I read this after being woken by a leaking hot water bottle so was already in a half awake state of memories of similar experiences as a child; a child who was frightened and had nightmares about the ticking clock in Peter Pan, who couldn’t explain why but who thought her mother had died (she had actually gone into hospital soon after some older relatives had died and I was too young to make sense of her absence).
I have never been able to watch the film again or read the book but your piece has finally helped me make a connection that I must have understood as a child but couldn’t articulate. Thank you Henry! Your opening of putting your little boy to bed is so beautiful and poignant.
I was similarly obsessed as a very small child by another Barrie story, about a young girl taken by the fairies, at a time when my own eldest sister was mortally ill. I think Barrie in general is extremely creepy, entirely suffused with an obsessive fear of death.
I’m truly sorry to hear about your sister Victoria….. I agree about the creepiness in his work, he seemed to be able to access the in the moment-ness of a particular age too, which can be a scary place for child.
Thank you Jaimie. She survived! (I realise my original comment was ambiguous.) She was saved, funnily enough, by a failed medical trial -- I mean it failed for everyone else. But I suppose the point is that I became obsessed with the Barrie story at a point at which, though no-one was saying so openly, she was expected to die.
That’s very good news 🥰 (My nephew had a similar very lucky response to a trial). Children’s stories are so powerful aren’t they but they can walk a very fine line between sense making and nightmare triggering.
One of your very best posts! I would only add that the literal meaning of golden lads and girls is matched by another, even more apposite. Shakespeare calls on his memories of Stratford summers, the golden lads are daffodils, and the chimney sweepers the puffballs they so soon become
Eliot. I can never get by Eliot. As a child of the mid 20th century, I don't think I am meant to. He sticks in my craw to create a (ticking? pulsing?) heart there that "questions the distemper part."
For me the inescapable poet when thoughts run along these lines is Housman. He can never forget that the night cometh.
"Into my heart an air that kills," "Is my team ploughing," "From far, from eve and morning," "To an athlete dying young," "Reveille" — maybe most of his poems are on this theme. The one that always comes to mind at this time of year is "Loveliest of trees":
Very thoughtful and wide ranging: thanks you so much. But....shame on you for quoting Chaucer in a 'translation' rather than the original, which does not take much work to master.
What a beautiful and interesting text at the same "time". Thank you.
Thanks!
Brilliant. As someone who lost my three children in a terrible way, I found this very poignant. And I love Eliot.
Oh I am so sorry to hear that, how awful
I read this after being woken by a leaking hot water bottle so was already in a half awake state of memories of similar experiences as a child; a child who was frightened and had nightmares about the ticking clock in Peter Pan, who couldn’t explain why but who thought her mother had died (she had actually gone into hospital soon after some older relatives had died and I was too young to make sense of her absence).
I have never been able to watch the film again or read the book but your piece has finally helped me make a connection that I must have understood as a child but couldn’t articulate. Thank you Henry! Your opening of putting your little boy to bed is so beautiful and poignant.
Oh gosh what awful nightmare
It was, but your essay has helped make sense of it, which is part of the joy and power of writing, so thank you again.
I was similarly obsessed as a very small child by another Barrie story, about a young girl taken by the fairies, at a time when my own eldest sister was mortally ill. I think Barrie in general is extremely creepy, entirely suffused with an obsessive fear of death.
I’m truly sorry to hear about your sister Victoria….. I agree about the creepiness in his work, he seemed to be able to access the in the moment-ness of a particular age too, which can be a scary place for child.
Thank you Jaimie. She survived! (I realise my original comment was ambiguous.) She was saved, funnily enough, by a failed medical trial -- I mean it failed for everyone else. But I suppose the point is that I became obsessed with the Barrie story at a point at which, though no-one was saying so openly, she was expected to die.
That’s very good news 🥰 (My nephew had a similar very lucky response to a trial). Children’s stories are so powerful aren’t they but they can walk a very fine line between sense making and nightmare triggering.
One of your very best posts! I would only add that the literal meaning of golden lads and girls is matched by another, even more apposite. Shakespeare calls on his memories of Stratford summers, the golden lads are daffodils, and the chimney sweepers the puffballs they so soon become
Thanks!
Echoes of Blake's "Laughing Song"... "Songs of Innocence" and "Songs of Experience".
I last read Peter Pan when I was 7, adamant that it was ‘not too old for me’. I think maybe I should return to it!
'Twelve o’clock.
Along the reaches of the street ' brings to mind Under Milk Wood.
The image of children, or anyone, wasting away is upsetting...
Eliot. I can never get by Eliot. As a child of the mid 20th century, I don't think I am meant to. He sticks in my craw to create a (ticking? pulsing?) heart there that "questions the distemper part."
His spurned wife didn't dig him either. She wrapped her faeces and dropped them in his letter box. Or so I read somewhere..
For me the inescapable poet when thoughts run along these lines is Housman. He can never forget that the night cometh.
"Into my heart an air that kills," "Is my team ploughing," "From far, from eve and morning," "To an athlete dying young," "Reveille" — maybe most of his poems are on this theme. The one that always comes to mind at this time of year is "Loveliest of trees":
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
Very thoughtful and wide ranging: thanks you so much. But....shame on you for quoting Chaucer in a 'translation' rather than the original, which does not take much work to master.
And he seyde, 'know thyself first immortal,
And loke ay besily thou werke and wisse
To commun profit, and thou shalt not misse
To comen swiftly to that place dere,
That ful of blisse is and of soules clere...'
THAT'S the 'plain English phrase' in question...
I read the original but not everyone wants it