Flotsam and Jetsam
Catching up on my back catalogue of TV shows, at the weekend I watched “Narnia's Lost Poet: the Secret Lives and Loves of CS Lewis”
In this, CS Lewis's biographer AN Wilson goes in search of the man behind Narnia - best-selling children's author and famous Christian writer, but an under-appreciated Oxford academic and an aspiring poet who never achieved the same success in writing verse as he did prose.
The BBC website notes:
“Although his public life was spent in the all-male world of Oxford colleges, his private life was marked by secrecy and even his best friend JRR Tolkien didn't know of his marriage to an American divorcee late in life. Lewis died on the same day as the assassination of John F Kennedy and few were at his burial - his alcoholic brother was too drunk to tell people the time of the funeral. Fifty years on, his life as a writer is now being remembered alongside other national literary heroes in Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner.”
“In this personal and insightful film, Wilson paints a psychological portrait of a man who experienced fame in the public arena, but whose personal life was marked by the loss of the three women he most loved.”
Those three women were his mother, who died of cancer when he was very young, Mrs Moore, whom he had vowed to look after in a pact with his trenches comrade Paddy Moore. The young men promised each other that if one of them were to be killed in combat, the other would look after his friend’s parent. And Joy Davidman, whom he met and fell in love with, one bittersweet sunset romance portrayed best in the BBC Everyman Drama “Shadowlands” (much better than the later movie).
Lucy Mangan, writing in the Guardian, said that Wilson presented a loving tribute to his subject:
“It created a beautifully appropriate air of loving respect both for the man and his art, that was as much of a tribute to him as the plaque just unveiled in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. You were surprised by the joy indeed.”
I knew most of this about Lewis, but what came as a complete surprise to me was the stained glass window in St Mark’s Church, Belfast.
Catching up on my back catalogue of TV shows, at the weekend I watched “Narnia's Lost Poet: the Secret Lives and Loves of CS Lewis”
In this, CS Lewis's biographer AN Wilson goes in search of the man behind Narnia - best-selling children's author and famous Christian writer, but an under-appreciated Oxford academic and an aspiring poet who never achieved the same success in writing verse as he did prose.
The BBC website notes:
“Although his public life was spent in the all-male world of Oxford colleges, his private life was marked by secrecy and even his best friend JRR Tolkien didn't know of his marriage to an American divorcee late in life. Lewis died on the same day as the assassination of John F Kennedy and few were at his burial - his alcoholic brother was too drunk to tell people the time of the funeral. Fifty years on, his life as a writer is now being remembered alongside other national literary heroes in Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner.”
“In this personal and insightful film, Wilson paints a psychological portrait of a man who experienced fame in the public arena, but whose personal life was marked by the loss of the three women he most loved.”
Those three women were his mother, who died of cancer when he was very young, Mrs Moore, whom he had vowed to look after in a pact with his trenches comrade Paddy Moore. The young men promised each other that if one of them were to be killed in combat, the other would look after his friend’s parent. And Joy Davidman, whom he met and fell in love with, one bittersweet sunset romance portrayed best in the BBC Everyman Drama “Shadowlands” (much better than the later movie).
Lucy Mangan, writing in the Guardian, said that Wilson presented a loving tribute to his subject:
“It created a beautifully appropriate air of loving respect both for the man and his art, that was as much of a tribute to him as the plaque just unveiled in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. You were surprised by the joy indeed.”
I knew most of this about Lewis, but what came as a complete surprise to me was the stained glass window in St Mark’s Church, Belfast.
St. Mark’s church still stands today in the Dundela area of East Belfast. It was established in 1874 and has close links with the Lewis family. C S Lewis’s maternal grandfather the Reverend Thomas Hamilton was the first rector here from 1878-1905. It was in this church that C S Lewis was baptised by his grandfather in 1899 and also later took confirmation.
Jack and Warnie came back to St. Marks in 1935 to dedicate a stained glass window to their parents. The Latin inscription translates as;
‘To the greater glory of God and dedicated to the memory of Albert James Lewis, who died on the 25th September 1929, aged 67, and also of his wife, Flora Augusta Hamilton, who died on the 23rd August 1908, aged 47.’
Jack and Warnie came back to St. Marks in 1935 to dedicate a stained glass window to their parents. The Latin inscription translates as;
‘To the greater glory of God and dedicated to the memory of Albert James Lewis, who died on the 25th September 1929, aged 67, and also of his wife, Flora Augusta Hamilton, who died on the 23rd August 1908, aged 47.’
Songs of Praise
As the RAF marks its centenary, last Sunday saw Aled Jones at the Rhyl Air Show in north Wales to hear the extraordinary stories of two Second World War pilots, Welsh local hero David Lord, who was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross, and 97-year-old Ernie Holmes, a Lancaster bomber pilot who miraculously survived being shot down over occupied territory.
As the RAF marks its centenary, last Sunday saw Aled Jones at the Rhyl Air Show in north Wales to hear the extraordinary stories of two Second World War pilots, Welsh local hero David Lord, who was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross, and 97-year-old Ernie Holmes, a Lancaster bomber pilot who miraculously survived being shot down over occupied territory.
Jamie Buchan September writing in the Courier, tells the story of that fateful night in May 1944:
“Ernie Holmes, 97, was on the way home from a night-time bombing raid in Germany when his aircraft was attacked by the enemy. The Lancaster crashed over the Netherlands, killing five members of the eight-man crew.”
Ernie himself describes the events as he remembers them:
“We dropped our load and we had the target burning,” Ernie told him. “And then we started our way back home by a different route, and it was on the way back, all we heard was the roar of our engines.
“It was dark then suddenly, there’s a vibration and a sound and then a fire broke out in the starboard wing.”
He said: “I realised I’d lost control of the aircraft.
“Meantime, number three engine was tearing itself to bits, exploding, throwing bits around. I called out to my crew: bail out, bail out.
“But before this happened there was… an explosion and I woke up. The cabin had gone, I was hanging off the nose of the aircraft but still strapped to my seat.”
He managed to open his parachute and land in a woodland.
“A girl came by riding a bicycle,” he said. “She said ‘Gude Morgen’ to me and I knew straight away I was in Holland, not Germany, not Belgium. She pointed to the corn, she wanted me to hide.”
Ernie was taken in by farmer Fons van der Heijden, a member of the Dutch resistance.
He left to escape back to England, but was later caught and imprisoned by the Germans as he tried to reach home.
And tragically, in a vindictive last act of vengeance, just days before the region was liberated, Fons – who had harboured many service men – was taken out of church by Nazis and shot.
Ernie said: “These were good people who risked their lives, risked everything, to keep me safe.”
Paying tribute to the farmer who saved him, he said: “There is no greater love, than he who will give himself for another.”
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