C.S. Lewis and Paddy Moore
In January 1919, C.S. Lewis moves into the home of Mrs Janie Moore (1872–1951) and her twelve-year-old daughter Maureen (1906–1997) at 54 Windmill Road. Lewis gets to know them in June 1917. Hoping for an academic career, he plans to study at University College in Oxford before the summer of 1917. However, because of the First World War (1914–1918), things turn out differently, and on 8 June 1917, the eighteen-year-old Lewis joins the British Army. He is billeted at Keble College in Oxford to be trained as an officer. At Keble College, he shares a room with the young Irishman Paddy Moore (1898–1918), a peer from Bristol. They become friends, and Paddy introduces Lewis to his mother and sister, who live in Wellington Square, a few minutes walk from Keble College. Paddy’s mother, Mrs Janie Moore, stays there with the ten-year-old Maureen to be near Paddy.
Janie Moore
Janie Moore is born on 28 March 1872 in Pomeroy, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Her father, Rev William James Askins (1842–1895), is Vicar of Dunany and Dunleer, County Louth, Ireland, from 1872 to 1895. Janie’s mother dies in 1890, and the eighteen-year-old Janie, the eldest child of five, has the task of raising the younger children. On 1 August 1897, Janie marries Courtenay Edward Moore (1870–1951), a civil engineer from Dublin. They have two children, Paddy and Maureen. It turns out to be an unhappy marriage, and shortly after the birth of Maureen in August 1906, her parents separate. Although they never divorce, Janie leaves her husband and moves to Bristol with Paddy and Maureen in 1907.
First World War
After their officer training at Keble College, C.S. Lewis and Paddy are commissioned Second Lieutenants on 26 September 1917, and given a month’s leave before leaving for the front in France. They had hoped to join the same regiment, but Paddy is assigned to the Rifle Brigade and Lewis to the Somerset Light Infantry. Instead of going home to Belfast, Lewis goes to Paddy’s home in Bristol, where he spends the first three weeks of his leave. During this visit, Lewis and Paddy probably promise each other that if one of them does not survive the war, the other will take care of his parent.
At the beginning of October 1917, Paddy goes to France, and on 19 October, C.S. Lewis joins his regiment in Crownhill, near Plymouth. On 29 November, his nineteenth birthday, he arrives at the front in France. There, he faces the final German attack on the Western Front and participates in the Battle of Arras. On 15 April 1918, at Riez du Vinage, Lewis is wounded on his left arm and leg by German shrapnel. Being wounded, he cannot stay in France. On 25 May 1918, he is back in England and admitted to the Endsleigh Palace Hospital in London. Despite his urging, Father Albert does not visit him, but Mrs Moore is a frequent visitor. On 25 June, Lewis is sent to convalesce at Ashton Court, near Bristol and the home of Mrs Moore. He is expected to take two months to recover, after which he may return to France, but his recovery is slower than expected. When he later moves from Bristol to Eastbourne and from there to Andover, Mrs Moore follows him. In September 1918, they receive the sad news that Paddy was killed in action at Pargny in France on 24 March. In December 1918, Paddy Moore is posthumously awarded the British Military Cross for his gallantry at Pargny.
After the war
At the end of the First World War, on 11 November 1918, C.S. Lewis is still not properly healed. On 24 December, he is discharged from hospital and demobilised. In January 1919, he returns to University College in Oxford to begin his studies. Mrs Moore takes a place in Oxford to be near him, and Lewis often stays in her rented home at 54 Windmill Road. He fully joins the household when he no longer has to live at University College in June 1921. Lewis and Mrs Moore share a home for the rest of their lives together. Over the years, they live in several different rented homes. On 24 August 1919, they move to 76 Windmill Road and to 58 Windmill Road in February 1920. On 1 August 1922, Lewis moves with Mrs Moore and Maureen from Windmill Road to Hillsboro House.
Sources
Walter Hooper, C.S. Lewis. Companion & Guide
Simon Horobin, C.S. Lewis’s Oxford
Jeffrey Schultz & John West, The C.S. Lewis Readers’ Encyclopedia