A Shiver of Wonder

by Derick Bingham

  There follows Dickens’ description of how Nicholas felled the ugly tyrant Squeers and left the miserable place to its own fate, taking Smike with him.

  Such was the fiction of Dickens; but now we turn to the extraordinary reality for Jack Lewis. For “Wackford Squeers,” read “the Reverend Robert Capron,” an Anglican clergyman. A physically strong man, he could lift a boy of twelve from the floor by the back of his collar and, holding him at arm’s length, flog the calves of his legs. He was, in fact, a bearded, unkempt tyrant. A brain specialist had actually examined the Reverend Capron and found him to be mad.

  In the mornings, Oldie, as the boys called him, would enter that single schoolroom in his yellow-bricked house, pick on a boy, and tell him that, in the afternoon, if he was not too tired, he would give him a good beating. Oldie would even make a child bend down at the end of the room, run the length of the room, receive a stroke of the cane, then go back and do the same thing for the next stroke and for all the following strokes. Such caning was not necessarily for bad behaviour, but for, say, a mistake in geometry. If a pupil became confused, Oldie would flog the desk shouting, “Think. Think. Think.” Then, before he would do to the boy what he had done to the desk, he would say, “Come out, come out, come out.”

  When Jack arrived at the school there were eight or nine boarders and around the same number of dayboys. There was only one bathroom for all of them and one bath allowed per week. Organised games had been abandoned at the school shortly after Jack’s arrival, rounders being played on a flinty playground. The outside toilets were in an open-fronted, corrugated iron shed. There was only one dormitory, and it had no curtains. Jack used to lie and watch the full moon and the night sky. The teaching in the school was by rote, a method which he found intellectually stupefying.

  In between the recitation of lessons, Oldie demanded that his class do sums on slates. At the end of the morning he would ask each boy how many sums he had done. Since supervision was slack, Warren discovered he could do the same five sums every day and not get caught. He did this for years; a more tedious exercise would be hard to imagine.

  Oldie’s wife, a timid little woman, did not seek to venture any original remark. Discretion was for her the better part of valour. As for Oldie’s three daughters, they could have been called “Yes, Papa,” “No, Papa,” and “Three bags full, Papa.” They were always dressed in black, and shabby black at that. Oldie’s son, nicknamed Wee-We, also “taught” at the school; and there was one usher, or assistant teacher, who, understandably, rotated frequently. One of them lasted only a week.

  How could there be any blessings in such a place of misery? Where could the proverbial silver lining be in such a dark cloud? Jack Lewis later spoke of how the cruelty they experienced at Wynyard School brought all the boys together. They found comfort in their own company, for there was none other. They became sociable. They might not have had organised games, but they did have the freedom to go for walks on half-holidays. They bought sweets in village shops, spent time on the canal bank, and sat on the brow of a railway cutting, waiting for trains to come out of the mouth of the tunnel. Why are we not surprised when we learn that Jack had a discussion with his fellow pupils on whether the future was like an unseen line, or like a line not yet drawn?

  The God who knows the future was at work in this child’s life. Attending St. John’s Anglican Church in Watford, Jack heard Christian truth taught by men who believed it. He began to read the Bible and to pray. He listened to his conscience. It is worth asking how the one who would inspire millions of children could be inspired in such a horrible school. How could the one who would bring messages of hope to a nation threatened, not by a cruel clergyman, but by a tyrant called Hitler, find hope for himself?

  The touching thing is that, years later, when reflecting on his experience at Wynyard, Jack maintained that it was all a good preparation for the Christian life, because it taught him to live by hope! This is a profound and helpful point, because hope is not just a nice option; it is essential to our survival. It lifts our spirits, it keeps us going, it saves us from panicking, and it helps us to persevere through the immediate circumstances. Hope fuels our recovery from life’s disasters. Without hope, marriages would go dry, students would never finish their courses, addicts would be forever enslaved in their habits, and artists, entrepreneurs, and inventors would all lose their creativity. Hope forces us to wait for better things. At Wynyard School, the little boy Jack lived in hope.

