Who was Lucy Barfield

Lucy Barfield

"About 15 years after 16 October 1950 - the day when The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was published, sadly, Lucy Barfield was affected by multiple sclerosis that left her bedridden and unable to feed herself. But being named in the book touched her life in ways that Jack Lewis could not have imagined.

For the rest of her life, Lucy received letters from children. Some, believing she was Lucy Pevensie, asked her about Narnia. Others knew she was ill and just wrote to say hello. "What a wonderful oasis of pleasure I have in this pretty terrible world, being recognized as Lucy," she once said.

Lucy Barfield was born on November 2, 1935 and died on May 3, 2003. Her mother died in 1980. Her father Owen Barfield, one of the closest friends of C. S. Lewis, died on December 14, 1997 at age 99. "Alexander Barfield, his wife and son Owen were present; as was Jeffrey Barfield. Flowers for the family were taken afterwards to Lucy Barfield, who is severely crippled" said her father's funeral report.

Alexander, her elder brother, was born 30 January 1928 and is living in London. Her younger brother Jeffrey, to whom on 15 September 1952 C.S. Lewis dedicated "The Voyage of the Dawn Threader", was born in London 6 June 1940 and now lives in Gravesend, about 25 miles east."

http://cslewis.drzeus.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5583

Lucy Barfield. Who is she? What happened to her? These were my very first questions when I opened "The Lion" for the first time. And they come back to me whenever I open it again. It was and still is so clear that the author loved her very much. Enough to create for her such a beautiful present!.. enough to call himself "your loving Father". She must have been a beautiful person. And I keep wondering what was her response.

About three or four weeks ago I finally decided to find out. Began an intensive computer search. Then for a while I felt quite discouraged about my results; was thinking about giving up. But yesterday I discovered "The Dancing Lawn" and this morning I read your thread. So I wish now just to thank Nbaballer 725 who raised this question and also wish to tell that I appreciate Evening Star's remark - about Lucy "enjoying answering the stacks of mail that came to her". Where is - at least some - of this mail, of those letters? Maybe some of them are published - or at least maybe they are described somewhere in more detail?

And also I would like to ask QueenSusanofNarnia - what is the precise address of Douglas Gresham? "Who is answering questions in Lucy Barfield and CSL's place"? He and his brother David Gresham certainly met her many times; the names of both of them are in "The Horse and His Boy".

Thanks also to Caspian Friend for very valuable information about Paul Ford's book. And I still would have other questions. But for now I just want to share with you my own tiny contribution above. Which I revised a little last night and now hope to continue to expand. :)
 
Lucy Barfield and Paul Ford

GeorgieHenley said:
Wow!Really?How do you know all this stuff, reep?
Click to expand...
Just as I was about to ask Caspians friend for a full text of his tribute from Paul Ford I got it from a lady in Narnia (I mean: New Zealand :) )! Here it is:

"The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is dedicated to Lucy Barfield (1935-2003), Lewis’s god-daughter and the adopted daughter of Owen and Maud Barfield, who was four when Lewis began to write the book and thirteen when he resumed and finished it.

Lucy loved music and ballet and eventually taught music. In 1966 she was diagnosed as having multiple sclerosis. She married Bevan Rake and lived happily, although she was often hospitalised. When her husband died in 1990, her health deteriorated; she lived in the hospital for the rest of her life. During that time, she told Walter Hooper how much the dedication meant to her: “What I could not do for myself, the dedication did for me. My godfather gave me a greater gift than he could have imagined.”

Hooper wrote: As every creature comfort was taken from her, and she had lost her sight, Lucy’s faith in God grew and blessed not only her, but also those who knew her. Owen Barfield, touched by her humility, said many times, “I could go down on my knees before my daughter.” During the last seven years of her life in the Royal Hospital for Neurodisability in London, her brother Jeffrey - to whom Lewis dedicated the Voyage of the “Dawn Treader” - read her the Chronicles of Narnia."
Paul F. Ford, Companion to Narnia, Fifth Edition, 2005, p 160.

And I wrote back to her: I now can almost see "Our Dear Lucy", forever almost fifteen, in a cabin of the "Dawn Treader", on her last seven-year-voyage to Aslan's Land. And her little brother Jeffrey, who was ten as "her" book came out, now reading it to her... reading all seven books, "his own" included... to her and to himself again and again...
 
