The Pageant of Peter Pan on the occasion of the Presentation of the
Statue.
The gift of Mr George Audley
Pageant in Sefton Park, Liverpool
16th June 1928
Written & produced by Percy F Corkhill C.B.E.
by permission of Sir James Barrie O.M.
Music by James Crooks
Illustrated by T J Bond
The Pageant of Peter Pan
by Percy Corkhill
 They
all begin the same way, these fairy stories – ‘Once upon a
time.’ And so it came to pass that one day that great lover of the
beautiful – Barrie, they called him – created a beautiful and
immortal play – Peter Pan – about ‘the boy who would never
grow up’, never has, and never will.
The another lover of children, Sir George Frampton, filled with beautiful
thoughts, brought his genius into play and built up a statue of Peter Pan. I
will not describe it; you must go and see it for yourself.
Now, do you know that the genius of Barrie had a family; young, pretty,
fairy-like people who left the nest early and wandered over the world. One of
these little people was a generous thought and it settled in the mind of yet
another lover of children. (God bless the lovers of little children!) He was a
man of commerce but he had the child heart - his name was Mr George Audley. He
wrestled with this generous thought for a second only, then with brightening
eyes said, ‘I will give to my native city a Peter Pan, and he shall have
the best setting which a proud and rich city can give to him’.
And so the Statue of Peter Pan came to reside in a lovely spot near the banks of
the Mersey.
The next question. Shall Peter and Wendy and the Fairies, the Lizard and Frog
and Snail, come as in the dead of the night to us as they did in Kensington
Gardens? It was thought not.
What better scheme could we have than a real great Peter Pan Day when
inspiration would be kindled afresh in Peter’s innumerable admirers.
Shall we sit down and have a quiet chat about it?
We see first of all that ‘Nana discovers a secret;’ and so does the
audience.
But I have not told you yet about the audience on Peter Pan Day. It is a large,
enthusiastic congregation of children of all ages. There are those who have not
been able to snatch as many of the blessings of life as others have –
they are there. Bright, mischievous, frolicsome boys and girls in health and
strength are there too; City Fathers and City Mothers, too are there - all to
assist at Peter’s House-warming.
Next page
|
