PETER PAN HELPS THE GREAT ORMOND STREET HOSPITAL

Last night, The Morgans and The Grandma met Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn't grow up, and visited London from the air, flying thanks to his magic and that of his friends like Tinker Bell and the Lost Boys.

It has been an incredible experience full of good moments with a character who helps out daily at the Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Peter Pan is one of the most famous characters in modern children's literature. Created by J. M. Barrie, he first appeared in the novel The Little White Bird (1902), but became internationally famous through the play Peter Pan; or, The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up (1904) and the later novel Peter and Wendy (1911). Peter Pan represents eternal childhood, freedom, imagination, and the refusal to enter the adult world. Over time, he has become a major cultural icon recognized across generations.

Peter Pan is portrayed as a mischievous and adventurous boy who can fly and who never grows up. He lives in the magical island of Neverland, a fantastical place inhabited by fairies, pirates, mermaids, and other extraordinary beings. There, Peter leads the Lost Boys, a group of children without families who share his adventurous lifestyle. Among his closest companions is the fairy Tinker Bell, while one of the most important human characters is Wendy Darling, a girl from London whom Peter persuades to travel with him to Neverland along with her brothers John and Michael. Together, they experience many adventures and confront Peter's greatest enemy, the feared pirate Captain Hook.

One of the most remarkable aspects of Peter Pan is his symbolic meaning. Peter embodies the freedom, creativity, and imagination associated with childhood, but he also reflects its selfishness and emotional immaturity. 

Barrie often portrays him as brave, carefree, and charming, yet also arrogant and forgetful. Peter has difficulty forming lasting emotional bonds because he forgets people and experiences very quickly. This lack of memory is connected to his eternal youth: in order to remain a child forever, he must constantly forget what he learns and experiences. As a result, Peter is both enchanting and unsettling, combining innocence with emotional distance.

Barrie never provided a very detailed physical description of Peter Pan, leaving room for later adaptations to shape his appearance. However, Peter is usually depicted wearing clothing made from leaves or other natural materials, emphasizing his connection to nature and the wild. He is often shown carrying a dagger or small sword. His name also recalls the Greek god Pan, a mythical figure associated with nature, music, and untamed freedom. This connection reinforces Peter's role as a character who exists between the human and magical worlds.

The origins of Peter Pan are surprisingly melancholic. In Barrie's earlier stories, Peter was originally a baby who flew away from home to Kensington Gardens, where he lived among fairies and birds. When he later attempted to return to his family, he discovered that the window was closed and that another child had taken his place. Feeling abandoned and forgotten, Peter chose never to return to ordinary human life. This backstory helps explain why he rejects adulthood and prefers to remain forever in the fantasy world of Neverland.

Peter's ability to fly is another essential feature of the character. In some versions of the story, he can fly because he is part bird, while in others he teaches children to fly through happy thoughts combined with fairy dust. Barrie later explained that he introduced fairy dust partly because children who saw the original stage play sometimes attempted dangerous imitations of Peter's flying abilities. The magical explanation became one of the best-known elements of the story.

Over the decades, Peter Pan has appeared in countless theatrical productions, films, television series, and literary reinterpretations. Traditionally, the stage role was often played by women, especially in early twentieth-century productions. The character has also inspired psychological and cultural interpretations. The expression Peter Pan syndrome, popularized by psychologist Dan Kiley in the 1980s, refers to adults who resist responsibility and continue behaving in immature or childlike ways.

Peter Pan's cultural impact extends far beyond literature. Barrie famously donated the rights to the story to Great Ormond Street Hospital, a children's hospital in London that continues to benefit from certain royalties connected to the character in the United Kingdom. Statues of Peter Pan can also be found in several places around the world, especially the well-known sculpture in Kensington Gardens, London.

Ultimately, Peter Pan is far more than a simple children's character. He symbolizes humanity's desire to preserve the freedom and imagination of childhood, while also revealing the emotional cost of refusing to grow up. This combination of adventure, fantasy, nostalgia, and sadness explains why Peter Pan has continued to fascinate readers and audiences for more than a century.

