September 3, 2019 at 4:21 p.m.
Pan adventure
Redkey’s Harris is traveling to Wales to help organize documents related to her favorite story
Pan adventure
Gwyneth Harris took flight Monday.
Not out her window and over the night sky of London to a hidden world, but on an adventure nonetheless.
Harris, a Redkey resident, will spend a couple of weeks later this month working with author Andrew Birkin to review, scan and organize documents related to J.M. Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan.
“I have loved Peter Pan my whole life,” said Harris, who works at The Blind Tiger and The Kindred Spirit in Redkey in addition to Minnetrista and Muncie Symphony Orchestra.
As with many children, Harris’ introduction to Peter Pan came through Disney.
She loved the movie about the boy who never grows up so much that it became intertwined in her life. At Halloween, Peter Pan was her costume. On her birthday, Peter Pan was the theme.
“My sisters always made fun of me because I would write my own Peter Pan stories because the movies weren’t enough,” said Harris. “I needed more.
“Peter Pan was like imagining that an adventure or an escape was very possible. I always wanted to be a Lost Boy.
“And so I just loved that idea of being adventurous, being out in the wild and having fun.”
That desire for a deeper connection to Peter Pan led her to more reading as she got older. She read Barrie’s other work and about the age of 13 stumbled upon the book “J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys – The real story behind Peter Pan,” by Andrew Birkin.
It introduced her to more details about Peter Pan and Barrie, whose older brother died a day before his 14th birthday.
Not out her window and over the night sky of London to a hidden world, but on an adventure nonetheless.
Harris, a Redkey resident, will spend a couple of weeks later this month working with author Andrew Birkin to review, scan and organize documents related to J.M. Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan.
“I have loved Peter Pan my whole life,” said Harris, who works at The Blind Tiger and The Kindred Spirit in Redkey in addition to Minnetrista and Muncie Symphony Orchestra.
As with many children, Harris’ introduction to Peter Pan came through Disney.
She loved the movie about the boy who never grows up so much that it became intertwined in her life. At Halloween, Peter Pan was her costume. On her birthday, Peter Pan was the theme.
“My sisters always made fun of me because I would write my own Peter Pan stories because the movies weren’t enough,” said Harris. “I needed more.
“Peter Pan was like imagining that an adventure or an escape was very possible. I always wanted to be a Lost Boy.
“And so I just loved that idea of being adventurous, being out in the wild and having fun.”
That desire for a deeper connection to Peter Pan led her to more reading as she got older. She read Barrie’s other work and about the age of 13 stumbled upon the book “J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys – The real story behind Peter Pan,” by Andrew Birkin.
It introduced her to more details about Peter Pan and Barrie, whose older brother died a day before his 14th birthday.
That brother’s death influenced Barrie’s writing, including his most famous work.
“He had this thing where he resented that he had to grow up and he had to fill these shoes and his brother was going to be forever young,” said Harris. “When you read Peter Pan knowing that, you see how Peter Pan has a darker shadow because it’s more dealing where does Neverland exist between being alive and being dead.”
The book, now well-worn, also drew her to want to learn more about Birkin, who is better known as a screenwriter, director and actor who worked with Stanley Kubrik and The Beatles.
Birkin became connected with Barrie while working on an adaptation of “Peter Pan” for NBC in the mid-1970s. That led him to research about the author, the book and its backstory, eventually resulting in the book that became a Harris favorite.
Through his research, he built relationships with members of the Llewelyn Davies family — the sons were like foster children to Barrie and inspired some of his characters — with Nico Llewelyn Davies and others donating a variety of documents to Birkin. Some of those documents have since been donated to Yale University while others are on a website created by Birkin almost two decades ago.
“Since I was 13, Andrew Birkin had become like this legend almost, because he has such a journey collecting these materials,” Harris said. “It’s almost to me like Barrie’s story and Birkin’s story are both important to me.”
She found herself on that archaic website — jmbarrie.co.uk — but noticed there were far fewer documents accessible than the 7,000 promised on its introduction page.
