The Real Peter Pan (40 page)

Michael and Barrie in the garden of Black Lake Cottage, in the summer of 1905.

Michael, mascot for Barrie’s famous cricket team, the Allahakbarries, being presented with the match ball.

Michael and Barrie enacted the fantasy until a scene for the play emerged. In 1905 the Black Lake was the mermaid’s lagoon and death by drowning ‘an awfully big adventure’.

Michael in the Peter Pan costume Barrie bought for him.

Barrie playing Captain Hook to Michael’s Peter Pan in 1906.

After the scene at the mermaids’ lagoon, Michael developed an unnatural fear of water.

Michael (in the distance) and his brothers learn to fish on their first holiday to Scotland in 1906.

Sylvia in 1907, grieving the death of Arthur. ‘She had one of the saddest expressions on her face we had ever seen.’

Michael, now with all the gear, fishing the burn near Dhivach Lodge in 1907.

The Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens by Sir George Frampton – after pictures of Michael taken by Barrie: ‘He prefers the Peter [Pan] clothes to a nude child.’

Less than two years after Arthur died, Sylvia collapsed complaining of a terrible pain around her heart.

Scourie, an unspoilt dream of a place on the far north-west coast of Scotland, where in 1911 Michael met Johnny Mackay and caught his first sea trout.

Michael (eleven) and Barrie sitting together on a bench outside Scourie Lodge. Nico standing in front; George and Peter behind.