More information: The Guardian

Download Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie

Don't grow up, it is a trap.

Peter Pan

CHILHOOD, IMMORTALITY AND ESCAPISM IN NEVERLAND

Today, The Morgans and The Grandma visited Neverland to search for the great treasure that legend says maybe is hidden on this island.

Neverland is a fictional island featured in the works of J. M. Barrie and those based on them. It is an imaginary faraway place where Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, Captain Hook, the Lost Boys, and some other imaginary beings and creatures live. Although not all people who come to Neverland cease to age, its best-known resident, Peter Pan, famously refused to grow up. Thus, the term is often used as a metaphor for eternal childhood (and childishness), as well as immortality and escapism.

The concept was first introduced as the Never Never Land in Barrie's West End theatre play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, first staged in 1904. In the earliest drafts of the play, the island was called Peter's Never Never Never Land, a name possibly influenced by the Never Never, a contemporary term for outback Australia. In the 1928 published version of the play's script, the name was shortened to the Never Land. Although the caption to one of F. D. Bedford's illustrations also calls it The Never Never Land, Barrie's 1911 novelisation Peter and Wendy simply refers to it as the Neverland, and its many variations the Neverlands.

Neverland has been featured prominently in subsequent works that either adapted Barrie's works or expanded upon them. These Neverlands sometimes vary in nature from the original.

The novel says that the Neverlands are compact enough that adventures are never far between, and that a map of a child's mind would resemble a map of Neverland, with no boundaries at all. Accordingly, Barrie explains that the Neverlands are found in the minds of children; although each is always more or less an island as well as having a family resemblance, they are not the same from one child to the next. For example, John Darling's Neverland had a lagoon with flamingos flying over it, while his little brother Michael's had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it.

The exact situation of Neverland is ambiguous and vague. In Barrie's original tale, the name for the real world is the Mainland, which suggests Neverland is a small island, reached by flight. Peter -who is described as saying anything that came into his head- tells Wendy the way to Neverland is second to the right, and straight on till morning. In the novel, the children are said to have found the island only because it was out looking for them. Barrie additionally writes that Neverland is near the stars of the milky way and it is reached always at the time of sunrise.

In Barrie's Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906), a proto-version of Neverland, located in the Serpentine in Kensington Gardens, is called the Birds' Island, where baby Peter reaches by flight, or by sailing in a paper boat or thrush's nest.

Walt Disney's 1953 Peter Pan adds a star to Peter's directions: second star to the right, and straight on till morning. From afar, these stars depict Neverland in the distance. 

The 2003 live-action film repeats this representation, as the Darling children are flown through the Solar System to reach Neverland. 

In the 1991 film Hook, Neverland is shown to be located in the same way as the 1953 Disney film. While flying is the only way to reach it, the film does not show exactly how Captain Hook manages to get from Neverland to London in order to kidnap Peter's children, Jack and Maggie. 

In Peter Pan in Scarlet (2006), by Geraldine McCaughrean, Neverland is located in waters known as the Sea of One Thousand Islands. The children get to the island by flying on a road called the High Way.

In Peter David's 2009 novel Tigerheart, Neverland is renamed the Anyplace and is described as being both a physical place and a dream land where human adults and children go when they dream. Additionally, there is a location called the Noplace which is cold and devoid of colour where people in a coma and those who are lost live. 

In the 2011 miniseries Neverland, inspired by Barrie's works, the titular place is said to be another planet existing at the centre of the universe. It is accessible only via a magic portal generated by a strange sphere.

In the 2015 American film Pan, Neverland is a floating island in a sky-like dimension.

The passage of time in Neverland is similarly ambiguous. The novel Peter and Wendy mentions that in Neverland there are many more suns and moons than on the Mainland, making time difficult to track. One way to tell the time is to find the crocodile, and wait until the clock inside it strikes the hour. Although Neverland is widely thought of as a place where children don't grow up, it is made clear in Peter and Wendy that Lost Boys can grow up and are vaguely thinned out as punishment for doing so. Peter also explains to Wendy that fairies have short lifespans, another temporal confusion.

In Peter Pan in Scarlet (2006), by Geraldine McCaughrean, time freezes as soon as the children arrive in Neverland. 

