What is this place that I am in? It's too big to be Meowmie's gardens. Hmm, there is a sign...I am in Kensington Gardens. How did I get here? Look at the beautiful flowers everywhere! Where is my Meowmie? The last thing that I remember is that Meowmie and I were on the sunporch and she was reading a book to me titled Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. The author is Sir James M. Barrie. I remember she read something about fairies. She read that the fairies live in Kensington Gardens.

One of the great differences between the fairies and us is that they never do anything useful. When the first baby laughed for the first time, his laugh broke into a million pieces, and they all went skipping about. That was the beginning of fairies.

The fairies live in the King's Gardens meowmie read. I see Prince Albert taking a stroll in Kensington Gardens.

I see a statue. It's a statue of Peter Pan, Wendy and Tinkerbell. Meowmie read me that story also. She told me that the author Sir James Barrie had it made and placed in Kensington Gardens. Barrie's London home was very close to Kensington Gardens and it was here that he first met the Llewellyn Davies boys George, Jack and Peter. Soon he was a frequent visitor to their house where he would tell the boys stories. One of these stories was about the youngest boy, Peter, who, according to Barrie, would one day fly away to Kensington Gardens so that he might be a boy forever. When children died, Peter would take them on a journey to a place called Never Never Land. When George heard the story, he said that "dying must be an awfully big adventure!". Barrie wrote the words down. They would later became the most famous words spoken in Peter Pan. Barrie wrote the story several times before he decided to turn it into a play in 1903. The story of The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up was an instant success.

Where are the fairies? They must be about because I see children in the gardens. Do fairies like cats too, I wonder. I wish to meet at least one fairy in the Kensington Gardens. I will try to stay close to the children playing near that little house that I see over there.

Everybody has heard of the Little House in the Kensington Gardens, which is the only house in the whole world that the fairies have built for humans. But no one has really seen it, except just three or four, and they have not only seen it but slept in it, and unless you sleep in it you never see it. This is because it is not there when you lie down, but it is there when you wake up and step outside.In a kind of way everyone may see it, but what you see is not really it, but only the light in the windows. You see the light after Lock-out Time. David, for instance, saw it quite distinctly far away among the trees as we were going home from the pantomime, and Oliver Bailey saw it the night he stayed so late at the Temple, which is the name of his father's office. Angela Clare, who loves to have a tooth extracted because then she is treated to tea in a shop, saw more than one light, she saw hundreds of them all together, and this must have been the fairies building the house, for they build it every night and always in a different part of the Gardens.

It is frightfully difficult to know much about the fairies, and almost the only thing known for certain is that there are fairies wherever there are children. Long ago children were forbidden the Gardens, and at that time there was not a fairy in the place; then the children were admitted, and the fairies came trooping in that very evening. They can't resist following the children, but you seldom see them, partly because they live in the daytime behind the railings, where you are not allowed to go, and also partly because they are so cunning. They are not a bit cunning after Lock-out, but until Lock-out, my word!

Maybe if I check out these beautiful flowers, the foxgloves,I might see a fairy because fairies like these flowers.

When you were a bird you knew the fairies pretty well, and you remember a good deal about them in your babyhood, which it is a great pity you can't write down, for gradually you forget, and I have heard of children who declared that they had never once seen a fairy. Very likely if they said this in the Kensington Gardens, they were standing looking at a fairy all the time. The reason they were cheated was that she pretended to be something else. This is one of their best tricks. They usually pretend to be flowers, because the court sits in the Fairies' Basin, and there are so many flowers there, and all along the Baby Walk, that a flower is the thing least likely to attract attention. They dress exactly like flowers, and change with the seasons, putting on white when lilies are in and blue for blue-bells,and so on. They like crocus and hyacinth time best of all, as they are partial to a bit of colour, but tulips (except white ones, which are the fairy-cradles) they consider garish, and they sometimes putoff dressing like tulips for days, so that the beginning of the tulip.


No luck with the foxgloves. I will look for a fairy ring. Fairy rings have white mushrooms all around it.

The fairies are exquisite dancers, and that is why one of the first things the baby does is to sign to you to dance to him and then to cry when you do it. They hold their great balls in the open air, in what is called a fairy-ring. For weeks afterward you can see the ring on the grass. It is not there when they begin, but they make it by waltzing round and round. Sometimes you will find mushrooms inside the ring, and these are fairy chairs that the servants have forgotten to clear away. The chairs and the rings are the only tell-tale marks these little people leave behind them, and they would remove even these were they not so fond of dancing that they toe it till the very moment of the opening of the gates.

It is near time for Lock-out. All of the people are beginning to leave. I will wait until Lock-out time to view the fairies. Maybe I will see Peter Pan play his pipe for the fairy ball. Then I will have to worry about getting back to Meowmie after seeing the fairy ball.

But Maimie's curiosity tugged her forward, and presently at the seven Spanish chestnuts, she saw a wonderful light. She crept forward until she was quite near it, and then she peeped from behind a tree.The light, which was as high as your head above the ground, was composed of myriads of glow-worms all holding on to each other, and so forming a dazzling canopy over the fairy ring. There were thousands of little people looking on, but they were in shadow and drab in colour compared to the glorious creatures within that luminous circle who were so bewilderingly bright that Maimie had to wink hard all the time she looked at them.


It is getting quite dark now and I have not found a fairy ring. Wait, there is a bright glow over near that large tree. Maybe it is a fairy ball. Yes! It is a ball and I can see the fairies clearly now. They are having a good time at the ball. I will get closer. Four of them are leaving the ring because I know that they see me. Oh my! I am being kissed by four pretty fairies. They are sprinkling their magic fairy dust on me. What magic! What fun. I am enchanted. Don't wake me if I am dreaming. I am in Never Never Land.

McGee, McGee wake up. You have missed most of the story of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. I will have to read it over again to you.

Wow! Was I sleeping. I thought that I was in Kensington Gardens with the fairies. I was even kissed by the fairies and sprinkled with fairy dust.

My sweet,silly cat, that was me kissing you awake and patting you. You have been right beside me as I read you the story of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. You never once left the wicker love seat.

Meowmie, If I was dreaming I still know the whole story that you read to me. I was in Never Never Land.

Have it your way, McGee. I wish that I was there in Kensington Gardens with you. The flowers must have been beautiful. Did you perchance see the statue of Peter Pan in the gardens?

Read the story to me again Meowmie on another day and I will take you there with me to see Kensington Gardens. Right now, I wish to catch another nap. Maybe I will be able to go back to Never Never Land again. Hmm, what's this gold on my fur? Why, it is fairy dust.

The illustrations are from the book Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens and were drawn by the illustrator Arthur Rackham. The last illustration of the large tree is artist unknown to me.

Parts of this tale written in italics were taken from the story Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens by James M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan which premiered in 1904 and has been continuously in production throughout
the world ever since. The play Peter Pan is a wish fulfillment story about the triumph of youth over age. It’s warmth and spirit captivated the mood of it's new century and still captivates us today. The hope that there is a "Never Land" full of boys, pirates, Indians, mermaids, and faeries -- near that magical morning star --
is a theme that still tugs at our lost youth.

In 1929, Barrie gave The Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, in London, all the rights and royalties to Peter Pan in both the play and his books. The hospital today still enjoys the benefits of this generous endowment.

James Matthew Barrie was a part of every character he created. He was truly the writer who never wanted to grow up.