Hello Goodbye Hello: A Circle of 101 Remarkable Meetings by Craig Brown Page A

Travers finally accepts 5 per cent of gross profits, with a guarantee of $100,000. But this is to prove inadequate compensation; she soon begins to complain that Disney is ‘without subtlety and emasculates any character he touches, replacing truth with false sentimentality’.
    Walt Disney’s attitude to Travers is one of damage limitation. He wants to keep her on board, but positioned as far as possible from the driver’s seat. This does not stop Travers making frequent lunges for the steering wheel, generally with a view to forcing the vehicle into reverse. She complains about everybody and everything, even stretching to the type of measuring tape Mary Poppins would use. 28
    She objects to all the Americanisms that seem to be creeping in – ‘outing’, ‘freshen up’, ‘on schedule’, ‘Let’s go fly a kite’ – and considers the servants much too common and vulgar. Furthermore, the Banks home is much too grand, and any suggestion of a romance between Mary Poppins and the cockney chimneysweep Bert is utterly distasteful. Finally, she objects to Mrs Banks being portrayed as a suffragette, and considers the Christian name they impose on her – Cynthia – ‘unlucky, cold and sexless’, her own preference being Winifred.
    Travers even believes her responsibilities extend to the casting. 29 The day after Julie Andrews gives birth, she phones her in hospital. ‘P.L. Travers here. Speak to me. I want to hear your voice.’ When they finally meet, her first remark to the actress is, ‘Well, you’ve got the nose for it.’
    Mary Poppins is a worldwide success. Costing $5.2 million to make, it grosses $50 million. But the more the money rolls in, the more Travers’ attitude to the film and its creator sours. She tells Ladies’ Home Journal that she hated parts of the film, like the animated horse and pig, and disapproved of Mary Poppins kicking up her gown and showing her underwear, and disliked the billboards saying ‘Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins ’ when they should have said ‘P.L. Travers’ Mary Poppins ’.
    She writes to a friend that Disney wishes her dead, and is furious with her for not obliging. ‘After all, until now, all his authors have been dead and out of copyright.’ But there is always the promise of a sequel, and yet more money. It is only when Disney dies in December 1966 30 that her objections become more concentrated and vocal. In 1967, she says that the film was ‘an emotional shock, which left me deeply disturbed’, and in 1968 that she ‘couldn’t bear’ it – ‘all that smiling’. In 1972, she declares in a lecture that ‘When I was doing the film with George Disney – that is his name, isn’t it – George? – he kept insisting on a love affair between Mary Poppins and Bert. I had a terrible time with him.’
    Her invitation to the world premiere is, it later emerges, not achieved without a struggle. Failing to receive an invitation, she instructs her lawyer, agent and publisher to demand one on her behalf. When it is still not forthcoming, she sends a telegram to Disney himself, informing him she is in the States, and plans on attending the premiere: she is sure somebody will find a seat for her, and will he let her know thedetails? Her attendance is, she adds, essential ‘for the dignity of the books’.
    Disney writes back saying that he has always been counting on her presence at the London premiere, but is now delighted to know she will also be able to come to the premiere in Los Angeles. And yes, they will happily hold a seat for her.

P.L. TRAVERS
    WATCHES OVER
GEORGE IVANOVICH GURDJIEFF
    The American Hospital of Paris, Neuilly-sur-Seine
    October 30th 1949
    Any meeting between the living and the dead is inevitably one-sided. Do they know something we don’t know?
    On October 30th 1949, P.L. Travers sits all night in a private room on the first floor of the American Hospital of Paris, gazing lovingly at the corpse of George Ivanovich Gurdjieff.
    Pamela first