The Problem

*~crazy_lunatic~* said:
lucy bardfeilds my best stuffed donkey
Click to expand...
The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. ;)

- C.S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew, Chapter Ten

.
 
Lucy Barfield's mail

EveningStar said:
She was C.S. Lewis's God daughter.
Up to the end she enjoyed answering the stacks of mail that came in from curious fans of Narnia.
Click to expand...
Where did you find this and where could I find more information :confused: ? Was it in some book you read or may be you know someone who wrote her and received her response?

.
 
Lucy Barfield's mail

Dear EveningStar, I would truly appreciate your response to my last posting!!

Where does your information about Lucy enjoying answering stacks of mail come from? Is it a book, an article, a lecture? One of Lucy's family members, friends or relatives? Or maybe it is someone living in London - like one of the nurses at the hospital in which Lucy, quite recently, spent her last seven years?

Why is it almost impossible to find anything personal about her? Are children the only ones who really cared about her? Until... they grew up...?
 
NOTE: This information is re-posted here from a private message I sent Reep. I was asked to share it publically:

The information I had about Lucy Barfield was from an article. I do not recall at once where.

There is a problem people have that are associated with celebrities like CS Lewis. They have no privacy whatever except for that they take pains to achieve. That was especially true about Christopher Robin Milne, son of AA Milne who featured prominently in the Winnie the Pooh books.

Folks who read the books feel like they know the people that wrote it just as people who see actors in their living room TV feel like they have a relationship with them of sorts.

Lucy Barfield, however, enjoyed all the mail she received and took pains to answer all of it personally. Perhaps it is this generous streak in her nature that inspired Lewis to be her Godparent in the first place.

John B. (EveningStar)
Even more than most badgers, cute as a button (ask me mum!)
 
Lucy Barfield's Father

The father of Lucy Owen Barfield, according to Walter Hooper, said in 1996:

"Lucy was a very lively and happy child - apt for instance to be seen turning somersault wheels in the garden immediately after a meal. From an early age she showed marked musical taste and ability. After a short-lived ambition to become a ballet dancer, she eventually qualified as a professional teacher of music and was employed for a year or two as such by a well-known Kentish school for girls.

But the cruel onset of multiple sclerosis soon obliged her to abandon all idea of living a normal life and she has remained for decades a (now almost) totally disabled patient in a wheel chair".
In: Walter Hooper, C.S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide, 1996, p.758


More at: http://cslewis.drzeus.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=95716#95716
And: http://cslewis.drzeus.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=102888#102888
.
 
Wow. Lucy Barfield sounds like an amazing person. If only she lived to see the movie of it! It's sad how terrible things happen to such amazing people.

May she rest in peace.
 
Lucy Barfield's Victory

Four years before Lucy Barfield died, on January 11, 1999, The Times (UK) published a brief but a very beautiful article The Lion, the Witch and the real Lucy by Nicholas Roe, Professor of English at St Andrews University in Scotland. It not only very well describes the importance of her godfather's dedication of The Lion to her in her life but also includes three of her photographs taken when she was about five, ten and fifteen years old.

After an introduction to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as "one of the most famous childrens stories ever told", Nicholas Roe writes: "In a west London hospital, unable to move, speak or feed herself, and able to communicate only by blinking her eyes, lies Lucy Barfield, the heroine of... so far untold story. Lucy was the girl for whom Lewis wrote his celebrated novel, the first of the brilliantly succesful Narnia series, and who lent her name to the book's central character... Whether the fictional character was based entirely on the real Lucy is still a matter for debate but what is beyond doubt is that Lewis had the wellbeing of his goddaughter in mind when he wrote the dedication which appears at the front of the novel... in 1950 when Lucy was 15-years-old...

"The brutal truth is that Lucy Barfield developed multiple sclerosis just 15 years after the book was launched, an illness that seems even more poignant when you learn of her background. Lucy was adopted. Owen Barfield, who died in 1997 aged 99, and his wife Maud, who died in 1980, had no children of their own so they adopted three: Lucy and two boys, Alexander and Jeffrey... None of this made a difference to Lewis, who became a devoted godfather and family friend, sending the children money and paying school fees. Lucy grew into a friendly and energetic girl. In her father's words she was 'a very lively and happy child apt, for instance, to be seen turning somersault-wheels in the garden immediately after a meal'. She wanted to be a ballet dancer and trained hard to achieve that ambition.

