Llewelyn Davies Boys - Relationship With Barrie

Relationship With Barrie

The boys' relationships with Barrie varied. George and Michael were very close to him, and their deaths affected him strongly. Jack harbored some resentment towards Barrie for taking his father's place during and after Arthur's illness. Peter's relationship with Barrie was ambivalent, but Nico adored him.

Although there has often been suspicion about the nature of Barrie's relationship with the boys, there is no evidence that he engaged in any sexual activity with them, nor that there was any suspicion of such at the time. Their father Arthur was troubled by Barrie's relationship with them, but that was based on its interference with his own relationship with them as their father, and he didn't care for the man personally. As an adult, Nico flatly denied any inappropriate behavior or intentions by Barrie. 'I don't believe that Uncle Jim ever experienced what one might call "a stirring in the undergrowth" for anyone — man, woman, or child,' he wrote to biographer Andrew Birkin in 1978. 'He was an innocent — which is why he could write Peter Pan.' In an interview taped in 1976, Conservative Party politician Robert Boothby, who had been a close friend of Michael during their teens, described Michael's relationship with Barrie at that time as 'morbid' and 'unhealthy', but dismissed the notion that there had been a sexual aspect to it.