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- [00:01]
A
If you want access to bonus episodes, reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community, discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast ad, free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to empire club@www.empirepoduk.com.
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B
Ryan Reynolds here for I guess my hundredth mint commercial. No, no no no no no no no, no. I mean honestly when I started this I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean it's unlimited to Premium Wireless for 15 DOL a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming. Here give it a try@mintmobile.com save whenever you're ready. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees, extra Speed slower above 40 gigabytes. CD Tails this episode is brought to you by United Airlines. When you want to make the most of your vacation, book with United. They're an airline that cares about your.
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A
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A
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B
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- [01:19]
A
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B
Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnan and me William Drumple. We've been doing a series on pirates and if you haven't heard it yet, please do go back and listen because we've been talking about real life pirates and if you're just joining us, you may say, what has that got to do with Empire? Well, everything turns out because these pirates in real life were often working for governments to blast the ships of opposing countries. So the British would hire the privateers to go and hunt down French ships or Dutch ships or steal their booty. And you know, the high seas were a very lawless place because often these privateers would just say, well, we'll make more money if we do this for ourselves and they go off and do it themselves.
- [02:24]
A
And we should say that when the East India Company is founded, almost the entire crew of the early boats are former privateers. And the Spanish ambassador, when he hears about who's Been recruited, goes straight to court and complains, pirates, pirates, pirates.
- [02:39]
B
Right. And so it sort of led us through this maze of talking about real life pirates. And William and I were talking about just how very formative our childhood memories were of watching pirates on screen or reading about them in books and seeing sort of pictures of them or on.
- [02:55]
A
The stage and pantos.
- [02:56]
B
Or on the stage. Oh, yes, we have. I'm not doing that again. We did that last time. But, you know, they are everywhere, they're ubiquitous. And why is that? And so we thought we'd look into the people who've sort of given us the most powerful pirate imagery and find out where they got their imagery from and whether there were any real true stories behind the kind of images they presented.
- [03:17]
A
And extraordinarily, all the roads lead to Scotland.
- [03:21]
B
They do, yes. Including this one.
- [03:24]
A
Both the original stories, like Alexander Selkirk, who's from Fife, Robbie Lou Stevenson, who's brought up in Edinburgh but bends a lot of his childhood in Fife and East Lothian at North Berwick, looking at islands that become models for Treasure island most of all. And possibly the one who's brought it into more childhood stories than anyone, JM Barry, who's from Pathshire, Kirriemuir, where I used to go to children's parties when I was growing up.
- [03:51]
B
Sir James Matthew Barry, otherwise known as First Baronet as he becomes his. Peter Pan is so famous and has such a long lasting legacy because on his death he said that the money that Peter Pan would make from any imprint should go to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. And it still does.
- [04:09]
A
I never knew that.
- [04:10]
B
That's why there is a statue of Peter Pan in the grounds of Great Ormond street and the money still goes to Great Ormond Street.
- [04:16]
A
Great Ormond street saved my younger boy, Adam, who was literally got horrible, flew and was going down until a place suddenly opened up at Great Ormond street and they had equipment that no one else had that saved his life. So I have a great deal of love and respect for Great Ormond street as a result.
- [04:35]
B
Well, and you have perhaps JM Barrie's legacy to thank for some of the funding for that hospital, because it's still, to this day still goes there. And if you look it up online, the statue of Peter Pan on the grounds of Great Ormond Street Hospital, it's a testament of their thanks to this story. So famously, the story of Peter Pan is about the boy who doesn't want to grow up. This young, spry, sort of, we think about 12, 13 year old child who is separated from his parents and then comes back and knocks on the window of the darling children and takes them on this extraordinary adventure. And there are some things, of course, you will know. For example, I don't know if you will know. So the name Wendy was popularized thanks to J.M. barrie. There are people who say he invented the name Wendy. Not quite right, but he certainly launched it on this country and arguably, you know, it's proliferated through Europe because of him. So in the 1600s, the name Wendy was a boy's name. There was a male captain, Wendy Oxford, who was identified by John Lilburn, who was a leveller who condemned him and sort of hated him because he said he was a spy and that he was destroying the level of cause. So, you know, it was a boy's name, it was a surname. But it is JM Barrie, who, by calling his protagonist Wendy, makes it popular. And why did he choose the name? Where did he pull it out of? Well, some people say, okay, it's a diminutive of Gwendolyn. Absolutely nothing in the censuses to suggest that that was a name that was widely used before Barry got his hands on it. And what did he source as his inspiration? Well, he had a childhood friend. This is kind of like a bittersweet story, really. Margaret Henley was her name. And when she was very, very little, like most tiny people, she had a little bit of a cute speech impediment. She couldn't say the letter R, so she used to refer to Barry, who was also a child at the time, as her. And then that became my fwendy Wendy. And that is the name that he chose to use. So Wendy Darling in Barry's play comes from Margaret Henley, this five year old child of a friend of the family, in fact, actually a friend of the family, a man called William Ernest Henley, who some say is the inspiration behind the characterization of Long John Silver in Treasure Island. So all of these things are also meshed together. So Fendi Wendy becomes Wendy. And the reason I say it's bittersweet, poor old Margaret never knew that she had given the world the gift of this name Wendy, because sadly she died. She didn't even see her sixth birthday. She got cerebral meningitis and she died. So hence bittersweet. The Wendy house, which I had growing up, and I think quite a lot of the girls listening to this may have had when they were children, that comes directly from Barry. So Barry, when he was a child and he used to play with Margaret and other small children, had a little wash house behind his home. And they used to, you know, sort of have their own little clubhouse. And that became the inspiration of the Wendy House in Peter Pan, where Wendy Darling is when she's shot by Tootles in Peter Pan. So there you have it, a direct link. And the Wendy House then became a really very popular thing. And most people remember these things, you know, the little plastic poles and the plastic drawn over them. So without Barry, arguably, the name Wendy would not have become popular in this country. It wouldn't have been a girl's name, and we wouldn't have had the Wendy House.
