J. M. Barrie - a Scottish writer

It has come to my attention that today, 19 June, is the eightieth anniversary of the death of that great Scottish writer, J. M. Barrie. Although nowadays chiefly remembered as the author of Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, Barrie was much more than a writer of children's stories. He was in his forties, with many successful novels and plays to his name before he ever produced Peter Pan. Cally Phillips, of the Galloway Raiders, has recently founded the J. M. Barrie Literary Society; since I know the work involved in setting up a new society, I congratulate her on her efforts and wish the project well.

Siegfried Sassoon met Barrie while preparing a birthday tribute for Thomas Hardy, in 1919, having met Hardy in person for the first time only six months earlier. Barrie was living in a top-floor flat in Adelphi Terrace, a street which was almost entirely demolished in 1936, and Hardy, just coming up to his 80th birthday, was staying with him. Sassoon described Barrie as "almost dwarfish in a very old blue suit". Sassoon continues, "I was struck by the expression of melancholy which haunted his queer facial shabbiness." This he attributed to tiredness, as Barrie, "our most successful living dramatist", had a new play in the final stages of rehearsal in the West End.

In addition to Hardy and Barrie, another poet, J. C. Squire, was present in Barrie's apartment, and Sassoon saw him chatting with Florence Hardy. Whereas the Hardys were already regarded by Sassoon as great friends, Barrie would never fall into that category. However, in 1925, their paths crossed again, more obliquely, when Sassoon rented the top-floor flat at 23 Campden Hill Square in London (where there is now a blue plaque in his honour). He discovered that this house was where Barrie had written most of Peter Pan, a literary connection he could not resist.

It had actually been the home of the Llewelyn Davies family. George, the eldest of Sylvia Llewelyn Davies's five sons, had been killed in action near Ypres in 1915. Another brother, Michael, drowned in a boating accident on the Thames, along with a friend, the aristocratic Rupert Buxton; there were rumours that the two young men had an "unhealthy" relationship. Barrie had based the "Lost Boys" on the Llewelyn Davies boys, but the character of Peter Pan had been invented when they were still children and their tragic future remained unsuspected.

Barrie's divorce from Mary Ansell in 1909 had been a source of great sorrow to him, to the extent that some friends had written to the editors of leading newspapers to ask them not to report the court case. Following the death of Sylvia Llewelyn Davies's husband, Barrie had become a second father to the boys, and appears to have begun a relationship with her, but she died a year after his divorce, of cancer, making Barrie, or "Uncle Jim" as they called him, a joint guardian to her children. He had no children of his own, and bequeathed the copyright on the Peter Pan series of works to Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital. When he died in 1937, he was buried in his birthplace at Kirriemuir; the house where he was born is open to the public and cared for by the National Trust for Scotland. I hope to visit it some day.

Siegfried Sassoon's relationship with Barrie, such as it was, deteriorated beyond recovery when, on Thomas Hardy's death in 1928, Barrie was one of those who campaigned to have Hardy buried, against his wishes, in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey; only his heart is buried in Stinsford Churchyard. Sassoon wanted Hardy's wishes to be respected and was angry with the big names who claimed Hardy and brought about the double funeral - so distressed that he found himself unable to take his seat in the Abbey for the service to which Florence Hardy had especially invited him. He said unkindly of Barrie that, when he died and a post-mortem took place, they would find that the man had no heart. It was one of many bitter remarks Sassoon made over the years. He did not always mean them. He outlived Barrie by thirty years, and we will mark the fiftieth anniversary of his death at our AGM in September. I hope to see many of my readers there.

Regenerated

In my last post I wrote about mental illness, with particular reference to Siegfried Sassoon's time as a patient at Craiglockhart Military Hospital in Edinburgh during 1917. In June of that year, he wrote in his diary "I wish I could believe that Ancient War History justifies the indefinite prolongation of this war. The Jingos define it as 'an enormous quarrel between incompatible spirits and destinies, in which one or the other must succumb'. But the men who write these manifestos do not truly know what useless suffering the war inflicts."

Siegfried knew what he was talking about, and was careful to focus on the politicians rather than the generals as the cause of all the trouble when he made his famous protest, the "Soldier's Declaration", which got him admitted to Craiglockhart because his targets did not dare court-martial someone with a military record such as his. Last weekend at Craiglockhart, now the home of Edinburgh Napier University, the Alliance of Literary Societies met for its annual conference and members of the SSF, along with many other societies, learned more about the period. Many did not know about Sassoon's actions or his writing, and the conference was bookended by events focused on Wilfred Owen, which means some will have gone away without realising the dominance of Sassoon in their literary partnership - a friendship that lasted only from the summer of 1917 until November 1918, when Owen was killed in action.

Friday evening's reception in the Great Hall of Edinburgh Castle was one of those very special occasions that turn out as memorable as they are unexpected. It was not even planned at the time the conference programme was being drafted, and Fiona McDonald worked extremely hard to bring everything together in time, but no one went away disappointed (apart from one or two people who were unable to get there in time because of issues with satnavs, domestic emergencies, etc, and had to spend all weekend hearing other people telling them how wonderful it had been and what a shame they had missed it!)

I don't have space to say much about each individual element in the conference weekend, but SSF and WOA members will read more in our respective Journals later in the summer. Simply being at Craiglockhart, standing in the former entrance hall where Sassoon and his companions once stood, and seeing the photographs, film and other memorabilia in the War Poets' Collection brought a better understanding of their experiences, and many people commented on this.

Friday evening had its hangover, and during Saturday we discovered there would be some changes to the programme of entertainment planned for the end of the afternoon. While Professor Alistair McCleery was giving his lecture on the First World War and the Scottish novel (and now I absolutely have to read Lewis Grassic Gibbon's classic Sunset Song) and people were enjoying a soup and sandwich lunch, Sam Gray and I were running around trying to find out who exactly was coming and what they were going to do. Caroline Clegg and violinist Thoren Ferguson were very able stand-ins, and those who had missed the previous evening's event at least had a chance to hear Thoren play. Unfortunately he could not stay for dinner because he was shortly to be on stage at the Usher Hall!

Linda Curry & Alistair McCleery

By this time we had enjoyed a truly brilliant lecture by Professor Hazel Hutchison and also concluded the business of the ALS AGM. I think that those delegates attending for the first time were surprised and pleased to discover that others shared their experiences in running, or belonging to, a literary society. New committee members Jodie Robson and Cally Phillips brought a fresh viewpoint to the challenges facing the Alliance and individual societies.

Dinner in the Rivers Suite fulfilled all our expectations, a real culinary treat, followed by readings by individuals from various societies. Many have read at previous events and know what to expect; others approached the task nervously but were warmly received, and there were quite enough volunteers to fill the allotted time. To those who thanked me for my efforts, I can only say "Thank you for coming". Conferences don't happen unless enough people are willing to make the effort to attend, and they are only successful when those same people make allowances for the glitches and come away saying they enjoyed their day (or in this case, their weekend). 

For those who joined Sunday morning's walk, there were further delights in store, not all of them related to Wilfred Owen. John Lennon, Braveheart, and Wojtek the beer-drinking bear also figured in the equation. Neil McLennan was a lively and popular guide, and some of us repaired afterwards to the Ensign Ewart public house in the Royal Mile to mull over the weekend. I wish you had all been there.