The Real Girl Behind Lucy Pevensie Has Died
Door Jam: December 1, 2025
The Door Jam is a place to squeeze in articles about C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, their work, adaptations of their fantasy worlds, news from other franchises, and interesting articles. Unless otherwise stated, I’m not endorsing (or criticizing) any of these but merely sharing them with you.
Last week, actress Jill Freud died at 98. Many may not have known that Freud had a deep connection with Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia.
Lewis repeatedly spoke of the literary inspirations behind Narnia. Still, he didn’t complete his fantasy series until after he had spent more time with evacuee children, who began arriving at the Kilns in September 1939. In a letter, he said he had never learned to appreciate children until the war had brought them to him.
One of the girls who stayed the longest was June Flewett. She recalled playing in Tolkien’s garden with the evacuees who were living with the other Inkling. It’s from June that we learn the most about Lewis’ interaction with evacuees.
For the first couple of months, however, she thought she was staying with “Jack” Lewis and made no connection to the author C.S. Lewis, whom she had already read and deeply appreciated.
“At home, he was generosity itself,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2014. “He would let me buy any book I wanted. He would talk to me about things—never make me feel small. If I said anything really silly, he just wouldn’t answer. He was kind, generous, good-humored, helpful. I was 16, and it was what you would call a schoolgirl crush.”
For their part, both Lewis and his brother Warnie greatly appreciated Flewett, who helped with the work around the house. She stayed at the Kilns for two years instead of the two weeks she originally intended.
She kept deferring her admittance to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) to stay and help. Finally, Lewis told her she had to leave so she could start at RADA. As he often did for others, Lewis paid for Flewett’s education.
When she left, Lewis wrote her mother: “I have never really met anything like her in unselfishness and patience and kindness and shall feel deeply in her debt as long as I live.”
While Lewis may have dedicated The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to his goddaughter Lucy Barfield, he patterned the character Lucy after June Flewett. When she was much older, Douglas Gresham, Lewis’ stepson, asked her, “I suppose you know you are the prototype for Lucy?” She had never made the connection.
June Flewett took the name Jill Raymond as a stage name. Later, she married Clement Freud, the grandson of the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, and became Jill Freud. In 1987, Clement was granted knighthood, so she became Lady Jill Freud.
She had more than 20 acting credits, including in Love Actually (2003) and as a social worker dropping off a young “June Flewett” to stay with C.S. Lewis in the 2017 film Tolkien & Lewis.
Last week, Freud died at 98 surrounded by her family. According to her daughter, Freud’s last words were: “I love you.”
Sources:
Not Safe But Good
C.S. Lewis quote of the week
When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.
“On Three Ways of Writing for Children” in On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature
Tumnus’ bookshelf
Books by or about Lewis or Tolkien
The C. S. Lewis Signature Classics: An Anthology of 8 C. S. Lewis Titles is a Cyber Monday deal at Amazon. The volume includes:
Mere Christianity
The Screwtape Letters
The Great Divorce
The Problem of Pain
Miracles
A Grief Observed
Abolition of Man
The Four Loves
You can get the paperback of The C. S. Lewis Signature Classics for $27.01 (40% off).
Other books on sale include:
The Screwtape Letters — paperback: $6.74 (63% off)
A Grief Observed — paperback: $9.70 (46% off)
The Four Loves — paperback: $9.76 (46% off)
C. S. Lewis’ Little Book of Wisdom: Meditations on Faith, Life, Love, and Literature — paperback: $13.33 (30% off)
The Lord Of The Rings Deluxe Edition — hardcover: $20.82 (48% off)
The Complete History of Middle-earth Box Set: Three Volumes Comprising All Twelve Books of The History of Middle-earth — hardcover: $80.64 (68% off)
The Problem of Printers
Bad but unfortunately real C.S. Lewis book covers
When Lewis spoke of his longing for joy, he often called it Sehnsucht. Few know the proper translation of this German word means a “sparkly unicorn pegasus in a snow forest.”
Behind the Wardrobe
Sneak peek at the bonus articles
Below, paid subscribers will see articles on:
Emma Mackey, “Jadis” in Netflix’s Narnia, shares about Narnia books in her childhood home
Why Netflix remains silent one year out from Narnia
Letters from Lewis among newly discovered papers
Why BBC never adapted The Last Battle
Lewis’ critique of eugenics
Stranger Things star on the show’s connection to The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings as an example of gratitude
And more!