- [07:55]
A
The things we learned during this podcast.
- [07:56]
B
You and I, indeed. So let's talk about James Matthew Barry, otherwise known as J.M. barrie.
- [08:01]
A
The other thing we should say that he has in common straight off with Robbie Lewis Stevenson is a very droopy mustache. We previously had the battle of the moustaches during the.
- [08:12]
B
Sorry, my darling. All the cutting edge observations made on Empire, as usual. Okay, let's do it. I haven't done the facial description because people have always accused me of being boy mad when I do it. Okay, describe J.M. barrie for the ladies and gentlemen out there.
- [08:24]
A
J.M. barry, I would be delighted to describe to you. J.M. barry is shorter than Robbie Lewis Stevenson and less good looking, but he. And in fact is slightly dwarfed by the chair that he's sitting on in the picture I'm looking at at this moment. But like our friends in the Sykes Picot line, who you may remember, shared, for all their disagreements, very prominent walrus mustaches.
- [08:49]
B
Oh, no. Face. Furniture was big then. Yes.
- [08:52]
A
JM Barrie has a fantastically droopy moustache that he shares with Robbie.
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B
Okay. I mean, all you've done is talk about the tash since you've opened this can of worms. Let me dive straight into this.
- [09:02]
A
He's just a wee Scotsman in a.
- [09:04]
B
Suit, but he has a soulful face, I think. I mean, he has sort of sad, slightly drooping eyes and a rather soulful, sad expression on his face. Quite prominent ears. You can totally see what he would have looked like as a little boy. And then he might have been teased about his ears.
- [09:17]
A
It's a boyish face.
- [09:18]
B
In fact, a very boyish face. Very boyish face. And this is all the more poignant because when Barry was growing up, his older brother David dies at the age of 13. And J.M. barry is only 6 at the time that this happened. And it utterly shatters the Barry family. It's so awful. His mother retreats into a terrible, deep Depression, because she's lost her child, she's lost her boy. And what J.M. barrie does to try and make her feel better and also to soothe himself is he starts dressing in his brother's clothes, which are too big for him, but he starts just to see, you know, just to show his mother that he's still here, he's never going to go away. And also to comfort himself in some way. And the way that David died is also sort of so awful.
- [10:03]
A
How did he die?
- [10:04]
B
Well, he fractures his skull while on an ice skating trip. So it's at the very height when the children are laughing and free and spinning around on the ice. And then David is just taken in an instant, no warning, no sickness, no nothing. And he goes. And they're, you know, this idea of the boy who will never grow up is David. And it's the same age roughly as Peter Pan as well. So I thought that was. I got chilled, to be honest. I got chilled. Yeah.
- [10:30]
A
I didn't know this. This is fascinating. This is absolutely fascinating. So take us through the actual story, Anita, because there's so many versions of this that we've all seen in Pantos and in Disney and other things. What is in the written version? Take us through the plot with great pleasure.
- [10:43]
B
Because, I mean, I love this book. I loved this book when I was little and read it, so I don't.
- [10:47]
A
Think I ever read it. I mean, I was so aware of it as pantomimes and cartoon.