"That made her illness all the more cruel when it began to affect her in the mid-1960s. What followed was a slow, remorseless decline towards helplesness, broken by heart-breaking periods of remission. Bravely Lucy fought her disease, studying ballet, teaching it briefly and then pursuing a career as a music teacher. But as the years unwound she found she needed help, and although in the late 1970s she found happiness by marrying one of her carers, he died of a heart attack 12 years later. Lucy became bed-bound and moved into hospital. By the early 1990s she could barely speak and was unable to feed herself.


"So where is the mitigating grace in this story? And how did Lewis's gesture become such an important factor in Lucy's difficult life? The answer is simple. By dedicating his book to her, Lewis made Lucy, now 63, known to children worldwide. And for years, as her illness has progressed, they have been writing to her.

"According to the author Walter Hooper, Lewis's secretary until his death and now adviser to the Lewis literary estate, the comfort Lucy has gained from the steady flow of readers' letters, usually reaching her via the publishers, has been something she herself acknowledged when able to speak. Hooper says: 'She has told me: What a wonderful oasis of pleasure I have in this pretty terrible world, being recognised as Lucy. I have often thought how fortuitous it was that it turned out this way.'

"Some young readers think Lucy is actually the character in the book and write to ask her about her adventures. Older readers have heard she is ill and simply write to wish her well. It has been an enormous benefit, says Hooper, especially as the book's fame has matched the onset of the disease: 'She has gained enormous comfort and interest from people she had never heard of,' he says. 'I remember sending her huge containers of these things only three or four years ago. I think there were people all her life who wanted to be in touch with her. She always said she was so pleased when someone wrote, and that she could have had a much more lonely life without that dedication.'

'It is like having something in the bank that your godfather has put aside to help you in lean times. It was just a compliment made by her father's friend but it turned out to have greater significance than anyone could have guessed, including Lewis himself.'

"Lucy's brother, Jeffrey, understands this better than most because he, too, had a C.S. Lewis book dedicated to him, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. 'I have had great pleasure out of it,' he says, 'but my sister would feel it even more because she is the Lucy in the story. I'm sure it has encouraged her.' Hooper adds: 'The dedication would have meant a lot to her whether she had become ill or not. But given her circumstances it looms much larger than for someone who has everything.'

"Before he died, Owen Barfield paid tribute to his daughter, admitting privately to friends that he 'wanted to get down on his knees' to Lucy for the way that she had handled her misfortune. The fact is, Lewis's central character had become a heroine in ways that the author could not have imagined on his death in 1963.

Professor Nicholas Roe closes his story: "Lucy may not have been able to read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to her own children, as Lewis had hoped, but the way her life turned out, the literary gesture itself was enough."

Born in Carlisle, near Scotland, on November 2, 1935, Lucy Barfield died in London, at the Royal Hospital for Neurodisability, on May 3, 2003. Whenever I read about her dramatic 38-year-long struggle and her ultimate inner final victory over paralysis I am also reminded of the Blessed Lucy of Narnia who lived 500 years ago. And of her own spiritual triumph over the cruel and unjust condemnation to 39 years of solitary confinement
 
Happy Birthday!

Born in Carlisle, near Scotland, on November 2 ...
Click to expand...
Just a Thought of the Day!
Tomorrow is Lucy Barfield's Birthday. Her Godfather was born on November 29th. And November Sixteenth is the Feast of Blessed Lucy of Narnia.
The Christians among us believe all three never died! :)
.
 
November Sixteenth: The Feast of Blessed Lucy of Narnia

There is a brief biography of Blessed Lucy Broccadelli written by the British novelist Lady Georgiana Fullerton and published as twenty pages (139-158) of her book "The Life of St. Frances of Rome". These 20 pages can easily be found as a "Catholic-Forum Abstract" at http://www.catholic-forum.com/Saints/stl2r001.htm .

But if you would like to see or even to read the original text instead, you can also find it - precisely reproduced - at "Early Canadiana Online" in "The life of St. Frances of Rome, of blessed Lucy of Narni, etc": http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/mtq?doc=33385 .

