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More Hooper Anecdotes

The Lewis Legacy-Issue 71, Winter 1997 The C.S. Lewis Foundation for Truth in Publishing

Walter Hooper’s 1991 essay “C.S. Lewis: The Man and His Thought” is largely a collection of Hooper’s anecdotes old and new.

“…I became ‘The Soldier Who Had Heard from C.S. Lewis’ ….”

After ringing the doorbell of the Kilns, “My heart was beating so hard I had to lean against the wall.”

“It was this joke [concerning Lewis’s bathroom], as much as anything, which endeared me to Lewis…”

“The landlady of the pub said, ‘Professor Lewis, the last time your brother was here he bought a bottle of whisky with all the money he had. He was so drunk he dropped it on the floor and, of course, it smashed. I gave him another bottle, but as he had no money he asked me to put it on his tab. Do you want to pay for it?'”

Hooper took Lewis a bottle of Jack Daniels. “Lewis liked the taste of it but complained that it gave him a headache. In this we certainly differed. Jack Daniels cures my headaches.”

“Lewis and I were looking through the glass at a lovely tomato when, already over-ripe, it fell to the ground and burst. Paxford meant to be consoling when he said, “Well, Mr. Jack, we might have picked it when it was green. Think of that!”

“I found him in the scullery washing dishes… After that all his dishes were washed by his secretary [Hooper].”

“I remember him saying one day ‘Poor Lazarus!’ There was so much tenderness in his voice that I assumed Lazarus to be a neighbor of ours. ‘Is he sick?’ I asked. ‘No,’ answered Lewis, ‘he died.’ ‘Oh, I am sorry,’ I replied. ‘That’s all right,’ he said, ‘he’s alive again.'”

Once Lewis asked Hooper for “Not the novel you think best, but the one you like most.” “‘Oh, then,’ I replied, ‘I like That Hideous Strength more than any of your books.’ ‘So do I, ‘said Lewis.”