Walter Hooper, Dealer in Lewis Relics?

Conference-goers touring the Kilns were treated to a picture of the Shroud of Turin in Lewis’s old bedroom. The picture apparently was the one given to Lewis by Sister Penelope. Where did the picture come from? Walter Hooper. Hooper also indicates he has a Norman crucifix that hung over Lewis’s bed, but he hasn’t given that to the Kilns.

Also on display in the Kilns was Warren Lewis’s typewriter, again a contribution from Walter Hooper. On the last day of the conference, Charles Colson told about how Hooper gave him one of C. S. Lewis’s pipes on a visit to England in 1977. No one mentioned how Hooper came to acquire all of these Lewis relics, nor how many other things he may still have from the Lewis brothers. Perhaps he can set up a mail-order business dealing in Lewisian antiquities.

Note: How could Hooper have acquired one of Lewis’s pipes, when Warren mailed them to Vera Gebbert, who donated them to the Wade Center? How could Hooper have acquired Warren’s typewriter when both Warren and the Millers turned against him before Warren’s death? (On the bright side, Hooper’s claim about the typewriter precludes any claim that Hooper could not have forged typed documents from the Lewis brothers.)