During the Flower Festival I took people on guided tours of the Additional Burial Ground. My tomb trail included the grave of Mary Shepard Knox, original illustrator of Mary Poppins. Imagine my delight at seeing a ‘horde’ of Mary Poppinses during the wonderful three hour spectacle which was the Olympic opening ceremony.
But there were other links with the ABG…..
In the segment which featured some characters from children’s literature, J.M. Barrie’s ‘Peter Pan’ and his bequest which continues to benefit Great Ormond Street hospital played a big part. Before the Flower Festival I followed one of the tours put on for school children as part of the schools project and I learnt from Said Abdallah, one of the talented members of the Hampstead Players, about the LLewelyn-Davies boys, who inspired the ‘Lost Boys’ and ‘Peter Pan’, and who are buried in the ABG. The ABG also has its own suffragette – Eva Gore Booth and a Pearly King and Queen – Bert and Becky Matthews and their descendants.
And while Danny Boyle put on an amazing display buried in the ABG is another ground-breaking director – Sir Herbert Beerbohm-Tree. As manager of His Majesty’s Theatre he was famous for the amazing realistic productions of Shakespeare’s plays which he staged.
London 2012 – Flower Festival links in the Opening Ceremony
Susan Woolf