- [10:51]
B
So Peter Pan is a boy who can fly and he has never grown up, so we don't know how old he actually is. When he comes from a place called Neverland, it's a country that you cannot visit unless he takes you there one evening. He's been watching this window of a nursery, not creepy at all, but watching it. And he's kind of become obsessed with the children who live behind the glass of this nursery. The oldest daughter is called Wendy, which we now know is a made up name by JM Barry that has given to the world and John and Michael. And he watches them and he watches the warmth with which they play with each other. And he wants them as his friends. You know, he's sort of. The start is like he's quite a lonely boy watching a family that are lovely. The father is a bit stern, the mother is very busy, so he knocks on the door and he takes them to a place called Neverland, a magical island, much like the Treasure Islands that we've talked about in other fiction and indeed that existed around the Caribbean.
- [11:47]
A
And remind me about the Lost Boys, because they're at the center of things, isn't it? Not the punk band. No, the original Lost Boys.
- [11:53]
B
Or the vampire film of the same name. So he has a little band of other. Either abandoned children or forgotten children. It's never very clear. But children without any mummies and daddies.
- [12:03]
A
This is Edwardian, isn't it? That sort of world of Boy Scouts and Lost Children.
- [12:08]
B
And the Lost Boys, they're his gang, basically, and they dress like him. They have feathers in their hair and they're wild and they're feral, but they spend their entire lives playing. There are also fairies on this island. I mean, Tinkerbell, you will know very famously from the films, if you haven't even read the books. But there are mermaids on this island.
- [12:26]
A
Do you remember those Disney records? And you had to turn the page when Tinkerbell rings her bells, did you?
- [12:32]
B
No.
- [12:32]
A
So there used to be little Disney versions of all these stories, including Peter Pan. And you put the record on, and if you didn't have a mum to read to you. It's for Lost Boys.
- [12:42]
B
Oh, it's for Lost Boys.
- [12:43]
A
You could have someone read it to you. And then there used to be little sort of sound like a bicycle bell. And that would be the moment you had to turn the page. And Tinkerbell rang her bell.
- [12:53]
B
So on this island, as well as sort of the little fairies and the mermaids, you also have what they call in the book redskins, who are this tribe of Native American Indians who Peter Pan is friendly with. You know, that can be quite ferocious. But Tiger Lily is his friend, who is sort of the princess of this tribe of redskins and their enemy, or everybody's enemy and who they love to fight and they adore fighting Captain Hook. And Captain Hook is quite the character. Captain Hook has one arm has been.
- [13:23]
A
Lost, which he lost to a crocodile.
- [13:25]
B
Famously, crocodile snapped it off from the elbow. And instead he has this very elaborate hook, and a scary hook at that. And he has a ship full of pirates, but they are always forever fighting the pirates. And Captain Hook wants to get Peter Pan. He sick of Peter Pan, but he's always listening out for the tick, tick, tick of the crocodile. Because when the crocodile snaps off his arm, it also takes his watch. And so he knows when the crocodile is approaching because there is a tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Anyway, so the darling children get taken to Neverland, and Peter wants them to stay, but actually Wendy wants to go home towards the end. So there's a huge sort of drama about Loss again. A boy who faces loss and all about growing up. And she's trying to tell him to grow up, come back, you know, you can live with us and you can grow up, but he doesn't want to. And the darling children become involved in this fight. And I won't tell you how it ends because you know what, you might want to read this to your own children or read it again yourself. It's a lovely, lovely story.
- [14:22]
A
And fairies are very important part of this. And didn't JM Barrie take photographs of fairies? So I'm muddling that up.
- [14:27]
B
Oh, God. It's like Conan Doyle. There was kind of an obsession at this time with trying to prove the existence of fairies. And Conan Doyle was famously duped by this to these small girls who made little cut out fairies and put them at the bottom of the garden and took pictures. And he was utterly convinced that fairies were real. So it was a thing at this time. But shall we talk about who he was himself, J.M. barry, because he's an interesting, interesting guy.
- [14:52]
A
I don't know much about him other than his background in Perthshire.
- [14:55]
B
So a little bit like Stevenson, he fancies himself a writer at a pretty early age. And throughout his childhood we're told that Barry sort of devises plays for himself and his friends. He writes them and they perform them in the wash house opposite the family home. So it sort of. He turns it into a theater. He's got this verve for the theatrical. And actually the wash house becomes the model for the Wendy house of Peter Pan. So the Wendy house that's created by Wendy and that was then marketed to generations of children. I had a Wendy house growing up, sort of canvas over poles, and that is modeled on his wash house. He goes to university in Edinburgh, like Stevenson. But again, like Stevenson, he's not that bothered about his studies. Instead, what he does is he starts to branch out. Writing is what appeals to him. So he writes articles for local newspapers and decides, okay, journalism is going to be the thing for him.
