Never say goodbye

A well-worn copy of "The Story of Peter Pan" sits with crumbled old papers. A much loved book read time and time again.
The Story of Peter Pan for Little People.
R. Ferguson image, March 2019.

Far away in the Never-Never-Never-Land, the Lost Boys lived in a forest…
They lived like moles under the ground.
The Story of Peter Pan For Little People (A New Home, pp. 32-33)

Alone and discarded among other former memories. Spine broken – fitted with an assortment of mending tape. Once read…many times read, the life passed from its pages..now reborn by a caring hand that knew another story it could tell…of a lost boy close to author James Matthew Barrie.

The Peter Pan statue at Kensington Gardens, London. Peter with his flute or trumpet atop a much sculpted plinth featuring animals.
George Frampton’s Peter Pan statue at Kensington Gardens, London.
P. Ferguson image, March 2017.

George Llewellyn Davies served in the Great War…a Second Lieutenant with the 6th Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps, attached to the Rifle Brigade. In his youth George was Barrie’s inspiration for the character of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys.  One famous line, described as memorable,  To die will be an awfully big adventure succumbs to Davies’ Great War when on March 15, 1915…George joined the lost boys of many families. George Llewellyn Davies is buried at Voormezeele Enclosure No.3, Voormezeele, near Ieper (Ypres), Belgium.

A magical photo of ducks floating peacefully top the Serpentine. Colourful birds on gently motioned water.
The ducks in the Serpentine, Kensington Gardens, London.
P. Ferguson image, March 2017.

Frampton’s statue was commissioned by Barrie and appeared overnight, without permissions, 30 April 1912. Barrie published the following note, There is a surprise in store for the children who go to Kensington Gardens to feed the ducks in the Serpentine this morning. Down by the little bay on the south-western side of the tail of the Serpentine they will find a May-day gift by Mr J.M. Barrie, a figure of Peter Pan blowing his pipe on the stump of a tree, with fairies and mice and squirrels all around. It is the work of Sir George Frampton, and the bronze figure of the boy who would never grow up is delightfully conceived. (The Times, 1 May 1912).

The red petals of a floral plant next to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone of George Llewellyn Davies, the inspiration for Peter Pan.
Alongside George Llewellyn Davies, at Voormezeele Enclosure No. 3, Belgium.
P. Ferguson image, September 2006.

Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away, and away means forgetting.
Peter Pan
J.M. Barrie, 1904

Previously published Pipes of War website, 16 March 2019