John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, was born on the 3rd January, 1892.
He and his brother Hilary, experienced a difficult childhood.
When Tolkien was just four, they lost their father, Arthur,
to rheumatic fever.
As a widow with low income, his mother Mabel,
home schooled the brothers and played a vital role in their early education
and development.
Tolkien was a smart young boy, with a fascination and thirst for languages.
Tolkien sat the entrance exam for King Edward's School, Birmingham and passed.
From the Autumn of 1900, for a fee of 12 pounds a year,
Tolkien would be educated in an environment
that would help fulfil his academic potential.
John Garth: Going to King Edward's was
vitally important to Tolkien; he was an exceptionally
talented boy. King Edward's offered him a vast amount of scope
and also the company of other boys who were similarly talented.
Which was probably quite hard for Tolkien to find.
Simon Stacey: Not only did he play rugby but he was a leading light
in the debating society and the literary society.
He was the life and soul really,
and he missed the school a great deal, I think, when he finally had to leave.
VO: At the age of just 11, Tolkien and his brother Hilary
lose their mother Mabel to diabetes.
Grief stricken, he plunges himself into school life
more energetically than before. Academically he excels,
but in 1905 meets his intellectual rival, Christopher Wiseman.
John Garth: Tolkien met his greatest friend at King Edward's,
Christopher Wiseman on the rugby pitch.
A musician, a mathematician; quite different from Tolkien.
They developed such a strong bond on the rugby field
that they called themselves; "The Great Twin Brethren",
which was a phrase from "Lays of Ancient Rome" by Lord Macauley.
Simon Stacey: They also were friendly rivals in the school,
both being very academic boys. Wiseman had a formidable intellect
and he was interested in a lot of the things
that Tolkien was getting interested in;
languages, I think he was looking at Egyptian and was looking at hieroglyphics.
John Garth: Tolkien and Wiseman must have helped define each other
through their teenage years because they would argue;
they would argue strongly about all their beliefs in life.
Simon Stacey: Wiseman was a very talented musician;
Tolkien was supposed to be tone deaf but that didn't stop them getting on!
VO: Tolkien also befriends, son of the headmaster, Rob Gilson.
Tolkien, Wiseman and Gilson, form a strong bond
which will last throughout their school years and beyond.
Outside of King Edward's, Tolkien's life is about to change, yet again.
John Garth: Tolkien was living in lodgings with his brother, Hilary,
and when he was 16 he met fellow lodger, Edith Bratt, who was 19 at the time.
And she was a beautiful young girl; talented pianist and also an orphan.
And the two of them bonded on their shared sadnesses
but also on their hopes and dreams.
The difficulty for Ronald, as she called him, and Edith,
was that he was a Roman Catholic and she was an Anglican.
VO: Tolkien's Guardian, Father Francis Morgan, a Catholic Priest,
feels this is major divide; and also believes that Edith will distract Tolkien
from his attempts to get into Oxford University.
John Garth: Father Francis Morgan, forbade them from seeing each other,
or even from communicating.
He was thrown back upon his friendships at King Edward's
and it was this final phase of his time here, that he began to flourish
and make the place his own; he and his friends ruled the roost.
VO: Making the most of his final year at King Edward's
and the friendships he has formed,
Tolkien and his peers create an informal society.
These young intellectuals gather in the school library
and do what they are forbidden to do: brew tea.
Outside of school hours, they meet in a cafe at Barrow's Stores in Birmingham
and so, self-mockingly, they call themselves the "Tea Club and Barrovean Society"
or the TCBS for short.
(nostalgic music)
John Garth: The core of the TCBS was probably
Tolkien and Wiseman and the others
gravitated around them. There was Robert
Quilter Gilson, the son of the headmaster
here; Rob was a cultured and sociable chap,
he was perhaps the social glue of the group;
he would welcome anyone and find common
cause with them. A gentle artistic fellow
who loved to sketch.
Simon Stacey: He was a gifted artist and
had ambitions to be an architect.
There was a late arrival, Geoffrey Bache Smith,
who was fascinated by mythology, Celtic
mythology; so this gave him common ground
with Tolkien; it was another of
Tolkien's passions.
Simon Stacey: Smith was quite an accomplished
and advanced poet who recommended contemporary
poetry to Tolkien. When he started writing
poetry, Tolkien was to a certain extent,
inspired by Smith and the wider group.