- [15:46]
A
And just like we heard that Robbie Louis Stevenson based himself partly on Defoe. Is Barry looking back at Stevenson?
- [15:53]
B
Yes, I see it's a short answer to this, because these are the books that have charmed generations. And he would have read them, heard of them, you know, he's a voracious bookish boy who likes writing stories, so of course he would have. So it's very soon after he leaves Edinburgh University in 1882 and he's working as a journalist. But on the side he starts writing novels and Little plays that he manages to get put on in London theaters. So he has a major success in a little play called Quality street and then another one with the admirable Crichton. And then on December 27, 1904, the debut takes place of Peter Pan or the Boy who Wouldn't Grow up. And in 1911. So the book comes after the play and the book when he writes the novel.
- [16:44]
A
Just before the First World War, 1911.
- [16:46]
B
He writes the novel and it is called Not Peter Pan, My friends like the play. It is called Peter and Wendy. Isn't that cool? Did you know that?
- [16:55]
A
I didn't know that.
- [16:55]
B
Peter and Wendy. So where does he get his inspiration? Because that's what we did with Stevenson. Well, let's talk about his life. So he is awkward and shy with these sticky out ears and like Stevenson, you know, not the most robust in health, but he is watching a production of his third play, Walker in London and he falls in love with the lead actress. 1894, we're talking about the woman who's sort of playing the words that he has put in her mouth and she's a woman called Mary Ansell. And they go off and they live in Kensington because he's making not a bad living.
- [17:30]
A
You know, I've been to that house. I've been to J.M. barry's house.
- [17:32]
B
Tell me more.
- [17:33]
A
Kensington, go on. It's a gorgeous house. It's actually frieze framed in my head because it was there that I heard about the death of my hero, Paddy D. Femme.
- [17:42]
B
Oh really?
- [17:43]
A
I can't remember who took me there. I think our mutual friend Barnaby who's been on the podium.
- [17:46]
B
Barnaby Rogerson.
- [17:47]
A
Yeah.
- [17:48]
B
Right. And what's it like, the house?
- [17:49]
A
It's one of these gorgeous Edwardian houses looking onto Kensington Gardens. It's a beautiful place.
- [17:54]
B
Well, Kensington Gardens is pivotal because Kensington Gardens. So this is, you know, 1894, he's married, he's making money from his plays and his journalism. He's got Mary, the lovely Mary is his wife. And he goes for walks in Kensington Gardens, which is a lovely park near this house. And he meets a family. He's got a dog, he's walking it and he comes across a young lad called George Llewellyn Davis and his brother Jack and their baby brother Peter. And this becomes a daily occurrence. He bumps into the Llewellyn Davis children and he forms a relationship with the family and he's particularly fond of the boys, There are five of them actually in the Llewellyn Davies House. There's George, Jack, Peter, Michael and Nico. Now, do you recognize some of those names? Absolutely, exactly, because they are the names that he transplants into Peter Pan.
- [18:44]
A
So he's writing this book for these boys, is he? It's very much a sort of entertainment for them.
- [18:48]
B
It starts with him telling stories to the boys where they are sort of the heroes. He's friendly with the family, he's often invited over for dinner and he often makes it a point of going to read bedtime stories or tell bedtime stories to the Llewellyn children.
- [19:04]
A
Now, do we look at this with modern eyes and think this is a bit suspicious of a middle aged man going off to children's bedrooms and reading them stories, or is this perfectly normal stuff?
- [19:12]
B
Well, can I tell you, there has been a huge controversy about this. People have written and there were books that came out about this in, I think, largely the 80s and it was a 90s even. There's one book called the Dark side of Peter Pan. Olivia Camozi has written a book about sort of J.M. barrie in the 1970s. They were obsessed with the fact that J.M. barrie had a not wholesome relationship with the Llewellyn Davis, his children, because he was, and I'll tell you why in a minute. So at the moment I've just left you with his dog walking. He's become friendly with the family and he's telling them stories sitting on their bedside. But in the 1970s, people were so convinced that there was something wrong with this relationship that there was. A researcher offered a cash reward to anyone who could prove there were actual episodes of paedophilia. Nobody claimed the reward. There was no sort of tangible proof. But this is kind of mud that is kind of stuck to the name for a long time.
- [20:08]
A
And this is, I think, this period, isn't it? This period of the late Victorians, early Edwardians, had this obsession with childhood and with youth. And this is what leads to the founding of Boy Scouts and the Victorians, even the most crusty Victorians would come over all sort of romantic at the idea of childhood and innocence and adolescence.
- [20:30]
B
Other authors haven't helped. I mean, Lewis Carroll doesn't help, you know, sort of the relationship between Lewis Carroll and the young girls that he came across. And Alice, particularly Alice Little.
