Barrie was presented with the Freedom of Dumfries at the Lyceum Theatre in the afternoon of 11 December 1924. In his acceptance speech, Barrie said "I think the five years or so that I spent here [as a schoolboy at the Dumfries Academy] were probably the happiest of my life." Later in the speech he spoke about his escapdades “in a certain Dumfries garden”:
“When the shades of night began to fall, certain young mathematicians shed their triangles, crept up walls and down trees, and became pirates in a sort of Odyssey that was long afterwards to become the play of Peter Pan. For our escapades in a certain Dumfries garden, which is enchanted land to me, were certainly the genesis of that nefarious work. We lived in the tree-tops, on coconuts attached thereto, and that were in a bad condition; we were buccaneers and I kept the log-book of our depredations, and eerie journal, without a triangle in it to mar the beauty of its page. That log-book I trust is no longer extant, though I should like one last look at it, to see if Captain Hook is in it.”
That evening a banquet was given in Barrie’s honour at the Royal Restaurant, where he gave another speech. The whole event is described in detail by Denis Mackail in his 1941 biography, “The Story of JMB”, pp 592-593. Barrie’s speeches at the Lyceum and the restuarant are reproduced in full in “M’Connachie and J.M.B. : Speeches by J. M. Barrie” published by Peter Davies Ltd, 1938, pp 75-105.
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