9 May: Peter Pan Day

Today is Peter Pan Day, so here are 10 things you might not know about Peter Pan.

1. JM Barrie named Peter Pan after his friend's son, Peter Llewelyn Davies, who he'd officially adopted after his parents died, and Pan, the god of the woodlands. The idea of a boy who never grew up might have come from JM Barrie's own mother, who was deeply affected by the death of Barrie's brother in a skating accident at 14. She took comfort, perhaps, from the notion that in dying young, her son would be a boy forever.
2. Peter Pan's first appearance in print was in a novel for adults called The Little White Bird, published in 1902. The chapters he appeared in were later published as a stand alone book called Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens.
3. His next appearance was in a play two years later called Peter Pan or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. Working titles for the play included The Great White Father and The Boy Who Hated Mothers.
4. The novel we now know as Peter Pan was adapted from the play and published in 1911 under the title Peter and Wendy. It was so popular that it was performed every year after that for ten years. Barrie revised and changed the script every year.
5. One of the changes he made was for the children to require fairy dust in order to fly. Originally the children could fly without it, but that resulted in real children injuring themselves trying to fly. Another was cutting out the words “To die will be an awfully big adventure” during the first world war.
6. Peter Pan didn't wear Green in the play or the novel. He wore Brown. His clothes were made from skeleton leaves and cobwebs.
7. Captain Hook went to Eton. In the play, his last words were “Floreat Etona”, the school's motto. JM Barrie confirmed in a lecture that Hook went to the school, and that he knew Long John Silver.
8. One school production of the Peter Pan play had a young Walt Disney in the title role.
9. The rights to Peter Pan belong to Great Ormond Street Hospital so every time the play is staged the hospital gets royalties. When Barrie donated the rights to the hospital, he asked that the amount raised should never be revealed, and the hospital has honoured that. When Walt Disney wanted to make the animated film, he had to negotiate with the hospital.
10. It isn't true that Tinkerbell the fairy was inspired by Marilyn Monroe. She was actually based on an actress called Margaret Kerry who was the animator's reference model.

NEW!

Killing Me Softly

Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.

Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena. 

Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

E-book