'CS Lewis: the man I called father'

• Douglas Gresham

FIFTY years ago, on the day the assassination of President Kennedy shook the world, Douglas Gresham braced himself for more heartbreaking news.

At his boarding school in Surrey he heard the sound of a woman’s heels running along the path outside the classroom where he was working.

“It was the headmaster’s daughter. I somehow knew she was coming for me,” recalled Mr Gresham.

Soon afterwards, his worst fears were confirmed when on the way to the head’s office he received news that CS Lewis had died.

The already traumatised Western World, now also had to mourn the loss of one of the century’s best-loved children’s novelists, the author of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

At 18, Mr Gresham now faced coming to terms with the death of the stepfather who had become such a central part of the teenager’s life since his arrival in Oxford, aged eight.

Today, the 50th anniversary of Lewis’ death, Mr Gresham will be in Westminster Abbey for a special service to dedicate a memorial to the writer in Poets’ Corner.

Mr Gresham, who now lives in Malta, hopes later to return to Oxford to see again The Kilns, the home of the Oxford don and influential Christian thinker, who found fame as a writer of children’s books.

Memories will flood back for the man who can regard himself as the true son of Narnia.

For while millions of children were reading about Narnia, the young Douglas used to play there.

And in a way he has never left, having played a central part in bringing three Narnia films to the big screen.

He first set foot at The Kilns, the house with spacious grounds in Risinghurst that Lewis shared with his brother Warnie (Major Warren H. Lewis), in 1953.

He was accompanied there with his brother and mother, the poet and novelist Joy Davidman.

She would become the wife of the Magdalen College don, with the story of their time together before her death from cancer the subject of the play Shadowlands and later the David Attenborough film.

Following her death, Mr Gresham continued to live at The Kilns with CS Lewis.

“He did not regard himself as good with children,” Mr Gresham said.

“He always felt a little ill at ease, but that was with other people’s children.

“In a way that is natural, but in my experience he was amazingly good. He never talked down to them.

“The children that I knew, who came to know him, loved him dearly. He was a fabulous teacher.”

Mr Gresham added: “He had a wonderful sense of fun – he was a joyous man to be with.”

Ten years later he would be greeted by him again for the last time, in hospital.

CS Lewis had been admitted to the Acland Nursing Home for a blood transfusion and went into a coma after suffering a heart attack.

Another visitor to the hospital was Lewis’ great friend Tolkien.

In a touching display of their friendship, the author of The Lord of the Rings told Mr Gresham that if anything happened to his stepfather he could live with him. Lewis recovered sufficiently to return home.

He made his last visit to the Lamb and Flag in St Giles for a session he described as “perhaps the best of all such Mondays”.

On November 22, a week before what would have been the writer’s 65th birthday, his brother took him tea in his bedroom.

After hearing a crash, Warnie returned to find Lewis unconscious at the foot of his bed. He ceased to breathe a few minutes later.

Mr Gresham’s memory of The Kilns remains vivid.

He can still recall sawing up a heap of branches into firewood with the two brothers and being shown around the woods and lake behind The Kilns by the man he would always know as Jack.

Mr Gresham’s mother, who could claim to be as well read as the Magdalen don, got to know Lewis after writing to him about his book Mere Christianity.

She and Lewis had married at what had been thought to be her deathbed.

But she rallied, going into remission over several years, and they were to enjoy the happiest years of their lives together.

When Mr Gresham came to write a book about his childhood, Lenten Lands, one of the saddest passages recalled his return to The Kilns following Warnie’s death. “I found that it was empty, sacked as thoroughly as if by a band of marauders.

“It was difficult for me to go back for a long time,” said Mr Gresham, who is happier today about the state of the house.

After studying agriculture and working as a farmer in Australia, Mr Gresham spent almost two decades to find a film production company that would bring The Chronicles of Narnia faithfully to life on the big screen.

He recently revealed that The Silver Chair is to be the next in the series.

“Because of contractual obligations we cannot release anything until December 2017,” he said.

“But it is progressing and I’m reading dozens of screenplays.”

Parishioners’ pilgrimage for author’s abbey honour

• Margaret Taylor by the grave of CS Lewis at Holy Trinity Church

MORE than 50 Headington parishioners will travel to Westminster Abbey for a special service to commemorate CS Lewis.

Members of the congregation of Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry will attend the service today to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the death of their most famous parishioner.

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams will preach and unveil a commemorative plaque to the author in the Poets’ Corner of the Abbey.

CS Lewis was a member of the Holy Trinity Church for more than 30 years. He is also buried in the churchyard.

Parishioner Margaret Taylor, who lives in Stanway Road, Risinghurst, organised the trip.

She said: “This is very special for Holy Trinity Church and we have 56 people going to the service.

“I have lived here for such a long time, I actually grew up on the estate with CS Lewis.”

On Sunday, CS Lewis’ biographer, Prof Alister McGrath, led a live broadcast from the church.

Rev Tim Stead, vicar of the church, who was involved in the broadcast and will also take part in the Westminster Abbey service, said: “It is a mark of the respect and honour with which CS Lewis is regarded that he should be recognised in this way.

“The fact that he is now to be honoured nationally in the company of such authors as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Austen and Dickens indicates something of his stature as an author and the esteem in which he is held by many.”

Old Road resident and parishioner Mike Stranks, who is one of three residents who leads tours about Lewis’ connection with the church, said: “It’s very important for the church and shows that Lewis was a significant figure in British literature.

“One of the other church-goers who gives tours is Val Wells, who used to go for a pint with Lewis, who was known as ‘Jack’, and his brother Warnie.

“We are proud and pleased that he is being recognised in this way.”

THE FAMOUS WRITER

• The blue plaque commemorating CS Lewis's residence

• CLIVE Staples Lewis (November 29, 1898- November 22, 1963), was a novelist, poet, academic, literary critic, essayist, and Christian apologist.
• Born in Belfast, he held academic positions at both Oxford University (Magdalen College), 1925–1954, and Cambridge University (Magdalene College), 1954–1963.
• He is best known both for his fictional work, especially The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, and The Space Trilogy, and his non-fiction Christian works, such as Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. Lewis’ works have been translated into more than 30 languages and have sold millions of copies.
• The books that make up The Chronicles of Narnia have sold the most and have been popularised on stage, TV, radio, and cinema.
• In 2008, The Times ranked him 11th on their list of “the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.”