- [20:39]
A
But it is again, I think partly each case has to be looked at in its own merits, but there is definitely a sort of cultural thing at this period that looks different to a different period of history. And it doesn't necessarily have to be Suspicious.
- [20:51]
B
I mean, the thing is, the Canozzi book, which is the most recent one, which goes sort of really into quite a lot of depth and looks at all the other books that have been written before, actually concludes that there isn't. There isn't a case to answer of him being Orongan, as we put it, but that he was. And again, this is a really weird thing because these are tropes that we've come across not too long ago with one Michael Jackson, but that he was childlike and that he used to buy toys for himself. You know, his rooms were filled with toys that he used to play with, that he never grew up. And that sort of formative thing of losing David and then trying to inhabit David and try to keep David alive as a little boy, is all sort of rewired his brain.
- [21:29]
A
Interesting. It's all complicated, isn't it?
- [21:32]
B
There's all these different elements to it all psychoanalysis, darling. But the friendship with the family is real. The friendship with the children is hugely important because the parents die, the Llewellyn Davis parents die and he becomes their guardian. And so, you know, they become his children. So, you know, how does he come to have the children? Well, there is something in Mrs. Llewelyn Davis, Will, that says he should be one of three people who looks after them. And his wife. In 1904, to add to this, Pell Mell is having an affair and is breaking JM Barry's heart. And he offers her money to break off this relationship and says, please, please don't leave me. This is just such a huge scandal. But, you know, she carries on the affair and finally it goes to divorce. So he is the soul guardian. He becomes the sole guardian of these boys. And so again, people have said, why would he do that? I mean, you can take it one of two ways. You can take it that way. But, but, but, but he does take the guardianship of the children very seriously. And I've been looking at all sorts of biographies on this. So Andrew Birkin is another biographer who's written about barry. He's written J.M. barrie and the Lost Boys. And he says in his notes that these children provided him with a model of innocence and playful mischief, inspiring his tale of the boy who Would not Grow Up. And Peter Pan himself directly mirrors the real Peter Llewelyn Davis. And Peter Llewelyn Davis later talks about this thing. I suppose I was Peter Pan in a way. I'll come back to the children in a little while. So Peter Pan then is produced and this is sort of around about the same time he's writing Peter Pan is when Mary is cheating on him. So he finds sort of solace in writing and making this play initially for the stage. It is in 1904.
- [23:23]
A
It's quite a moving story. If there is no evidence of pedophilia. This guy who's small, who's not very attractive, who gets the actress from his play and then she goes off with somebody else. And he finds companions in little children. Yeah.
- [23:38]
B
And actually, you know, in the Canozy book, which I got quite obsessed with, he talks about the fact that he was actually rather asexual. He was an asexual creature that, you know, he sort of had dalliances with women, but they were never overtly sexual. And the children, you know, she's gathered together testimony from the children who say, you know, actually he really wasn't sexual at all. In fact, I think one of them, and I can't find the name, I'll find it in a second, says there was never any stirring in his undergrowth. Which is a really odd thing for a dodgy way.
- [24:08]
A
Dodgy way of putting it. But. Yeah, no, I think the evidence seems to be panning out that it's a different cultural to what we're used to. And this is very common at this period. I mean, I think Conan Doyle to a certain extent was spending a lot of time with children and writing for children at the same time. And again, no direct evidence that he was up to anything untoward.
- [24:27]
B
It's interesting, isn't it? It's interesting that there is so much of this flying around.
- [24:31]
A
But he, we established, was greatly influenced by Stevenson, but he also is in correspondence with him at this point, and both of them are.
- [24:39]
B
Tell us more about that. That's interesting. Go on.
- [24:41]
A
So Barry wrote to Stevenson and they wrote back to each other in Scott's dialect, which I love, and they all inspired by someone that, again, is totally lost to us today. But who everyone at that period loved, which is Sir Walter Scott.
- [24:56]
B
Oh, yes.
- [24:57]
A
And I'm always intrigued by this, because Sir Walter Scott, although I grew up on him, and my childhood nanny used to be able to recite the whole of the lay of the Last Minstrel and Marmion by heart. She left school at 16, but she knew this all by heart, and she taught me great sways of it, breathes Raman with souls are dead, who never to himself has said, this is my own, my native land. And so on it goes. But they both of them very much looked to Sir Walter Scott as kind of inspiration. And they see in him a sort of triumvirate. They're all from the Lowlands, they're all Scots. And at one point Stevenson writes, there are two of us now that the sherer, which is what he calls the sheriff of Selkirkshire Walter Scott, might have patted on the head. So they see themselves as the children of Sir Walter Scott. Walter Scott had all these characters who were quite sort of piratical in Marmion and so on. It's all heading to that same area of sort of knights and armor and romanticism.