In the 2011 miniseries Neverland, in which Neverland is said to be another planet entirely, time has frozen due to external cosmic forces converging on the planet, preventing anyone living there from ageing.

More information: The Christian Imagination

So come with me, where dreams are born, 
and time is never planned. 
Just think of happy things, 
and your heart will fly on wings, 
forever, in Never Never Land!

James M. Barrie

THE JONES VISIT DISNEYLAND IN MARNE-LA-VALLÉE

Marta and Paqui Jones at Disneyland Paris

The Jones are visiting Disneyland Paris in Marne-la-Vallée. They are enjoying with all the characters of this selected club of entertainment. It's a special day for all of them, including The Grandma who has met two lovely old friends, Mary Poppins and Peter Pan, and has remember one of her favourite quotes: Don't grow up. It's a trap!

Disneyland Paris, originally Euro Disney Resort, is an entertainment resort in Marne-la-Vallée, a new town located 32 km  east of the centre of Paris, and is the most visited theme park in all of Europe. It is owned by The Walt Disney Company through subsidiary Euro Disney S.C.A. 

More information: Disneyland Paris

The resort covers 19 km2 and encompasses two theme parks, many resort hotels, a shopping, dining, and entertainment complex, and a golf course, in addition to several additional recreational and entertainment venues.

Disneyland Park is the original theme park of the complex, opening with the resort on 12 April 1992. A second theme park, Walt Disney Studios Park, opened in 2002. The resort is the second Disney park to open outside the United States following the opening of the Tokyo Disney Resort in 1983.

The Jones are visiting Disneyland Paris

Following the success of Disneyland in California and Walt Disney World in Florida, plans to build a similar theme park in Europe emerged in 1972. Under the leadership of E. Cardon Walker, Tokyo Disneyland opened in 1983 in Japan with instant success, forming a catalyst for international expansion. 

In late 1984 the heads of Disney's theme park division, Dick Nunis and Jim Cora, presented a list of approximately 1,200 possible European locations for the park. By March 1985, the number of possible locations for the park had been reduced to four; two in France and two in Spain. Both nations saw the potential economic advantages of a Disney theme park and offered competing financing deals to Disney.

Both Spanish sites were located near the Mediterranean and offered a subtropical climate similar to Disney's parks in California and Florida. Disney had also shown interest in a site near Toulon in southern France, not far from Marseille. The pleasing landscape of that region, as well as its climate, made the location a top competitor for what would be called Euro Disneyland. 

More information: Disneyland Paris News

However, shallow bedrock was encountered beneath the site, which would have rendered construction too difficult. Finally, a site in the rural town of Marne-la-Vallée was chosen because of its proximity to Paris and its central location in Western Europe. This location was estimated to be no more than a four-hour drive for 68 million people and no more than a two-hour flight for a further 300 million.

Silvia & Cris Jones in Mad Hatter's Tea Cups

Michael Eisner, Disney's CEO at the time, signed the first letter of agreement with the French government for the 20-square-kilometre site on 18 December 1985, and the first financial contracts were drawn up during the following spring.

The final contract was signed by the leaders of the Walt Disney Company and the French government and territorial collectivities on 24 March 1987. Construction began in August 1988, and in December 1990, an information centre named Espace Euro Disney was opened to show the public what was being constructed.

In order to provide lodging to patrons, it was decided that 5,200 Disney-owned hotel rooms would be built within the complex. An entertainment, shopping and dining complex based on Walt Disney World's Downtown Disney was designed by Frank Gehry.

More information: BuzzFeed

With its towers of oxidised silver and bronze-coloured stainless steel under a canopy of lights, it opened as Festival Disney. For a projected daily attendance of 55,000, Euro Disney planned to serve an estimated 14,000 people per hour inside the Euro Disneyland park. In order to accomplish this, 29 restaurants were built inside the park, with a further 11 restaurants built at the Euro Disney resort hotels and five at Festival Disney.

