Gresham had read the Narnia books that had been published by then, never dreaming that he might be adopted by their author. He had been captivated by Lewis’s imagined world, which also fuelled a fantasy about the man who would be his father. “I was an eight-year-old American boy steeped in the medieval legends of King Arthur,” he recalls. “England to me was a land where I expected everyone to ride chargers and joust whenever they met. So when I was taken to meet the man who was on speaking terms with the great lion Aslan, I subconsciously expected him to be wearing silver armour and carry a sword.<\/p>\n
“But he was the antithesis of what I had imagined \u201d\u201c a stooped, balding, professorial gentleman with unbelievably shabby clothes and nicotine-stained fingers. It was also clear, however, that he had an enormous personality and sense of fun. This immediately eroded any visual deficiencies. I lost an illusion and gained a great friend and, later, a father.”<\/p>\n