One summer, when JRR Tolkien was tediously marking exam papers, he was pleased to see a student had left a blank page. Ironically, he was tempted to award extra marks for that, but instead scribbled on it the phrase: "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." From that whimsical idea eventually sprang the world's most famous fantasy novels.
Far from England on a January day in 1892, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in South Africa. His parents had moved there when his father got promoted to be manager of a bank in Bloemfontein, but fate curtailed the youngster's time on that continent.
At the age of three, his mother took him to England on a family visit. Unexpectedly, this turned into a relocation when her husband, Arthur Tolkien, died of rheumatic fever. The two moved to Sarehole, then a Worcestershire hamlet, and the bucolic English countryside in that region later became an inspiration for the home of hobbits.
A reader from the age of four, Tolkien was fascinated by languages. From an early age, he showed an aptitude for inventing new ones, having worked with a cousin on Nevbosh (New Nonsense) while a teenager.
Accordingly, he went on to study English at Oxford, later taking flak for not letting World War One interrupt his degree course, apart from some army training. Rather than join up and go off to fight immediately, he waited until after finishing his degree. Delaying duty to king and country had not been easy since it brought disapproval from some in the family.
He began military service in 1915 and was posted to France as a signals officer.
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THE FEW ON SCREEN
Steven Taylor looks at the Battle of Britain across film and TV
Table Service
Rachel Toy looks at the history of Ridgway Homemaker tableware
Hever Forever
Claire Saul studies the newly refurbished Boleyn Apartment at Hever Castle & Gardens - a castle fit for a queen
Shining a Light
Tony O’Neil tunes into the history of the last manned lightvessel
The Man With the Goldeneye
Film stills photographer Keith Hamshere describes how he came to enter the world of James Bond
THE ORIGINAL GOLDEN BALLS
lan Wheeler looks back on 70 years of Tiger comic and Roy of the Rovers, and chats to the man who edited and oversaw both titles
To Play the Queen
Chris Hallam looks back on the life of one of the UK’s best known lookalikes
POOLING RESOURCES
Martin Handley looks at what life was like after the Vernons Girls
POSTCARD FROM= SUSSEX
Bob Barton indulges in pleasure piers and fairground delights, as well as fulfilling a long-held ambition to visit the home of Rudyard Kipling
Oh, Miss Jones
Chris Hallam looks back at the origins and legacy of Rising Damp, ITV's most successful sitcom