  Lewis also said that at that time he learned to live, in a sense, by faith. Faith, of course, is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see. At the beginning of a term, he considered home and the holidays to be as hard to realise as Heaven itself; yet what was so hard to realise always came. Lewis claimed that the memories of those dreadful times made the life of faith easier.

  In 1910 Oldie retired to become the vicar of a church, where he began to flog the choirboys for no apparent reason. When the churchwardens tried to stop him, he flogged them as well. He resigned from that church after just one year. He was eventually put under restraint and declared insane. He died on the eighteenth of November in 1911.

  Jack learned that the hard times might look like an impossible situation, but they were not the end. He learned that, by exercising faith and hope, there was more to what immediately met his eye. As the children in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe passed from war-torn Britain into Narnia, so he would pass into greater things. When he would have his adult heart broken by overwhelming sorrow, and eventually face illness and death, he, too, would experience the truth, as stated by Aslan in The Last Battle, of a place where “the term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”3

  Chapter Four

  THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN HE EVER SAW

  IT WAS GLORIOUS! JACK AND Warren Lewis were cycling in the beautiful County Down countryside, with “the world as their oyster” for two whole months. The roads and lanes they followed were narrow; their width had been untouched for centuries. The hedges were high, and the land was planted with crops and fruit trees. The fields were lavishly dotted with herds of sheep and dairy cattle that in time would create the basis of one of the strongest agricultural industries in Europe.

  All across North and East Down, the countryside through which they cycled was filled with little huddles of heavily whitewashed farm buildings. The boys panted heavily up one side, and breathed easily down the other side of the little drumlins.

  The name drumlin is Irish. It is the name given to a mound of land characteristic of areas formerly covered by glaciers. Drumlins are shaped like the bowl of a teaspoon turned upside down, with the highest part near one end. Hundreds of drumlins enhanced the landscape of County Down, creating the pleasant rolling farmland that was so greatly loved by Jack and Warren.

  What had happened in the lives of these two boys? For a start, the Reverend Robert Capron had stopped beating the boys at Wynyard. It was not because he had changed, of course. He no longer had any boys to beat, for the school had had to close in 1910 for lack of pupils. Jack had written to his father, asking to leave the school, and Albert sent his sister-in-law to investigate. She faced Capron, and as a result of the showdown things did improve at Wynyard School for a time. Fortunately, Capron had never beaten Jack. In September 1909 Warren had gone on to Malvern School, leaving Jack to endure Wynyard for two more terms. For the next fifty years, he was to resent and feel anger towards Oldie. Who could blame him? In fact, Jack was not able to forgive Oldie until the last year of his life. That he survived Wynyard School to become the man he was is a triumph of hope over circumstances.

  Hope had been satisfied with the end-of-term holidays; but now it was more deeply satisfied with the end of Wynyard. For Jack and Warren, the holidays had been the main goal of their existence so far. Not only did they cycle across the beautiful County Down countryside, but also they wrote, drew, played, talked, and read books in that home of books. It must h
ave been bliss to be home. The boys were inseparable, and any interruption—be it another child, or the social convention of having to go to adult evening parties that included dancing—was viewed as sheer persecution.

  Quite naturally, from all this reading, Jack’s speech was peppered with formidable words. To his great discomfort, he found that adults would lead him on in conversation just to laugh at him. To circumvent the problem, at every party he went to he affected a style of conversation that offered nothing that would stimulate or challenge. Under a guise of imitating adult conversation, laced with joking and false enthusiasm, he deliberately hid what he thought and felt. He became a consummate actor, and it was with great relief that he joined Warren for the cab ride home—the best part of the night, as far as he was concerned.