- [25:54]
B
Is it brigands? Is it more brigands than pirates? Is it?
- [25:58]
A
So when we come back, let's get back on track with where does Captain Hook come from? And what are the factual sources for the pirates of Peter Pan? Want to shop Walmart Black Friday Deals First? Walmart plus members get early access to our hottest deals. Join now and get 50% off a one year annual membership. Shop Black Friday deals first with Walmart Plus. See terms@walmartplus.com Time to work on your.
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- [27:26]
B
Welcome back. Okay, so we've been talking about JM Barrie a lot. Shall we talk about where the characters come from? So just before, I mean, can you tell us a little more about Captain Hook and whether he's a sympathetic character or not? What? I mean, do you sympathize?
- [27:39]
A
Let me do a reading about Captain Cook from Peter Pan. Cadaverous and Blackaviz'd, his hair dressed in long curls which looked like black candles about to melt his eyes blue as the forget me not and of a profound insensibility save when he claws at which Time a red spot appears in them. He has an iron hook instead of a right hand, and it is with this he claws. He is never more sinister than when he is most polite. And the elegance of his diction, the distinction of his demeanor, show him one of a different class from his crew, a solitary among uncultured companions. The courtliness impresses even his victims on the high seas, who note that he always says sorry when prodding them along the plank. And this is a very important part in Captain Hook. He's a toff. He's not like his vagabond crew.
- [28:34]
B
No, he's a gentleman.
- [28:35]
A
And we only learn about his education.
- [28:37]
B
At the end, which is very important. Which is very important. JM Barry, who had some miserable times at Eton, says that Captain Hook is a product of Eton. And some say he sort of modeled him on some of the horrible teachers he had. So there was a privateer called Christopher Newport. And Christopher Newport so clearly is the model for this man, Captain Hook.
- [29:00]
A
And did he have a hook as his name implies?
- [29:02]
B
He didn't have an arm, but he didn't have a hook. So let me just tell you about Christopher Newport, because this is going to blow your tiny little mind. It's also got crocodiles in it. So you tell me how these two are not linked. Okay, so he was an English seaman. He was a privateer. He used to be the captain of a ship.
- [29:18]
A
16Th century, right.
- [29:19]
B
We're talking Elizabeth, age born 1561, died 1617 to be precise. And he was the captain of the good ship Susan Constant. Again, another very girly ship. But it was the largest of three ships that carried settlers for the Virginia Company in 1607. So this is entirely linked with empire.
- [29:36]
A
It goes right back to that. Goodness.
- [29:38]
B
And why do we do pirates on Empire? This is why. Because their stories are completely linked. And so these were the same settlers, by the way, who went to found.
- [29:45]
A
Jamestown, where Pocahontas and John Smith.
- [29:49]
B
Exactly. So he makes several voyages, this man, Christopher Newport, between England and Jamestown, and he becomes captain of the Virginia Company's new flagship vessel, the Sea Venture. And so he has loads of these exciting adventures where the Sea Venture sails slap bang into a hurricane during one of these supply missions. He gets shipwrecked, he has to be rescued, and he's an absolute hero.
- [30:14]
A
But he's on the kind of legit side of things, is he? He's a privateer rather than a pirate.
- [30:18]
B
He's a privateer. He's a hero in America. Okay, this man Newport is named after Christopher Newport.
- [30:25]
A
No, Captain Hook is named after Newport.
- [30:28]
B
This is the real man, the inspiration for. So, you know, Christopher Newport University is named in his honor. There's a Newport News in Virginia that's named in his honor. So he's not a Scot. He's one of the few people who's not a Scot. He's actually born in London on the banks of the River Thames. They're near Limehouse, which is a particularly grimy, unsalubrious place when he is born. Anyway, his father is a shipmaster who is working in the commercial shipping trade. So this is all stuff that is in Newport's veins. And at the outbreak of the Anglo Spanish War, Newport signs up and joins as a privateer. And so he is raiding Spanish freighters in the Caribbean on the behest of the British.
- [31:10]
A
Of the Crown. Yeah.
