While the magical adventures of Mary Poppins are clearly fictional, Travers later said that the character herself was based on a real person
Real person, not real medium.
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/2014/0623/Mary-Poppins-real-life-inspiration-flies-again-this-NovemberChristina Saraset, known as Aunt Sass, was credited with being the inspiration for the magical nanny created by her niece, Mary Poppins author PL Travers.
In the book, Travers described the fierce great aunt with a heart of gold tenderly, saying: 'Her remarkableness lay in the extraordinary and, to me, enchanting discrepancy between her external behaviour and her inner self.'
It tells how the author heard about her great aunt's death, saying: 'I thought to myself "Some day, in spite of her, I shall commit the 'disrespectful vulgarity' of putting Aunt Sass in a book".
'And then it occurred to me that this had already been done, though unconsciously and without intent.
'We write more than we know we are writing. We do not guess at the roots that made our fruit. I suddenly realised that there is a book through which Aunt Sass, stern and tender, secret and proud, anonymous and loving, stalks with her silent feet.
'You will find her occasionally in the page of Mary Poppins.'
After writing the 35-page book during World War Two, Travers printed off a few copies and gave them to family and friends for Christmas, but it has never reached a wider audience, til now.
Virago now intends to publish the story, along with two others that the author had only ever given to friends, in one edition this November, in time for Christmas.
The other stories, which are of similar lengths, are called Ah Wong and Johnny Delaney, and both tell the tales of real-life unlikely heroes who meant a great deal to the young Travers as she grew up in her native Australia.
Ms Coonan said: 'Ah Wong is a Chinese cook who chants threats at crying babies - very melodically - to make them sleep, while Johnny Delaney is a heart-breaking but foul-mouthed jockey with a filthy temper.'
The trio the stories are based on played important parts in Travers' life growing up on a sugar plantation in Queensland near the Great Barrier Reef.
Born Helen Lyndon Goff in 1899, she suffered an impoverished childhood, which inspired her magical stories and characters.
Her father was a banker who turned to alcohol, lost all his money and died young - it is widely considered that the character in the Mary Poppins books, Mr Banks, was based on him.
As a young woman she was an actress, dancer and a poet before concentrating on fiction. Ten years after leaving Australia for Britain, with very little money, Travers' first Mary Poppins book was published in 1934 to great acclaim.
Walt Disney asked to turn her story into a film, under pressure from his daughters, who loved Mary Poppins, but Travers initially refused. Disney persisted, with letters, telegrams, visits and offers of money, and eventually, after 14 years of bombardment, the author agreed to sell him the film rights for $2million.
The resulting film, starring Julie Andrews and Dick van Dyke, was a smash hit when it was released in 1964, but Travers didn't agree. She sobbed through it when she first saw it, horrified at the sentimentality of the acid-tongued nanny she'd created, Andrews' prettiness which she thought didn't suit her character, and the animated scenes.
Travers refused ever to work with Disney again, preventing them from making a much-wanted sequel, and when she died in 1996, aged 96, she was still upset about it.
Two years ago the film Saving Mr Banks was released, telling the story of Travers' dramatic life and her feud with Walt Disney. Her great aunt features in the minor role of 'Aunt Ellie' in the film, played by Rachel Griffiths, mostly in flashbacks.
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