What is the real story behind Peter Pan?

The play Peter Pan tells a story about a boy who refuses to grow up. The story sounds like make-believe. But many people believe that British playwright Sir James M. Barrie wrote the play about a real person.

Some say Barrie modelled Peter Pan after himself! Only 1.6 metres tall, Barrie always related well to children. As an 11-year-old friend told him: “You’re old, but you’re not grown-up. You’re one of us”.

Barrie said that Peter Pan was based on five boys – George, John, Peter, Michael, and Nico Davies. Barrie met their mother at a dinner party and soon became friends with her sons. Barrie told the brothers that Peter Pan came from “the spark I got from you”.

But Barrie wrote about boys who never grew up long before Peter Pan appeared on stage in 1904, and long before he met the Davies family. The idea may have come from his older brother.

Tall and strong, Barrie’s big brother David was everything James wanted to be. But on the day before David’s 14th birthday, he died in an accident. Later, James wrote: “When I became a man, [David] was still a boy of 13”.

Barrie lived to be 77. Throughout his long life, he wrote fondly of people who, like David, never grew up.

Picture Credit : Google