings, Photographs, Objects, Drawings, State Library of New South Wales, MLMSS 5341, MLOH 62 Disney spent decades trying to reach an arrangement with Travers, and though Travers hated the film, it was – for her and Disney at least – financially very lucrative. Travers, P.L. (1970–1971), "George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1877–1949)", Man, Myth and Magic: Encyclopedia of the Supernatural, London: Purnell , 12 vol.; reprinted in International Gurdjieff Review 3.1 (Fall 1999), In Memoriam: An Introduction to Gurdjieff Travers’ own sense of ownership of her creation in turn obscured the contribution made by the illustrator Mary Shepard. Despite a 54 year collaboration, Shepard is regularly ignored in discussions of the books: the 2013 movie Saving Mr Banks, which detailed the genesis of the film, did not even mention Shepard or the pivotal role she played in the books’ success.Ouzounian, Richard (2013-12-13). "P L Travers might have liked Mary Poppins onstage". The Toronto Star . Retrieved 2014-03-06. In 1964, Mary Poppins was produced into a Disney film. In 2013, the film Saving Mr. Banksstarring Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks was created to tell the story of the making of Mary Poppins and the fraught relationship between Travers and Walt Disney. Here’s an excerpt from a Smithsonian Magazine article on how this “based on a true story” might have been slightly sugar-coated: Chapter One East Wind If YOU want to find Cherry Tree Lane all you have to do is ask the Policeman at the crossroads. 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. To begin with, it is the smallest house in the Lane. And besides that, it is the only one that is rather dilapidated and needs a coat of paint. But Mr Banks, who owns it, said to Mrs Banks that she could have either a nice, clean, comfortable house or four children. But not both, for he couldn’t afford it. And after Mrs Banks had given the matter some consideration she came to the conclusion that she would rather have Jane, who was the eldest, and Michael, who came next, and John and Barbara, who were Twins and came last of all. So it was settled, and that was how the Banks family came to live at Number Seventeen, with Mrs Brill to cook for them, and Ellen to lay the tables, and Robertson Ay to cut the lawn and clean the knives and polish the shoes and, as Mr Banks always said, “to waste his time and my money.” And, of course, besides these there was Katie Nanna, who doesn’t really deserve to come into the book at all because, at the time I am speaking of, she had just left Number Seventeen. “Without a by your leave or a word of warning. And what am I to do?” said Mrs Banks. “Advertise, my dear,” said Mr Banks, putting on his shoes. “And I wish Robertson Ay would go This book has the story where Mary permanently leaves Cherry Tree Lane at the end of the book. She opens her umbrella, and it carries her off into the night. The children are happy she kept her promise to stay until the door opened, and they and their parents happily gather round the fire. (Presumably this means the Banks parents have now learned to spend more time with their children, thanks to Mary Poppins’s lessons.) In 1936, Travers met mystic George Gurdjieff, with the help of her friend Jessie Orange. Travers studied the Gurdjieff System with the help of Jean Harp, an American publisher. George Gurdjieff had a great influence on several literary figures, including Travers.