“So I thought, where are these?” said Harris. “Where are the rest of these documents … and how can I see them?”
The community forum on the website was essentially a ghost town, but she decided to take a chance. She sent “a message into the abyss” to offer her help with making whatever remained of the documents accessible.
She received an email from Birkin a day later.
That was about a month ago, and it led to a whirlwind of emails and Skype calls about the documents and how Harris could help. What was first an invitation to visit if she was ever in the area — Birkin lives in Wales — turned into plans to spend two weeks on the project this fall.
“I hope this is kind of like an introduction opportunity so I’ll be spending more time with the material and hopefully visit again,” said Harris, who is a junior history and anthropology major at Ball State University.
Harris and her mom, Chris Kennedy Nixon, left Monday with plans to spend a week in Ireland, where their family originated. They’ll then spend two weeks roaming Europe — England, France and Scotland, Barrie’s home, are in the plans — before heading to Wales to work with Birkin.
She’s excited about the opportunity to see, in person, documents related to her favorite story and author, saying she would especially love to get her hands on any of Barrie’s notebooks. Her goal with the trip is to help make the documents accessible in a more user-friendly format to Pan fans like her.
“I don’t know exactly what to expect,” said Harris. “It’s kind of just this big, vague helping with the Barrie archive. … It’s kind of up in the air.
“I’m really excited to meet (Birkin) … and spend time with the materials. It’s all just a dream come true for me.”
“He had this thing where he resented that he had to grow up and he had to fill these shoes and his brother was going to be forever young,” said Harris. “When you read Peter Pan knowing that, you see how Peter Pan has a darker shadow because it’s more dealing where does Neverland exist between being alive and being dead.”
The book, now well-worn, also drew her to want to learn more about Birkin, who is better known as a screenwriter, director and actor who worked with Stanley Kubrik and The Beatles.
Birkin became connected with Barrie while working on an adaptation of “Peter Pan” for NBC in the mid-1970s. That led him to research about the author, the book and its backstory, eventually resulting in the book that became a Harris favorite.
Through his research, he built relationships with members of the Llewelyn Davies family — the sons were like foster children to Barrie and inspired some of his characters — with Nico Llewelyn Davies and others donating a variety of documents to Birkin. Some of those documents have since been donated to Yale University while others are on a website created by Birkin almost two decades ago.
“Since I was 13, Andrew Birkin had become like this legend almost, because he has such a journey collecting these materials,” Harris said. “It’s almost to me like Barrie’s story and Birkin’s story are both important to me.”
She found herself on that archaic website — jmbarrie.co.uk — but noticed there were far fewer documents accessible than the 7,000 promised on its introduction page.
“So I thought, where are these?” said Harris. “Where are the rest of these documents … and how can I see them?”
The community forum on the website was essentially a ghost town, but she decided to take a chance. She sent “a message into the abyss” to offer her help with making whatever remained of the documents accessible.
She received an email from Birkin a day later.
That was about a month ago, and it led to a whirlwind of emails and Skype calls about the documents and how Harris could help. What was first an invitation to visit if she was ever in the area — Birkin lives in Wales — turned into plans to spend two weeks on the project this fall.
“I hope this is kind of like an introduction opportunity so I’ll be spending more time with the material and hopefully visit again,” said Harris, who is a junior history and anthropology major at Ball State University.
Harris and her mom, Chris Kennedy Nixon, left Monday with plans to spend a week in Ireland, where their family originated. They’ll then spend two weeks roaming Europe — England, France and Scotland, Barrie’s home, are in the plans — before heading to Wales to work with Birkin.
She’s excited about the opportunity to see, in person, documents related to her favorite story and author, saying she would especially love to get her hands on any of Barrie’s notebooks. Her goal with the trip is to help make the documents accessible in a more user-friendly format to Pan fans like her.
“I don’t know exactly what to expect,” said Harris. “It’s kind of just this big, vague helping with the Barrie archive. … It’s kind of up in the air.
“I’m really excited to meet (Birkin) … and spend time with the materials. It’s all just a dream come true for me.”
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