  In terms of communication, the gap between teenagers and adults seems to have been every bit as wide in Edwardian days as it is now in the twenty-first century. Jack later maintained that one family bridged that gap in a way that made a deep and lasting impression upon him. That was the Ewart family. Sir William Ewart was a Belfast merchant and linen manufacturer. In 1864 he was one of the deputies from Belfast involved in the arrangements for a treaty of commerce with France. He was the Member of Parliament for Belfast East, Justice of the Peace for the Counties of Antrim, Down, and the Borough of Belfast, and Lord Mayor of Belfast from 1859 to 1860. A baronetcy was conferred on him in 1887. He and his wife, Isabella, had seven sons, who were all in their father’s business. The eldest, Sir William Quartus Ewart, lived at the family seat, Glenmachan House. In Jack’s childhood days the house was in a wooded glen. Sir William was married to Flora Lewis’s cousin, Lady Mary Ewart. Flora and Lady Mary were the very best of friends. There was an open invitation for Jack and Warren to lunch at Glenmachan House, and later Jack was to write a very warm and moving tribute to the family’s kindness.

  It was under Lady Mary’s kindly eye and by her lilting, memorable, Southern Irish accent that the Lewis boys were taught to be polite, courteous, and well mannered. They needed such teaching, but it was no dictatorial regime that reigned at Glenmachan House; people further removed from the behaviour of the Wackford Squeers of Watford could not have been found. The boys enjoyed wise-headed and warm-hearted benevolence there; yet a high standard of manners was set and kept at Glenmachan House.

  In the twenty-first century the pendulum of manners has swung widely in the opposite direction. When the two top swearwords in Britain are “God” and “Christ,” we are in a serious spiritual situation. People say they don’t mean anything by such language, of course. Yet the Bible states that we should not take the name of the Lord in vain. This means that we must not use the name of the Lord in our conversation without ascribing profitable meaning to it.

  There has been strong reaction against some Edwardian etiquette as being too stiff and formal. No doubt such a reaction is healthy, but Jack Lewis came to appreciate that not all Edwardian etiquette was irrelevant. He had a formidable etiquette to follow. Imagine applying what was expected of an Edwardian gentleman to twenty-first-century living.

  The Edwardian gentleman was always to be dressed neatly, and his clothing must never be loud or ostentatious. His nails must be scrupulously clean and his hair neatly combed and free from dirt or oil. He must carry himself erectly, but not stiffly. His spine must be straight, his shoulders back. He must always aspire to calm confidence rather than to loftiness. He must never put his hands in his pockets. His hands should hang comfortably at his sides or be clasped behind him. A gentleman must never smoke in the presence of a lady, or in the street, or in church. Smoking was for the smoking room or the presence of other smokers. A gentleman was always expected to ask permission before lighting a cigarette. And a gentleman was never, ever, to spit.

  When in the company of a lady, an Edwardian gentleman was expected to see to her every need and want. He must pull out a chair for her, rise when she rose, hold open doors for her, assist her out of a carriage, and if she should drop her handkerchief or other such item he must pick it up. A gentleman was expected to precede a lady into a room in order to provide a chair for her, and he was expected not to sit until she was seated. As the era proceeded, a gentleman was expected to assist a lady into a motorcar. A gentleman was expected never to make anyone feel awkward. Upon entering a room, a gentleman was expected to greet everyone pleasantly and to introduce himself to those he did not know.

  As for table manners, a very clear etiquette was to be observed. While waiting to be served, a gentleman was never to play with his knife and fork. He was not to hold them vertically at the sides of his plate. When his meal was finished he was never to cross his knife and fork, and he was always to use them noiselessly. Under no circumstances was he to put his knife into his mouth; his knife must be used only for cutting meat and hard substances. He must never appear greedy, and he must always take small bites. He must never speak with his mouth full. If his hands were unoccupied at the table, he must keep them under the table, neatly folded in his lap. If he had to rise from the table he must ask his host or hostess if he might be excused. If he were to find a hair or a fly or any unpleasant object in his food, he was to remove it subtly and without remark. He must never use his knife, fork, spoon, or finger to serve himself. If no serving utensil was provided, he was to take his cue from his host or hostess. As a dinner guest, he must always keep other people’s pleasure in mind. He must never take medications at the table. A golden rule was that he must never take more than he could finish. He must not allow his silverware to touch the table after he had picked it up. He must not smack his lips. He must never slurp his soup, and he was always expected to spoon his soup away from him, starting from the outside of the bowl. Were these requirements too much? No doubt they were. But good manners are easily carried through life. Later Jack maintained that whatever he knew of the ability to act appropriately and with courtesy in social situations, he had learned at Glenmachan House.