- [31:12]
B
He commands a series of privateer ships, including a ship called the Little John and one called the Golden Dragon. And he's successful. He's massively successful. He's so successful that he's then sent on an expedition to the Caribbean, because, of course, as we know, in the Caribbean, they are being particularly ripped off by pirates. And so these shipments need protecting. And it's on this voyage, and we're talking about 1590 here, that Newport loses an army due to a fight with a Spanish galleon. So the galleon sort of fires into his ship. He has a terrible injury, and you can imagine just how awful and dreadful this was and that it's mangled and it has to be amputated. But does this put him back on land? It does not, my friends, because he carries on privateering for another two decades and amassing more and more accolades as a really very successful privateer. He raised the Hispaniola. He raids the Bay of Honduras. He seizes back prizes from ships, English plunder that's been taken in one. He takes the ship, a Portuguese ship called the Madre de Daos of the Azores, and it is the greatest English plunder of the century. Christopher Newport manages to take. Do you want to know what they got? What he got in his hall? 500 tons of spices, silks, gemstones, and other treasures. So Christopher Newport is such a dude, if you like, such a big name. He is also.
- [32:43]
A
There's a terrific statue of him that I'm looking at now in Newport University, where he's this very sort of jolly Jacobean buccaneer with an upturned, wide, brimmed hat, a shaggy sort of Father Christmas beard and breeches and sea dog boots. And he looks exactly the kind of man you'd want it to have on your side in a tight spot when you come across the Spanish shipping.
- [33:06]
B
Well, do you know who agreed with you? Sir Francis Drake, no less. So Sir Francis Drake took Newport on his famous raid of Cadiz. So Christopher Newport sailed with Sir Francis. Yes.
- [33:17]
A
And this is the one armed. The one armed Newport who was the one armed Newport.
- [33:22]
B
So he sort of after, you know, his adventures with Drake, he sails back to the Caribbean and he captures the island of Tabasco in 1599. So he's such a daring kind of guy.
- [33:34]
A
And then he joins the East India Company. It all links up, isn't it? And so the East India Company is only founded in 1616 1606. Newport has joined up and he's sailing to India. He commands the 12th voyage of the East India Company to the far east. In 1615, he sails to India. And in November 1616 he writes his will, sets out on his third voyage to the East Indies, which, remember at that point is going not to India, but to the Spice Islands of the Indies. And he dies in Java in 1617, where I was last week.
- [34:09]
B
Really? Okay. So if you're not convinced yet, you know, he's a hero. And he also gives a gift from his many travels to King James of two crocodiles and a hippo.
- [34:21]
A
Brilliant.
- [34:23]
B
And a watch, I don't know.
- [34:26]
A
Watch not include tick tock, tick tock.
- [34:28]
B
Where does the watch come from? I wonder whether the watch has something to do with sort of Moby Dick, you know, Captain Ahab and the great white whale and that he's his sort of thing that he keeps getting sort of stressed about And I wonder if there's a link to that. But there is definitely the crocodile link. So anyway, that has dealt with Captain Hook, but the modeling of Captain Hook's look. He does look like Charles Stewart, doesn't he? Charles ii.
- [34:49]
A
Very much that style. Exactly.
- [34:51]
B
Yeah. So I mean, that's maybe where we get all of that from. So the Eton thing, tell us more about the Eton thing, because that is interesting. It's implied that Hook attended Eton in the.
- [34:59]
A
I love that.
- [35:00]
B
I love that. Yeah.
- [35:02]
A
It's such a very English things that Captain Hook, the villain of the whole story, is a gentleman. And his dying words in the play are floreat and toner, which is the motto of Eton.
- [35:14]
B
But it's meant to be a curse, because it's a curse to Peter saying, when you grow up, you're going to be exactly what I am.
- [35:19]
A
I'm gonna have to go to that horrible School.
- [35:21]
B
Eton is a malign, terrible place. And actually, as a guardian. Shall we go back to the real life Llewellyn Davis boys? He does send Peter Llewellyn Davis to Eton.
- [35:33]
A
Barry himself sends him.
- [35:34]
B
Barry does, because Barry's now in charge of the children. Barry's got the children. His wife has now left him. He is sole guardian of these children and. Well, look, shall I tell you the really tragic thing? This is not a happy story for the Llewellyn Davis children.
- [35:50]
A
Does it go wrong at Eton or after that?
- [35:52]
B
Well, George, who is the oldest, just.
- [35:54]
A
In case you weren't concentrating, this is the model for the darling children, who are the children that Peter Pan takes off to Netherland. And they're based on this family, the Llewelyn Davis family, who Barry then sends off to Eton with Captain Hook.
- [36:10]
B
Yeah, the place that he. Obviously, you know, that ruins Captain Hook. So I don't. There's so many.
- [36:14]
A
It's complicated.
- [36:16]
B
Decode your lives out, guys. But George dies at 21 because he's volunteered as a soldier and he's fighting in the First World War. So 1915 he died.
- [36:25]
A
Yes, because this is all written in what, 1905. So all the kids who are kids.
- [36:29]
B
1904 is the play and then 1911 is the book.
