What they were, rather, were elaborate paradigms, inflected with cod-Jungianism, which spoke of the journey towards psychic wholeness undertaken by all her characters, Mary Poppins included. Pamela Lyndon Travers was a youngish woman when, in 1934, she wrote the first of her Mary Poppins books, books which she was emphatic were not especially meant for children. And who was this PL Travers, anyway, who had stolen Mary Poppins and turned her from the most important fantasy figure in my life into a snappy, common scold? There was endless guff about astronomy and snatches of narratives concerning dancing cows and figures trapped in porcelain that sounded a bit like something from Hans Christian Andersen but weren't as good. In fact the whole Mary Poppins book was weird and off-kilter. Instead of just Jane and Michael there were lots of little Bankses, including spooky twins who could talk to stars. Mary Poppins spoke in an ugly cockney accent, and didn't sing a note. There was no elegant Edwardian setting, but instead something pinched and shabby from the 1930s. The illustrations of Mary Poppins - by Mary Sheppard - made her look like a stiff, ugly Dutch doll and nothing like lovely Julie Andrews. This didn't look like the real deal at all. I sniffed it suspiciously, like a cat that has been given a dud bit of fish.

Then, one day someone - a godmother, one of those childless and high-minded women who always insisted on giving me a book for my birthday instead of chocolate or a poncho - presented me with PL Travers's Mary Poppins.

Mary poppins travers book