Her memory of CSL:
“Lovely. He had a reputation amongst his students — he was so sharp on them — he didn’t let them get away with any kind of woolliness. They were quite scared of their tutorials. To me, at home, he was generosity itself. He would let me buy any book I wanted. He would talk to me about things — never make me feel small. If I said anything really silly he just wouldn’t answer. He was kind, generous, good humored, helpful. I was 16, and it was what you would call a schoolgirl crush. Jack put me in his educational covenant and paid all my fees. All the royalties from his religious books were put into a covenant and were used to help people in education because there were very few grants in those days.”
I got the chance to meet Doug Gresham, the referenced stepson of Jack in the article, earlier this summer and he was an absolutely delightful gentlemen of profound faith in our Lord. In the small world category, it turns out that years ago when I worked with Fellowship Foundation in DC and coordinated the CS Lewis summer study institute, it was Doug who gave us permission to use Jack’s name and likeness.
I got to sit in on a recording session of a wonderful young singer/song writer who was Doug’s protege. With any luck, we may hear some of her music in an upcoming Narnia movie.
People tend to forget he was an Ulsterman (of Anglo-Scots blood), not English.
In fact, the dedication in LWW reads:
To Lucy BarfieldI wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be
your affectionate Godfather, C. S. Lewis.
We may have some pre-movie hype going on here.