Her first stories and poems were secret because her family disapproved, says author P. L. Travers to Philippa Day Benson in New York
"Not long ago a young journalist rushed into the room with his arms outstretched. I thought he was going to embrace me but instead he took both my hands in his and said, 'Oh. I am so glad you are alive!' "
Telling me about that incident was Pamela Lyndon Travers. Mary Poppins' creator, who most distinctly does exist and in fact comes originally from Australia.
The five celebrated Mary Poppins books for children are all such classics that it has been easy to forget there must have been a particular author behind that airborne, slider-up-the-banister, parasol-carrying nanny whose magical exploits have intrigued generations of children.
"Oh, that kind of forgetting is the greatest compliment I could be paid," says P. L. Travers. "I remember getting an awful shock when Beatrix Potter died in 1943. I had no idea anyone created Peter Rabbit."
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