The whole book has 271 pages (54+11+206). But just enter "View page 139" where you see "View Page: Technical Data Sheet". You may notice a slight error here and there but on the whole it is an absorbing story. :eek:
 
The Dedication

There is a little mystery concerning the beautiful dedication of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" which C.S. Lewis wrote for Lucy Barfield. WHEN was this dedication written? "My dear Lucy, I wrote this story for you..." It is quite clear that the dedication is reaching Lucy's hands together with the book. HOWEVER - as the dedication continues - this book, though evidently already written - is still not printed and not bound. How is this possible? What is happening? And if this IS happening - then when; what is the exact date?

The First Book of the Chronicles was printed, bound and ready to be sold on October 16, 1950. It seems that Lucy received and read its manuscript - together with her parents and her little brother Jeffrey - already by the end of May 1949. This is when C.S. Lewis sent it to the Barfield family and received some comments from both Owen and Maud. And it is very interesting that Lucy then also wrote him. In his letter of June 4, 1949 Lewis is telling her mother: "I had a very nice letter from Lucy and will be thinking of her to-day. I also replied."

Both these letters were lost but I believe we can easily imagine what was in them. Lucy was probably quite overwhelmed by such a great and unexpected gift. And was telling her godfather that she did not "feel too old" for this book at all - on the contrary - that she understood and really loved it. And Lewis probably then just wrote back to her to say how happy he was...

What do you think. I believe it is quite possible. Lucy Barfield was then thirteen years old. And I was very happy too when I found an image of her where she seems to be about that age. In another image she is with her little dog and seems to be about five or six; then there is also a picture of her with her mother and both brothers taken about 1950. Also of her - at about the same time - dancing in the garden; and then sitting alone ca. 1960.

Today is Lucy Barfield's Namesday. The Festival of The Queen of Lights - of Saint Lucy of Syracuse; the Feastday of almost every Lucy in Sweden, Denmark, Italy and The World. It is also the 530th Birthday of the Blessed Lucy of Narnia, who arrived here on December 13, 1476.

I believe we all are probably invited to concelebrate :)
.
 
The Date of the Dedication - MAY 1949!

Nobody responded. By now I was almost certain that nobody ever will. Probably nobody knew enough, or my very guess was too impossible to be considered seriously.

So I thought. But yesterday I opened the Volume 20 of SEVEN, an Anglo-American literary magazine. On page 5, in a brief obituary of Lucy Barfield, Walter Hooper is writing about this dedication. "Lucy Barfield was delighted at being so honoured, and while the letters between them have not survived, what is one of the most moving dedications ever to grace a work of literature was probably taken from Lewis's letter to Lucy of May 1949". "When The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was published on 16 October 1950, Lucy was a happy scholgirl of 15 who could not have foreseen how much the dedication would one day mean".

As I continued to read, the text seemed strangely familiar. Searching back through this thread I arrived at my post of 5 June 2006: quoting Paul F. Ford's "Companion to Narnia". Paul is telling there that Lucy "was four when Lewis began to write the book and thirteen when he resumed and finished it." And then, with some slight changes, he begins to quote this obituary.

You can compare both versions - of Paul and of Walter - yourself. Here are the Walter Hooper's exact original words. "In 1966 she [Lucy] was diagnosed as having Multiple Sclerosis, and by the mid-70s she was a patient in the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital. It was there she met Bevan Rake (1921-90). They were married in 1978 and Lucy enjoyed a few years of home-life. By the time Bevan died in 1990, Lucy's condition had deteriorated and she returned to hospital. During that time she told me how much the dedication in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe meant to her. "What I could not do for myself," she said, "the dedication did for me. My godfather gave me a greater gift than he could have imagined."

"As every creature comfort was taken from her, and she had lost her sight, Lucy's faith in God grew and blessed not only her, but also those who knew her. Owen Barfield, touched by her humility, said many times, "I could go down on my knees before my daughter." During the last seven years of her life in the Royal Hospital for Neurodisability in London, her brother Jeffrey - to whom Lewis dedicated The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - read her the Chronicles of Narnia. She died at the Royal Hospital on 3 May 2003."
[Walter Hooper, Lucy Barfield (1935-2003). In SEVEN: An Anglo-American Literary Review, Volume 20, 2003, p.5.]
 
I think you're conflating two different things there. Lucy Barfield was the daughter of friend and fellow Inkling Owen Barfield, and was Lewis' goddaughter.

There were four children who stayed at The Kilns during the war, and one of them had a very fresh and delightful personality. It was that girl who was the model for Lucy Pevensie's personality, but I don't think her name was Lucy as well.
 
Back
Top