After two nights in Belfast and a visit to the Antrim Coast, we boarded the ferry for Liverpool, just as C. S. Lewis did countless times in his life. I imagine our accommodations, pictured above, were much more luxurious than what Lewis experienced in the early 1900s. Here is his description of his first journey on the ferry, shortly after his mother's death in 1908....
We reach the quay and go on board the old "Fleetwood boat"; after some miserable strolling about the deck my father bids us good-by. He is deeply moved; I, alas, am mainly embarrassed and self-conscious. When he has gone ashore we almost, by comparison, cheer up. My brother begins to show me over the ship and tell me about all the other shipping in sight. He is an experienced traveler and a complete man of the world. A certain agreeable excitement steals over me. I like the reflected port and starboard lights on the oily water, the rattle of winches, the warm smell from the engine-room skylight. We cast off. The clack space widens between us and the quay; I feel the throb of screws underneath me. Soon we are dropping down the Lough and there is a taste of salt on one's lips, and that cluster of lights astern, receding from us, is everything I have known. Later, when we have gone to our bunks, it begins to blow. It is a rough night and my brother is seasick. I absurdly envy him this accomplishment. He is behaving as experienced travelers should. By great efforts I succeed in vomiting; but it is a poor affair--I was, and am, an obstinately good sailor. (Surprised by Joy, Chapter II)
The next morning we see Liverpool with the sun rising behind the skyline of modern buildings. Here is Lewis' description of his and his brother's activities in Liverpool, dating from 1911 when they would travel together on the ferry and then by train to school in Great Malvern, England....
Growing maturity is marked by the increasing liberties we take with our traveling. At first, on being landed early in the morning at Liverpool, we took the next train south; soon we learned that it was pleasanter to spend the whole morning in the lounge of the Lime Street Hotel with our magazines and cigarettes and to proceed to Wyvern by an afternoon train which brought us there at the latest permitted moment. Soon too we gave up the magazines; we made the discovery (some people never make it) that real books can be taken on a journey and that hours of golden reading can so be added to its other delights. (Surprised by Joy, Chapter IV)
What Lewis calls the Lime Street Hotel was actually the North Western Hotel on Lime Street, immediately next to the railroad station. Below is a photo taken outside the former hotel where the Lewis brothers would sit in the lounge, smoking their cigarettes and reading....
Here is a photo of how the hotel looked in 1926. Just to the left of the hotel is visible the Empire Theatre, and just to the right one can see the edge of the railway station....
Here is Lewis' continuing account of his Liverpool activities....
The homeward journey was even more festal. it had an invariable routine: first the supper at a restaurant--it was merely poached eggs and tea but to us the tables of the gods--then the visit to the old Empire (there were still music halls in those days)--and after that the journey to the Landing Stage, the sight of great and famous ships, the departure, and once more the blessed salt on our lips.
The smoking was of course, as my father would have said, "surreptitious"; not so the visit to the Empire. He was no Puritan about such matters, and often of a Saturday night would take us to the Belfast Hippodrome.Here is a photo of the Emprie Theatre as it looks today....
In my next post we will move onward to Great Malvern, England, where C. S. Lewis attended school from 1911 to 1914.
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