The most entertaining explanation received so far for the mysterious transformation of the Mary Poppins Birthplace Statue from facing west to facing east was published in the Southern Highlands News. It was offered by sisters Gabrielle and Rosanna Smyth.
Their grandmother Joan Smyth wrote:
Gabrielle and Rosana Smyth ( 6 and 4 ), my grandchildren from Sydney, who had visited Mary when she first appeared in our park, were quite mystified by her changed position and couldn’t wait to ‘show and tell’ their parents all about it last weekend!
Their idea was that Mary had come to life one night and danced around the playground having fun, until the morning light was appearing, when she quickly jumped back up onto the pedestal to be ready for the first children of the day. Unfortunately she had too much fun during her adventures and too much lemonade, which made her “fizzy dizzy” and she turned the wrong way when she became still again !
They are sure she is not upset though because she can see the children playing all day in the playground and that is much better than just looking out across the park.
What do you think ??
Other explantions have tended to focus on possible human intervention:
Good morning.
I was reading in the southern highlands news that the Mary Poppins statue has moved position.
My mother took my children there the other day and they noticed there were lots of other peoples children climbing all over the statue and using it as a cricket pitch. My mother said this put a lot of stress on the statue and the statue was moved out of place.
This could be the reason it has moved.
Children should be told not to treat such a beautiful sculpture, a work of art, in this way. I am an artist and if I saw children or anyone treating my art in this way I would be very upset.
Regards
Melanie Kirton
Bowral
and there seems to be some corroboration for this theory:
My wife & I walked through the park, last Thursday and noticed a family playing cricket, all were dotted around Mary Poppins, and the base Mary stands on was their stumps, next minute one of the children climbed to the top of Mary’s head & photos were taken, this caught the attention of others who wanted their photo with Mary. I thought they shouldn’t do that, Mary Poppins stands on one foot to the base, it is dangerous to be climbing all over it. Maybe Mary needs to have an old English fence around the circle… yours Nigel Mckeown.
Photo: Grandchildren of Joan Smyth, Gabrielle (6) and Rosana (4) Smyth have an extraordinary theory to explain Mary Poppins’ switch-aroo. Photo suppied
