THE REAL PETER PAN

J.M. Barrie based Peter Pan on Michael Llewelyn Davies.

Barrie first met Michael, and Michael's brothers, in London's Kensington Gardens.

Barrie became the boys' guardian after the early deaths of their parents, Arthur and Sylvia Llewelyn Davies.


The Davies boys: Nico (in father Arthur's arms), Jack, Peter, George, Michael (in front)

Sylvia Llewelyn Davies was Sylvia du Maurier, related to novelist Daphne du Maurier.


Lord Boothby

Michael's friend at Eton and Oxford University was Robert Boothby.

Boothby was reportedly part of a child abuse ring and was supplied with boys by the gangster Kray Twins.

Boothby once said of Michael Llewelyn Davies: "Barrie loved him with 'a great love'."

(Source: The Real Peter Pan: The Tragic Life Of Michael Llewelyn Davies - by Piers Dudgeon -dailymail )

Michael's brother Nico, who died in 1980, said that Barrie was "a lover of childhood, but was not in any sexual sense the pedophile that some claim him to have been."

Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie.


Michael

Sylvia Llewelyn Davies welcomed Barrie into the lives of her young family.

Her husband Arthur, a barrister, "found it irksome that he almost always found his children at play with 'Uncle Jim'."

(Source: The Real Peter Pan: The Tragic Life Of Michael Llewelyn Davies - by Piers Dudgeon)


J.M. Barrie playing Captain Hook with Michael Llewelyn Davies in 1905. "It was from the time of this photograph that Michael’s recurring nightmares began." dailymail

J M Barrie was married to Mary Ansell, a young actress.

Mary once said that the nearness of their house to the Llewelyn Davieses' made J M Barrie's 'philanderings' with the boys 'ever more easy'.

Mary was not happy when Barrie took Sylvia and Michael on holiday to Paris.

Mary and Sylvia's husband Arthur were left behind.

Michael's brother Nico once said that Barrie was in love with Michael, 'as he was in love with my mother'.

(Source: The Real Peter Pan: The Tragic Life Of Michael Llewelyn Davies - by Piers Dudgeon)


Barrie 

In 1904, Arthur Llewelyn Davies moved his family to Berkhamsted.

In 1907, Arthur died of cancer.

In 1909, J.M. Barrie divorced his wife Mary Ansell 'after she sought consolation in the arms of another man.'


1912: Michael with Barrie in Scotland.

Barrie began taking Michael and his brothers for annual holidays in Scotland.

1n 1910, Sylvia died from cancer.

Michael had "nightmares about water and ghosts coming through the window."

In 1913, Michael went to Eton.

Barrie began to write to him every day.


Michael 

At Eton, a boy called Roger Senhouse developed a crush on Michael.

Michael and Roger Senhouse were briefly lovers, according to fellow Etonian Robert Boothby.

After Eton, Michael, and Robert Boothby, went to Oxford University.

Boothby had sex with lots of young men at Oxford.

"While an undergraduate at Oxford, Boothby earned the nickname "the Palladium", because "he was twice nightly".[11]"


Buxton

At Oxford, Michael met the handsome Rupert Buxton.

One student said of Michael and Rupert that they were 'inseparable… a peerless couple, and everyone who knew either of them loved them'.

Another wrote that 'whoever came into contact with them recognised that they had in more than normal abundance the gift of personality. Either of them might have become an immortal genius or a martyr'.

Michael decided that eventually he wanted to study at the Sorbonne.

"He was drawing away from Barrie.

"But Barrie wouldn't let him go. He bought Michael a cottage in Sussex, but Michael wasn’t interested."

(Source: The Real Peter Pan: The Tragic Life Of Michael Llewelyn Davies - by Piers Dudgeon)

In 1921, Michael and Rupert were swimming at Sandford, on the Thames, 'a blackspot for swimming accidents'.

Both Michael and Rupert were drowned.

"Some later accounts report that their hands were tied to each other's."

The coroner's conclusion was that Michael had drowned accidentally, and that Rupert had drowned trying to save him.

Michael Llewelyn Davies - Wikipedia

Robert Boothby, in 1976, described Rupert Buxton as having "an almost suicidal streak about him."

Did Michael and Rupert know too much; and were they murdered?

Lord Boothby (right)

Robert Boothby was a close friend of the gangster Kray Twins.

According to this source - Archives - the Krays ran a paedophile ring.

"What was involved was the systematic abuse of ten-to-twelve-year-old boys, one of whom subsequently became fairly well known as a singer.

"Another, rather less fortunate,wound up in six pieces in two suitcases...

In The Real Peter Pan: The Tragic Life Of Michael Llewelyn Davies, the author Piers Dudgeon blames everything on J M Barrie.

For a more balanced approach, have a look at "Neverland: J.M. Barrie, The Du Mauriers, and the Dark Side."