J.M.Barrie's house-museum in Scotland

James Barrie (1860–1937) was the child of a Calvinist family of weavers from Kirriemuir in Angus, close to the Scottish city of Dundee. There were 10 children born to David Barrie and his wife Margaret, so I can­not see how the 10 people (two children died) could live in the two rooms of the white cottage that is now the JM Barrie Museum. Upstairs was the warm kitchen with its lovely food smells; it functioned as a bedroom for most of the children, while the parents and babies slept in the living room on the same floor. Downstairs the weavers’ loom and yarn store was the workspace for James’ father. A small brick washhouse opposite the home served the whole street during Barrie’s childhood.

Barrie left the family home and studied at Edinburgh Univ­ersity; soon he was writing drama reviews for adults for the Edin­burgh Evening Courant and articles for the Nottingham Journal. Yet his two Tommy novels, Sentimental Tommy (1896) and Tommy and Grizel (1900), were about a boy and young man with childish fantasies. And then his most famous character, Peter Pan, who was initially published in 1901. So we have to ask ourselves why a mature man would be drawing on childlike experiences to create rather strange, make-believe stories?

Barrie's childhood home in Kirriemuir

On the left, the house museum and the museum shop next door

On the right, the washhouse-theatre.

Discover Britain Magazine (July 2014) showed that when he was only 6, Barrie's 13 year old brother David had died in a tragic ice-skating accident. As David had been his mother's favourite child, the loss left Margaret Barrie even more devastated. Young James tried to fill David's place in his mother's love as best he could, including wearing David's clothes and sitting outside the mother’s bedroom for weeks on end, trying to stop her crying. Margaret constantly confused James with David, thus denying him his own individual identity. Yes, she eventually found comfort in the fact that her dead son would remain a boy forever, never to grow up and leave her. And yes, James went along with the delusions that brought her comfort! But he was only 6 years old ....what choice did he have?

Eventually Barrie and his mother read stories to each other from both their childhoods, favouring books like Robinson Crusoe or books that were written by fellow Scotsman, Sir Walter Scott. Margaret may have distorted James’ notions of everlasting boyhood, but she did help him decide that his future career was definitely going to be in literature.

Barrie's desk was transported from London and placed in his house-museum in Kirriemuir

And there was an additional element of explanation. When Barrie moved to London in 1885, he met the Llewelyn Davies family with five sons who apparently inspired writing about a boy who had magical advent­ures in Kensington Gardens. The boys, who were the cousins of the writer Daphne du Maurier, were said to serve as the inspiration for Barrie's Peter Pan; in fact several of Barrie's characters were specifically named after the lads. Barrie definitely did became their legal guardian following the deaths of their parents in 1907 and 1910, and the five boys were publicly associated with Barrie and Peter Pan for the rest of their lives.

Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, was a fairy play about an ageless boy and an ordinary girl named Wendy who had adventures in the fantasy setting of Neverland. Barrie wrote many other works and was given an imperial honour in 1913, but Peter Pan remained his best known and best loved character.

A statue of Peter Pan, opposite the house museum in Kirriemuir

When Barrie died in 1937 in London, he requested that his body by returned to the family plot in Kirriemuir cemetery in Scotland, alongside his parents and siblings. Today people on a literature pilgrimage can certainly visit the family graves. Then see the JM Barrie Museum at 9 Brechin Road is open Saturday-Wednesday inclusive from noon till 5 PM. The washhouse opposite the home was converted into a theatre in which to stage plays for the locals. The National Trust of Scotland opened the next door cottage at #11 Brechin Road as a visitor recep­t­ion area and shop. Plus the Trust created a garden opposite the cottage to encourage children to play outside, next to the Peter Pan statue.