And that was really the beginnings of
Tolkien as a writer.
John Garth: From the beginnings which were
mostly about fun, later on, during the war years,
this developed into a fellowship from which
each of them drew tremendous strength and
comfort.
VO: Later that year, Tolkien's time at
King Edward's comes to an end and he begins
his first term at Oxford, having successfully
gained entrance.
On the eve of his 21st birthday, and his
independence from Father Francis Morgan,
Tolkien writes to Edith and less than a
week later, they are re-united.
Edith is engaged to marry another man,
but despite almost certain ridicule,
she agrees to break the engagement to be
with her Ronald.
Over the next few months, a growing sense of
trouble brews across Europe and on the 28th
of June, 1914, everything changes.
(gun shot sound)
(solemn music)
Gavrillo Princip is arrested for the
assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
A diplomatic crisis ensues and within weeks,
Europe's major powers are at war.
Germany invades Belgium and Britain declares
war on Germany. Parliament issues a call
to arms from the British public.
Paul Golightly: There isn't a rush to the
colours straight away. It becomes much more
obvious that people are willing to join
up when atrocity stories start to emerge,
then you get a much more concerted rush
to join.
John Garth: There was an air of excitement
about the war, there was a naive sense that
this would allow young men to fulfil their
potential in a way that wasn't possible in
peace time. There was a tremendous sense
of patriotism and a sense of duty towards
whatever England, or Britain, stood for.
Paul Golightly: They are attracted to the
idea of a settling of accounts with the Germans,
or at least some of them will be. On the
whole, they thought they were going to give
the Germans a bloody nose.
John Garth: "The Germans has been dastardly"
and needed to dealt with and shown their place.
Paul Golightly: Men join up out of economic
necessity and you'll find that in any war.
Life is not very exciting and the romance
and colour of joining the army and being
part of something very big indeed, I'm sure
has some allure.
(solemn music) And they see things
in rather romantic ways, which of course is
doomed to fail; we all know what the First
World War turns into. It's not a war of
movement, of dash and élan; it's not cavalry
charges and distant trumpets; I'm afraid
it's the pitter-patter of machine gun fire
and the crump of artillery that's going to
dominate.
So they, I think, have expectations about what
the war will be like, and I think their main
emotion was, will it be over before I can
get to France.
John Garth: Tolkien, who's reading covered
ancient heroic literature, that is surprisingly
frank about what happens in war, went into
the war much more open-eyed. He described
himself as a "young man with too much
imagination" and so he did not relish battle
in any sense.
Paul Golightly: And I think that applies
to, not just men like Tolkien who fought in it,
but also the politicians and generals who
directed it; I think a lot of people
understood that this war could be terrible.
Simon Stacey: What you get in the letters
between Gilson, Tolkien and Wiseman and
then in Smith's poetry, is a serious
determination to do their duty and that they
should be prepared to give their lives.
A realistic appreciation that this is a dark time
and that they've got to come through it.
VO: G.B. Smith and Rob Gilson both join
the army in 1914, Tolkien's brother, Hilary,
signs up as a bugler and Christopher Wiseman
joins the navy. Tolkien however, faces a
dilemma.
Simon Stacey: Tolkien was in a difficult
position when war broke out; he had a year
of his degree at Oxford to run and Tolkien
needed a degree badly because he wanted to
pursue an academic career; he didn't have
any money in his family unlike Gilson and
therefore, having committed three years to
the degree it was very important that he
completed it. So he discovered a scheme
whereby he could undergo some training
in the Officer Training Core whilst
completing his degree, which he did triumphantly
with a first at Oxford.
VO: He follows good friend, G.B.Smith, into
the Lancashire Fusiliers in the hope of being
posted to the same battalion.
John Garth: Tolkien was looking for something
in the army through which he could use his
particular talents, and his particular talents
were languages and writing systems; he was
fascinated by codes and so forth. So it was
only natural that he would train up as a
signaller.
Paul Golightly: It would have meant that
Tolkien was exposed to the technology
available at the time and it must have
interested him; so the use of the radio, the
use of signals, of semaphore.
Simon Stacey: He learnt morse code,
he learnt how to use signalling lamps, field
telephones; which of course went on largely
to be ineffective or not to work.
