Hey, Narnia Fans! Welcome to “Behind the Wardrobe” an Interview Series with Douglas Gresham. Join me as we find out about CS Lewis, Narnia and more in this interview series.
Special thanks to Paul Martin (The Webmaster for NarniaFans) and to Mr. Douglas Gresham himself for this amazing opportunity. And an even bigger thanks to Mr. Gresham for putting up with a few of my impossible questions. Thanks for being such a great sport about it!
For this week: On Jack…
JS:Thank you so much for your time it is a real honor to speak with you, espcailly as your step-father’s work had been so important and infleuncial to my own life.
DG: You’re welcome.
JS: First I just have to ask ( though you probably get this question a lot) what was it like growing up with CS Lewis?
DG.I do get asked that question frequently but it is in fact almost impossible to answer. You see my childhood was what it was and it was the only one I ever had so I have nothing with which to compare it. Growing up with Jack was simply the way things were. It was a time of sorrow, joy, turmoil, heartbreak, pain, delight, comfort and all the things that affect all little boys on the journeys towards manhood.
JS: How was Jack the person and step father different from CS Lewis the writer?
DG: Again that is a very difficult question to answer, because I never really knew “C.S.Lewis the writer” but knew Jack very well indeed, and my having known him has coloured my knowledge of “C.S.Lewis” ever after. It does protect me from the myriad of misunderstandings that have been presented and promoted about Jack ever since his death though.
JS: What was Jack like as a stepfather to you and your brother?
DG: Once again I have only ever had the one stepfather and thus have nothing with which to draw any comparisons. However I doubt that had I been able to search the world and choose I could have found a better one.
JS: What was he like as a husband to your mother?
DG: You would have had to have asked my mother and I have no doubt she would have told you to mind your own business.
JS: What was his relationship with Warnie like?
DG: They were brother and friends and remained so all their lives.
JS: Perhaps you could share with our readers your favorite memory of him.
DG: Jack or Warnie?
JS:Of Jack.
DG:The answer is to be found in my book Lenten Lands (HarperCollins).
JS: I do apologize for the more “impossible questions”.
DG: No problem, but try to imagine how you would answer them. What was it like growing up with your father as your father? Now you have two options, one is to write a book about it (which I have done) and the other is to give up. You can’t really describe what it was like without comparing it to something in your own experience.
JS: Would I take it that the best way for one to find out about Jack’s life be to read the biographies and autobiographies ( the good ones, of course.)?
DG: Absolutely. If I were to talk for as long as it would take for me to read you a good biography of him, why then I could tell you as much about his life as you could read in one, but I would be out of voice long before we got halfway through the story.
JS: Would there be any in your opinion that you’d strongly recommend reading ( save your own :))?
DG: It depends a bit on what you are looking for. If you are after a good scholarly work about C.S.Lewis, either the Hooper/Green Biography or the George Sayer one, if on the other hand you want the life story of Jack, then I would actually recommend my own effort.
JS: Was his house anything like Professor Kirke’s in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
DG: No, not at all. Our house was small and unobtrusive.
JS: Of his seven Narnian Chronicles which one was your favorite growing up?
DG: Why was that one your favorite? Do you have a new favorite?
JS: My favorite of The Narnian Chronicles it is, has been, and always will be The Last Battle, and for one reason: it has the best “Happily Ever After”.
DG: A lot of folks feel that way. I always felt that the last Narnian book was tainted by my disappointment that it was the last. As a child and now, my favourite Narnian Chronicle was always whichever one I was reading at the time that somebody asked me, and right now, that means The Silver Chair.
JS: Can you comment on Jack’s friendship with JRR Tolkien?
DG: Can’t add very much to the things that have already been said and written, quite a lot of which is inaccurate. Jack and Tolkien were fast friends for a very long time indeed, right up until Jack’s death. They disagreed on many things and argued incessantly as good friends often did back in those wiser times.
JS: Did you ever get to meet Tolkien or any of the other Inklings? What was your impression of them?
DG: I met Tolkien several times, Austin Farrer, Humphrey Havard, Lord David Cecil, Hugo Dyson, and several others they were all charming men, of great character, and of varying depths of intellect and heights of intelligence, they all had much in common with each other of course, and one characteristic that they all seemed to share as well, was that as far as I could tell, they were all good men.
JS: Most people I talk to always ask ” when did he die” or are surprised to hear it as if they expected him to be still alive Why do you think most people aren’t aware of his death?
DG: Most people aren’t aware of most people’s deaths, but Jack’s death was particularly occluded by the death of Jack Kennedy on the same day, you will find that often when great one of God departs this Earth, the enemy will make sure that a great notable of the secular realm goes also to cover the death of the servant of God.
Be back next week for part two when we discuss the play The Shadow Lands.