C S Lewis Centenary Group

Newsletter of the C S Lewis Centenary Group, commemorating Lewis’s Centenary in his native land

Number 5, October 1997

SUBSCRIPTIONS

We are sending out this newsletter, by post or by email, to all those on our newly-created mailing list. Our intention is to send out an issue of C S Lewis each month until January 1999. If you would like to receive a monthly copy by email, please email us on; cslewis@dnet.co.uk.

THE NATION’S SECOND FAVOURITE CHILDREN’S BOOK

The BBC has confirmed C S Lewis’s enduring place as one of our most popular writers for children.

In an opinion poll, (conducted jointly by the BBC Bookworm programme and Waterstone’s bookshops) into the Nation’s Favourite Children’s Book, the BBC found that adults (ie those over 16 years of age) placed Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe second in popularity, beaten only by The Wind in the Willows. Other placings; 3)Winnie the Pooh, 4/The Hobbit, 5/Swallows and Amazons 6/The Secret Garden 7/Alice in Wonderland 8/Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 9/Little Women 10/Matilda.

SHADOWLANDS ON RADIO

On Saturday 3 October 1997 BBC Radio 4 broadcast a new adaption of Shadowlands for radio with Michael Williams as Jack and Zoe Wanamaker as Joy . Radio 4 broadcast separately a discussion on the adaption, with Humphrey Carpenter(producer), William Nicolson(writer), Douglas Gresham(CSL’s step-son) and A. N. Wilson(biographer).

Douglas Gresham writes: Wilson once again spouted a whole lot of inaccuracies and twisted and exaggerated assumptions. I never heard my mother being ‘foul-mouthed’ at all, and she never smoked in her life. Jack never ‘toiled ‘ up and down to Oxford to find Kosher food for David, as we always had an account at "Palms of the Covered Market", a Jewish delicatessen. Jack much enjoyed the walk into Oxford when he did make it, but he never did the shopping in any case.

ROYAL MAIL STAMP

On 8th September 1998 (provisional date), Royal Mail will issue a stamp commemorating the Lewis Centenary,.as one of a series on children’s writers. The Lewis stamp will probably be the First Class issue, face value 26p.

FORTHCOMING EVENTS

-Only a selection of events of which we have received news this month. For full details, see our Programme page.

8 November 1997: York St Michael’s Church Hall, 52A Stonegate, 2.30 pm. A public lecture C S Lewis and the Evangelicals by Colin Duriez, author of the C. S. Lewis Handbook. Contact Graham Hedges, 34 Thurleston Avenue, Ilford, Essex IG3 9DU, email fm128@viscount.org.uk

27 November, 1997 Belfast Lyric Theatre. The launch of our Centenary Programme is in conjunction with the Lyric Theatre’s launch of their Christmas production of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

29 November 1997: Belfast Guided Tour of the C S Lewis Trail The 99th anniversary of C S Lewis’s birth. Following the success of our Guided Tours this summer, the Group will conduct an extra Guided Tour to mark the occasion. Meet at St Mark’s Church, Holywood Road, at 10 am.

7 November 1998 Belfast Waterfront Hall. A production of Narnia Dreaming [working title], an concert featuring Keith Getty’s new music. Douglas Gresham will present.

RESEARCH FELLOW The Cultural Traditions C. S. Lewis Centenary Fellow, Mr Ronald Bresland, took up his post on 1 October. Mr Bresland is based in the Institute of Irish Studies, Queen’s University, Belfast and his tenure is for 9 months. Mr Bresland is researching C S Lewis’s place in Anglo-Irish literature, and we are looking forward to hearing him speak at the Belfast Conference in August. He has written a short article on CSL for the next issue of Causeway, magazine of the Cultural Traditions Group. We wish Ronnie well.

NARNIA SUITE Narnia Suite is a selection of pieces from The World of Narnia, by harpist, Marisa Robles, who recently appeared at Belfast’s Waterfront Hall with James Galway. The Narnia Suite came about as the result of Marisa Robles being asked to provide music for Harley Usill’s production of C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia for Academy Sound and Vision with Michael Hordern as reader. To quote her own words:

Narnia was the world of beauty and peace that I remember from my best days of childhood....The triumph of Good over Evil I have always believed in, so the music for this project started to ‘pour out’ of my system in a very natural way, and with the great influence of my godfather and tutor, Jesus Guridi....It is music written from the heart...I hope it will bring peace and happiness to many souls.

Unfortunately, Marisa Robles says that no performances of the Narnia Suite are planned for 1998.

C S LEWIS’S FAMILY Mrs Pat Shelley of Wiltshire, and her son Mr Chris Shelley of Culver City, California, have written giving family trees of CSL’s maternal ancestors, notably the Warren, Ewart and Staples families. CSL was a second cousin of the Ewart children of Glenmachan, where CSL spent so much time as a boy ( see Surprised by Joy pp 41-2).

CSL was related remotely to Ponsonby Staples, an artist in Belfast at the turn of the last century, a painter, a political cartoonist and a baronet.

ARTHUR GREEVES [Lewis’s great friend] Molly Greeves, Arthur’s second cousin, writes that Arthur was very friendly with Ulster writers St. John Ervine and Forrest Reid. Forrest Reid was often at Bernagh and Arthur drove him around a lot in later years. Reid dedicated his book Uncle Stephen to Arthur. Reid was close to the Bloomsbury Group, and E. M. Foster visited Reid in Belfast.. At present the Ulster Museum has an exhibit commemorating Forrest Reid’s Centenary.

Mary Elizabeth Greeves (b 1888), a sister of Arthur‘s, married Charles Gordon Ewart in 1915. And so the families of both CSL and Arthur Greeves were connected by marriage to the Ewarts of Glenmachan.

We are trying to discover which of Arthur’s Greeves’s paintings remain. Molly Greeves has lent a favourite painting of hers. It is an oil, untitled , with a view of Kensington Gardens, London, painted when Arthur, following C S Lewis’s advice, was a student of Art at the Slade School, London. Douglas Gresham owns another painting, a view of an Irish barley field, originally Arthur’s gift to CSL and Joy Davidman. Greeves left in his will to Lewis (but CSL died before AG) a painting, A Field near Stormont, whereabouts unknown.

Helen’s Bay Dorothy Hill, widow of the former Vicar of Glencraig and Helen’s Bay [then united parishes], recalls that CSL attended a Mothers’ Day service on a Wednesday in Glencraig church. Afterwards Mrs Hill and her husband entertained CSL to tea in Glencraig Vicarage. Mrs Joan Bushell, of Helen’s Bay, and a parishioner of St John’s, Helen’s Bay, recalls that CSL attended Morning Service at St John’s on at least two occasions.

Young Jack The owner of Little Lea says that the photograph of the young CSL, which we used on the cover of our brochure The C S Lewis Trail in Belfast and North Down, was definitely not taken at Little Lea. Mrs Joan Whiteside, Treasurer of the Group, suggests that the photo was taken at Glenmachan.

Bookshelf Two excellent books on CSL have been reprinted in paperback this year. (1)Walter Hooper’s monumental C. S. Lewis: a Companion and Guide, price £19.99 and (2) George Sayer’s biography Jack, £8.99 (or possibly £7.99). In the Spring of 1998 Zondervan will publish in the United States C. S. Lewis: a Reader’s Encyclopedia, containing an entry on our Group

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