Clive Lewis - Collected Letters Volume One - Family Letters 1905–1931

SBJ = C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (1955).

T he Lewises were a happy family. Albert Lewis 1 had prospered as a police court solicitor, and on 18 April 1905 the family moved from the semi-detached Dundela Villas, where Warnie and Jack were born, into a house Albert had specially built for his wife, Flora. 2 This was ‘Little Lea’, one of the new ‘big houses’ of Strandtown, a lovely area of Belfast. Outside, the family looked over wide fields to Belfast Lough, and across the Lough to the mountains of the Antrim shore.

Albert and Flora, like most Anglo-Irish parents, wanted their children to be educated in English public schools, and on 10 May 1905 Flora took Warnie, 3 who was eight, across the water to Wynyard School in Watford, Hertfordshire. In complete innocence she was delivering her son into the hands of a madman. The headmaster, Robert Capron or ‘Oldie’ as the boys called him, 4 ‘lived in a solitude of power,’ Jack was later to write, ‘like a sea-captain in the days of sail’ (SBJ II). In two years’ time he would have a High Court action taken against him for cruelty. For the time being Warnie joined the dwindling band of some dozen boys who lived in the pair of semi-detached houses which made up Wynyard School.

Meanwhile, Jack was tutored at home, his mother teaching him French and Latin and his governess, Annie Harper, 5 teaching him everything else. He was almost eight when he wrote this first letter to Warnie:

TO HIS BROTHER (LP III: 63):

Little Lea.

Strandtown.

[c. November 1905]

My dear Warnie

Peter 6 has had two un-fortunate aventures since I last wrote, however they came out all right in the end. No. 1, Maude 7 was in her room (up there remember) heard Peter howling. When she came down, what do you think? sitting on the floor ready to spring on Peter was a big black cat. Maude chased it for a long way. I was not able to help matters because I was out on my bych.

The next adventure was not so starling, never the-less it is worth while relating that a mouse got into his cage.

Tim 8 got the head staggers the other day while running on the lawn, he suddenly lay down and began to kick and foam at the mouth and shudder.

On Halow-een we had great [fun?] and had fireworks; rockets, and catterine wheels, squbes, and a kind of thing that you lit and twirled and then they made stars. We hung up an apple and bit at it we got Grandfather 9 down to watch and he tried to bite. Maud got the ring out of the barn-brach and we had apple dumpling with in it a button a ring and a 3 penny bit. Martha got the button, Maude got nothing, and I got the ring and the 3 pence all in one bite. We got some leaves off the road the other day, that is to say the roadmen gave us some that they had got off the road, in fact they wanted them because they make good manure. I am doing french as well as latin now, and I think I like the latin better. Tomorrow I decline that old ‘Bonus,’ ‘Bona,’ ‘Bonum’ thing, but I think it is very hard (not now of course but it was).

Diabolos are all the go here, evrrey body has one except us, I don’t think the Lewis temper would hold out do you? Jackie Calwell has one and can do it beautifully (wish I could)

your loving

brother Jacks

TO HIS BROTHER (LP III: 75-6):

Little Lea.

Strandtown.

[c. 1906]

My dear Warnie

I am sorrey that I did not write to you before. At present Boxen is slightly convulsed. 10 The news has just reached her that King Bunny is a prisoner. The colonists (who are of course the war party) are in a bad way: they dare scarcely leave their houses because of the mobs. In Tararo the Prussians and Boxonians are at fearful odds against each other and the natives.

Such were the states of affairs recently: but the able general Quick-steppe is taking steps for the rescue of King Bunny. (the news somewhat pacified the rioters.)

your loving

brother Jacks.

TO HIS BROTHER (LP III: 79):

Little Lea.

Strandtown.

18 May 1907

My dear Warnie,

Tommy is very well thank you. We have got the telephone in to our house. Is Bennett beter again, as he has been ill you see that you are not the onley boy who stayes at home.

We have nearly seteld that we are going to france this summer, all though I do not like that country I think I shall like the trip, wont you. I liked the card you sent me, I have put it in the album. I was talking to the Greaves through the telephone I wanted Arthur but he was out and I onley got Thom. 11

I am sorry I can’t give you any news about Nearo, but I have not got anny to give. The grass in the front is coming up nicely. It is fearfully hot here. I have got an adia, you know the play I was writing. I think we will try and act it with new stage don’t say annything about it not being dark we will have it up stairs and draw the thick curtains and the wight ones, the scenery is rather hard, but still I think we shall do it.

your loving

brother Jacks

TO HIS BROTHER (LP III: 80):

Little Lea.

Strandtown.

[August 1907?]

My dear Warnie

Thank you very much for the post-cards I liked them, the herald was the nicest I think, dont you. Now that I have finished the play I am thinking of writeing a History of Mouse-land and I have even gon so far as to make up some of it, this is what I have made up.

Mouse-land had a very long stone-age during which time no great things tooke place it lasted from 55 BC to 1212 and then king Bublich I began to reign, he was not a good king but he fought gainest yellow land. Bub II his son fought indai about the lantern act, died 1377 king Bunny came next. 12

your loving

brother Jacks

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 82):

[Pension Petit-Vallon,

Berneval,

Près Dieppe]

4th Sept. ’07. 13

My dear Papy,

excuse this post-card being so dirty, but in our rooms everything is so dusty. It is still lovely weather still. I was sick and had to go to bed but am quite beter now. I hope you are all right. Are Tommy and Peter all right?

your loving

son, Jacks.

TO HIS BROTHER (LP III: 105):

Tigh-na-mara,

Larne Harbour,

Co. Antrim.

[May 1908] 14

My dear Warnie

how are you geting on. Mamy is doing very well indeed. I am sending you a picture of the ‘Lord Big’, 15 I forgot until it was too late that she was screw not paddle, but of course there might be 2 boats in the same line that have one name. Did I tell you about going to chains memorial? 16 It is a funny old place, one thing that struck me was the thickness of the walls. The light (as I suppose you know) is worked by gas, while I was there the man broct two mantles. Did you get my letters? one of them had a home drawn post card on it, I got yours and now I had beter stop, as there is nothing to say.

your loving brother,

Jacks

Flora Lewis had been ill for months and an operation on 15 February revealed she had cancer. The following month she seemed better, but during this period of uncertainty Albert Lewis’s father died on 24 March. The last letter from Flora Lewis in the Lewis Papers was written to Warnie on 15 June 1908. ‘I am sorry not to have been able to write to you regularly this term,’ she said, ‘but I find I am really not well enough to do so. I have been feeling very poorly lately and writing tires me very much. But I must write today to wish you a happy birthday’ (LP III: 106). Flora was very ill, and the impending tragedy at Little Lea resulted in Warnie being brought home at the end of June. Following another operation, she died at home on Albert’s forty-fifth birthday, 23 August 1908. The following month Jack accompanied his brother to Wynyard School in Watford, and the next letter is the first Jack wrote to his father after his arrival there.