The Grandma with Mary Poppins and Peter Pan

Unlike Disney's American theme parks, Euro Disney aimed for permanent employees, an estimated requirement of 12,000 for the theme park itself, as opposed to seasonal and temporary part-time employees. Casting centres were set up in Paris, London and Amsterdam. 

However, it was understood by the French government and Disney that a concentrated effort would be made to tap into the local French labour market.  

Disney sought workers with sufficient communication skills, who spoke two European languages, French and one other, and were socially outgoing. Following precedent, Euro Disney set up its own Disney University to train workers. 24,000 people had applied by November 1991.

The prospect of a Disney park in France was a subject of debate and controversy. Critics, who included prominent French intellectuals, denounced what they considered to be the cultural imperialism of Euro Disney and felt it would encourage an unhealthy American type of consumerism in France. For others, Euro Disney became a symbol of America within France. On 28 June 1992, a group of French farmers blockaded Euro Disney in protest of farm policies supported at the time by the United States.

More information: Theme Park Touristic

A journalist at the centre-right French newspaper Le Figaro wrote, I wish with all my heart that the rebels would set fire to Euro Disneyland. Ariane Mnouchkine, a Parisian stage director, named the concept a cultural Chernobyl, a phrase which would be echoed in the media during Euro Disney's initial years.

In response, French philosopher Michel Serres noted, It is not America that is invading us. It is we who adore it, who adopt its fashions and above all, its words. Euro Disney S.C.A.'s then-chairman Robert Fitzpatrick responded, We didn't come in and say O.K., we're going to put a beret and a baguette on Mickey Mouse. We are who we are.

Susana & Ana Jones are enjoying the attractions

Topics of controversy also included Disney's American managers requiring English to be spoken at all meetings and Disney's appearance code for members of staff, which listed regulations and limitations for the use of makeup, facial hair, tattoos, jewellery and more.

French labour unions mounted protests against the appearance code, which they saw as an attack on individual liberty. Others criticised Disney as being insensitive to French culture, individualism and privacy, because restrictions on individual or collective liberties were illegal under French law, unless it could be demonstrated that the restrictions are requisite to the job and do not exceed what is necessary.

Disney countered by saying that a ruling that barred them from imposing such an employment standard could threaten the image and long-term success of the park. For us, the appearance code has a great effect from a product identification standpoint, said Thor Degelmann, Euro Disney's personnel director. Without it we couldn't be presenting the Disney product that people would be expecting.

More information: The Telegraph

According to the Disneyland Paris website the theme park's top five attractions are It's a Small World, Space Mountain: Mission 2, Big Thunder Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean and Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters. It's a Small World, located in Fantasyland, takes visitors on a musical tour of world attractions; Space Mountain: Mission 2 is a roller coaster in Discoveryland; Big Thunder Mountain is a mine train roller coaster in Frontierland; Pirates of the Caribbean is located in Adventureland; and Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters, located in Discoveryland, was inspired by the Disney/Pixar film Toy Story 2 and features people shooting lasers at targets to earn points.

The park is approximately 1,942 ha, and is divided into two main parks that each hold separate attraction areas within them. The park receives around twelve million visitors a year which makes it the most visited place in Europe.

Download Map of Disneyland Paris

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Mary Poppins

BRITISH CELEBRITIES (V): PETER PAN

Peter Pan

Peter Pan is a fictional character created by Scottish novelist James Matthew Barrie. He first appeared in a section of The Little White Bird in 1902. Barrie describes Peter as “a beautiful boy with a beautiful smile” who plays the pan flute, an ancient musical instrument, which gives him his surname. In 1904, Peter appears in a new adventure named Peter Pan or The boy who wouldn’t grow up. We haven’t got a lot of information about his physical appearance and his age although in the Walt Disney’s adaptation (1953) he’s between 10 and 13. 

In fact, Peter is a mischievous boy who can fly, never grows up (never-ending childhood) and lives on the small island of Neverland rounded of children, pirates, fairies, mermaids and Native Americans.

Why can't you fly now, mother?

Because I am grown up, dearest.
When people grow up they forget the way.
 
Why do they forget the way?
Because they are no longer gay and innocent and heartless.
It is only the gay and innocent and heartless who can fly.