- [36:32]
A
So three years later, these children are exactly the right age to go into the trenches.
- [36:36]
B
So George dies in the trenches. Michael was just shy of his 21st birthday when he drowned in 1921 in what people believe widely was a suicide.
- [36:47]
A
Jesus.
- [36:48]
B
Then you've got John or Jack Llewellyn Davis, who dies of lung disease in 1959 at the age of 65. So, I mean, that's, you know, it's a tragic end, but it's ill health. And Peter, the eponymous Peter of Peter Pan, who called Peter Pan that terrible masterpiece. Now that's telling, isn't it? He calls Peter Pan that terrible masterpiece.
- [37:08]
A
Did he, as an adult, didn't love Barry or just thought he'd erect his life because he was always being pointed out as Peter Pan.
- [37:13]
B
I could not find much of what he said of Barry, but he did die in 1960 at the age of 63 of suicide.
- [37:22]
A
So there's all sorts of. All sorts of very. That. I didn't expect it to end there.
- [37:26]
B
No, no. Breathtaking, huh?
- [37:29]
A
And so what we haven't got is the final link in this chain. So we've gone from the semi fictionalized accounts of these brutes as we now know them to be many of them who are the real Pirates to Defoe to Robbie Lewis Stevenson, Treasure island to the Captain Hook in Peter Pan. And then we have to do Johnny Depp.
- [37:50]
B
You love Johnny Depp. Go on, you go for it.
- [37:52]
A
I always love Johnny Depp. And Johnny Depp's interesting because not only does he obviously play Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, but he also plays Barry himself in Finding Neverland.
- [38:03]
B
Finding Neverland, yes, I know. The symmetry of that is pretty good, isn't it?
- [38:06]
A
And Johnny Depp is also a character who has this sort of odd sort of obsession with childhood and yet finds himself immured in constant scandals. So there's more continuity.
- [38:18]
B
Life's rich tapestry, my friend. But we won't go any further with that kind of parallel life because, you know, he's alive. Libel laws, et cetera. But anyway, look, it's been a real fun romp, this. It's not, you know, sort of pure history.
- [38:31]
A
It has been a romp. And it is leading us, as we've seen, back towards India. And our next series, I am very, very pleased to say, is going to be something I've been longing to do, obviously, since the very beginning of Empire. And using the hook of the wonderful new V and A show on the Moguls, which is opening at the V and A in London this month, in November, we are going now to do a deep dive. We have not for a while gone into a really deep dive on an empire and told the whole story, but we're going to now do the Great Moguls, which is a controversial story in India because a lot of people in India now regard the Mughals as violent invaders rather than the aesthetes that a previous generation thought of them as the wonderful writers and creators of beautiful gardens and the creators of the Taj Mahal. So it's a complicated story and we're going to look at it from all these different angles. But we are going to start next week with the story of one of the greatest writers who ever ruled, the Emperor Babu, who, like any of these characters we've been talking about today, experiences great swings of fortune. Who has captured Samarkand by the age of 16 and lost it by 21, and who then later in his life goes on to found not one, but two new kingdoms, first in Afghanistan, then in India, who dies regarding himself a failure because he never regains his patrimony in Central Asia, the Timurid Empire in what's now Uzbekistan, which is captured by the Uzbeks during his youth. And he dies thinking he's completely failed, and he's lost everything that was left to him. But in actual fact, he is now remembered as the man who founded, whether you like them or not, one of the most powerful and one of the richest empires ever to rule the great Moguls. So that's what we're going to be looking at now for the next two months. And we're going to do a deep dive that I cannot wait to get back into because so much that I knew about the Moguls has been rewritten over the last 10 or 15 years. And the wonderful new books I've just been reading today, Eber Koch's extraordinary new look at Humayun, who's a character that I was rather underrated of, the Moguls, but who turns out to be one of the most interesting.
- [40:57]
B
He's always sort of dismissed, isn't he? I mean, he's the one who's the kind of hippie, hippie, weakling, hippie, hippie.
- [41:03]
A
Turns out he is one of the most interesting and most complex of any of them. So anyway, we've got lots and lots to get our teeth into over the months ahead and I cannot wait.
- [41:14]
B
Looking forward to it. They are fabulous characters and extraordinary stories. They're such good stories.
- [41:19]
A
Well, Anita, thank you so much for this. I have learned so much from you today about both Stevenson and Barry, but Barbour is very much my subject and.
- [41:26]
B
So I'm going to be wheelhouse. So I shall defer to telling my.
- [41:29]
A
Stories for next week. Thank you so much for this.
- [41:32]
B
Till the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnan, and goodbye.
- [41:36]
A
From me, William Durumpel.