They’re firmly convinced Mary Poppins will be turning up to look after them (Picture: FilmPublicityArchive/United Archives via Getty Images)
Folding up the hand-scrawled note, I carefully placed it into the log burner and turned back to look at my two children, Theo and Immy, who were looking expectantly at me.
‘Do you think she’ll come?’ Theo, five, asked, his eyes shining. ‘I really hope she does.’
‘Well,’ I replied hesitantly. ‘I think she’s quite busy – but I’m sure she’ll love to see your letter.’
‘I think she’ll come,’ Immy, three, said confidently. ‘She’ll fly here with her umbrella and help us tidy the nursery with magic.’
I opened my mouth to remind my little girl that we didn’t actually have a nursery but before I could get the words out, Theo pointed at me. ‘Close your mouth, Mammy,’ he hooted, doubling over at his own hilarity. ‘We are not a codfish!’
As a treat, me and my husband Tom had let the kids have a ‘movie night’ and put Mary Poppins on for the first time. I’d had no idea it would make such an impact on them!
The Disney classic had been my favourite film growing up – I worked on my Jane impression constantly, putting on my dressing gown and reciting the lines ‘If you want this choice position, have a cheery disposition…’ incessantly.
Even now, my mam can’t watch it, because I rewound it so many times to start it from the beginning again. And again. And again.
In more recent years, I’ve fallen for the whole franchise. My tears fall without fail at Saving Mr Banks and, although I was wary, I couldn’t resist dragging Tom to the cinema to see Mary Poppins Returns. We both loved it!
Still though, when Tom suggested we put the original on, I had no idea how my children would relate to a movie made up of a magical nanny and a cheerful chimney sweep. In fact, I very much suspected we’d be turning it off after the first 20 minutes.
They fell in love with Mary Poppins (Picture: Sarah Whiteley)
I could not have been more wrong.
The two of them were just as entranced as I had been when I had first seen it, copying Michael’s attempts to snap his fingers to join in with tidying the nursery and howling with laughter when Mary Poppins took him and his sister to see Uncle Andrew on the ceiling.
As all of the chimney sweeps ‘stepped in time’ on the rooftops, Theo joined in, bending his knees and doffing his imaginary cap.
But most of all, they fell in love with Mary Poppins. Absolutely head over heels, they were. They watched, google-eyed, as she pulled the mirror and hat stand out of her carpet bag, gasped when she held hands with the children and Burt to jump into the pavement picture and cheered when she won the race on her carousel horse.
As soon as the credits were rolling, they were digging out their paper and pens to write a letter to summon her to our house.
‘But we don’t really need a nanny,’ I pointed out. ‘You have a mammy and a daddy – and you go to nursery.’
Theo shook his head solemnly. ‘We don’t need a mammy if we have a nanny,’ he informed me. Charming…
In the end, their letter turned out to less articulate – and indeed, less lyrical – than Jane and Michael’s. It simply said, ‘Please come to our house, Mary Poppins’.
But we placed it in our log burner and the children went to bed, fully expecting her to sliding up our non-existent banister when they awoke the next morning.
I had no idea how my children would relate to the movie (Picture: Sarah Whiteley)
In an attempt to alleviate their inevitable disappointment, Tom and I decided to write them a letter back. ‘I popped by your house last night and saw you were both asleep, looking practically perfect in every way… I’m very busy as those pesky Banks children are at it again… remember to keep your rooms tidy and to keep your mouths closed. After all, we are not a codfish.’
Sadly, ‘Mary’s’ response only further encouraged them. They spent the next morning peering out of the window, waiting for the queue of nannies to appear, then blow away in the wind.
‘She’ll be here when we get back, I know it,’ Theo said confidently, as we took them out to the park, laughing at both children’s attempts to say ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ the whole way.
The only thing to distract them from their grief at Mary Poppins continued absence when we returned was the suggestion that we watch the sequel, starring Emily Blunt. This didn’t need a spoonful of sugar – it went down just as well as the first!
In fact, a week on, Immy still hasn’t stopped growling, ‘The Royal Dalton Music Hall’ wherever we go, much to the fright of our fellow shoppers in Tesco.
We have since watched both films three times each and on each viewing, the children have become even more Mary-Poppins-mad.
Tom and I discussed, only half-jokingly, that we get a lookalike to come around, dressed up as the no-nonsense nanny. ‘We can’t,’ we decided, glumly, in the end. ‘They’ll expect her to do real magic.’
And I have a feeling, when we have to break it to them that she isn’t real, its going to be a bit like Santa. Only worse. Because they know they’ll never get to meet Mr Claus, but they’re firmly convinced Mary Poppins will be turning up to look after them.
So thank you, Disney, for creating a film that isn’t just practically perfect – it is perfect. For grown-ups and children, alike, whatever the generation.
It has made my family so happy, we could just go fly a kite!
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They’re firmly convinced Mary Poppins will be turning up to look after them.