  Jack thought the world of the grey-bearded Sir William. He was a kindly, humble, and gracious Edwardian gentleman. To Jack, the gentle, coaxing hand and voice of Sir William’s wife, Lady Mary Ewart, meant a great deal. Could it be that the frequent passivity of an older generation towards the young has led to the banality of much in current Western culture?

  Sir William’s three daughters—Hope, Kels, and Gundreda—used to take the Lewis boys out in their donkey trap pulled by an obstinate donkey called Grisella. (Ah! When Gundreda urged Grisella to move on, it must have been something else! Don’t you think somebody should write a poem about it?) The Ewart family took the boys with them on many walks, car trips, picnics, and visits to the theatre. Glenmachan House was a home-from-home, and in many ways a calmer home than Little Lea.

  Jack maintained that Gundreda Ewart was the most beautiful woman he ever saw. This belief had nothing to do with having a boyish crush for her. He asserted that even a child could see her beauty. To him, her every movement, her colour, her voice, her laughter were absolutely perfect.

  Gundreda not only possessed beauty; she also possessed a fascinating name, to say the least. We know that Jack’s mother was a Warren; her ancestry can be traced to an Anglo-Norman whose family had been planted in Ireland in the reign of Henry II. The now dissolved C. S. Lewis Centenary Group, who produced the C. S. Lewis News, have told us that this Anglo-Norman was William de Warrenne, one of the greatest of William the Conqueror’s barons. To De Warrenne was given in marriage Gundreda, the Conqueror’s reputedly illegitimate daughter. Through Gundreda, wife of William de Warrenne, C. S. Lewis was descended from William the Conqueror and Charlemagne! The Centenary Group also pointed out that, through this aristocratic connection to the Warrennes, C. S. Lewis “was descended from the Plantagenet Kings of England, Kings of France, Scots, and Princes of Wales.”2 The genealogy of Jack’s beautiful cousin Gundreda certainly goes back a very long way.

  In July 1910 Jack left Wynyard and the rule of Oldie, and for half a term he attended a school
only one mile from his home in Belfast, called Campbell College. For Jack, it was actually the very first time he could say the little Belfast ditty:

  Jack Lewis is my name;

  Ireland is my nation.

  Belfast is my dwelling place;

  And school’s my occupation.

  Campbell College was founded through the benevolence of a wealthy linen merchant called Henry James Campbell; it has since become a famous school in Northern Ireland. Set in the beautiful and tranquil hundred-acre Campbell Estate, today the school provides a balanced and rounded education for 680 boys, and takes around 60 boarders. It is Northern Ireland’s equivalent to an English public school; its preparatory school, Cabin Hill, stands in the same grounds. Why on earth did Albert Lewis not send his boys to Campbell College in the first place? It is a question that will always be asked.

  Jack was a boarder at Campbell but was allowed to go home on Sundays. The present school leadership states that they believe “boarding helps develop confidence, community spirit, independence, social skills, cultural awareness, and respect for others.” The school emphasises that one of its major strengths is its “House System.” Each House consists of 50 boys, with the House Master and House Tutors responsible for overseeing the welfare of the boys in their charge in all aspects of their school life. Inter-House competitions in sporting and cultural events are a vital part of the school’s life. Today’s sporting activities include archery, athletics, badminton, basketball, cricket, cross country, golf, hill-walking, hockey, mountaineering, orienteering, rugby, shooting, soccer, squash, swimming, tennis, and volleyball. There is an orchestra and a jazz band, and the school has a strong choral tradition. The school choir, comprising both staff and boys, leads the morning assembly and performs at special occasions.

  In Jack’s day, things were very different in many ways. The House system was present, but it was not as strong, and games were not compulsory. Prefects held no prominence.