LIFE NOTES (1a of ??)

 

There is documented evidence of my life prior to my first memory, namely a small, white reel-to-reel tape with the words Mary Poppins inscribed on it in light blue ink. This would have been recorded at the beginning of December 1964, after I had been taken by my parents to see the film at the George Cinema in Bellshill. You can hear me and my father singing Let’s Go Fly A Kite and me urging him: “You sing it, daddy!”

 

I uttered my first intelligible word when I was six months old and it was either OMO or DAZ, doubtless prompted by a television commercial. However, I did not learn to walk until I was eighteen months old. The warning signs were already present.

 

When a child, you think of Mary Poppins as a briskly cute romp of a film, and when you grow up and view it again you realise she hasn’t come down from the heavens for the sake of the children at all. She’s there to save Mr Banks’ life. Does the final kite-flying sequence have any basis in reality, or is the delirious fantasy of Mr Banks, drowning in the Thames? One might view the film as a prolonged, projected daydream on Mr Banks’ behalf. A 1999 film was made utilising an identical premise; it was called Fight Club.

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