P.L. Travers was born in 1899 in Maryborough in Queensland, Australia and was one of three sisters.She worked as a secretary, a dancer and an actress, but writing was P.L. Travers's real love, and for many years she was a journalist. It was while recuperating from a serious illness that she wrote Mary Poppins - "to while away the days, but also to put down something that had been in my mind for a long time", she said. She recieved an OBE in 1977, and died in 1996.