John Garth: He became Battalion Signalling
Officer for his Battalion. Tolkien had to
oversee the communications of a Battalion
of between 600 and 1,000 men depending on
manpower at the time.
Paul Golightly: His basic job of course
was to act as a link between the various
layers of command, and that he would be
responsible for incoming orders and making sure
that the right people got those and of course
he'd be responsible for telling command further
up the line about the situation on his sector.
John Garth: So he was an absolute lynch pin
in a war which depended absolutely on how
much information you had about your enemies
position.
VO: In March of 1916 as his training nears
its completion, both Tolkien and Edith
become aware that he will soon be sent to
the Front. They marry and just over two
months later, Tolkien is shipped off to France.
The two of them part, not knowing if they
will ever see each other again.
(Loud battle sounds, Guns Firing, Shouting)
(ominous music)
VO: When Tolkien arrives at the Front, the
War has been raging for almost two years.
The cost of the War is clear;
the countryside is scarred and the casualties
high.
After a virtual stalemate of trench warfare
throughout 1915, and with a new wave of
thousands of freshly trained recruits, it is
clear the Big Push is imminent.
(marching feet)
Tolkien's Battalion remains in reserve, but
he fears for the lives of his old school
friends who are at the Front.
Within a month of his arrival in France
the Allies launch the Somme Offensive.
At 7.30am, on Saturday 1st of July,
the troops in the British Frontline,
go over the top.
(whistle sound echoes)
On the first day of the Offensive alone,
20,000 men are killed, 35,000 are wounded
and over 2,000 are reported missing.
Paul Golightly: The first casualty was the plan.
It started to fall apart very rapidly.
Tragically for the men caught out in the open, it was a death sentence.
1 in 5 men who went into combat on the 1st of July was killed.
John Garth: It was the most disastrous day
in the history of the British Army, and
a tragedy for the entire country. There were
villages that had lost all their young men.
Paul Golightly: It's marked as a loss of
innocence, that the 20,000 that were killed
represent a turning point in British
consciousness and the relationship perhaps
between those who make decisions and those
who are forced to carry them out.
(soft piano music)
VO: Among the many men that are lost on that
day, is dear friend and TCBS member,
Robert Gilson.
John Garth: He led his Platoon over the top
took charge of his Company, but was shot
in the middle of No Man's Land.
Paul Golightly: He was in the fourth wave.
He saw the first wave go in and fail,
the second wave go in and fail,
the third wave go in and fail.
And he, as a part of the fourth wave, had
to go in; and they still went. And that
I think is the most poignant and probably
the most tragic thing about the 1st of July
1916. That this generation, had so much faith
in their superiors, probably had so much
commitment to their fellows that they were
prepared to go, even though it meant certain
death.
John Garth: Tolkien heard about this
after his first action on the Somme a couple
of weeks later; and he was devastated.
It shook him to the foundations of his
beliefs. He had, as all of the members of
the TCBS had, built up their group as a
fellowship, with ideas and a spirit that had
something to give to the World. In which
all four of them were vital parts, and now
one of them was dead. So what did that mean
about their overall purpose? And also his
purpose.
Simon Stacey: Geoffrey Smith wrote him a
letter in which, clearly Smith experiences
feelings of devastation and a sense that the
fellowship had been broken. Rob would never
become an architect, he would never fulfil
his part in whatever they dreamed of.
John Garthm: And I think it took him quite
some time to recover from that. The other
two members, Wiseman and Smith, were
determined to persuade him that, no, the TCBS
purpose continued and I think eventually
Tolkien took heart from that.
VO: Tolkien writes to Rob's father, Headmaster
at King Edward's school to offer his
condolences. The TCBS lost a bright young
man, a talented artist and most painfully
of all; a dear friend.
Tolkien's war has well and truly started and
over the coming months he is subject to the
many hardships of trench warfare.
John Garth: He spent his time in and out
of the trenches. Battalions would be rotated
from the Frontline to the reserve trenches
to rest, as they laughably called it, but
it wasn't really rest, it was training.
Tolkien talked about the universal weariness
of all this war. But during this period he
was involved in three attacks, he was
very fortunate not to have to go through the
first day of the Somme; he was a few miles
back from the Frontline at that time.
His Battalion moved forward for a second
wave of attacks, they were launched against a
village called Ovillers; which had been the
German Frontline. One of the first things that
he encountered was, complete chaos in the
battlefield communications system. It was very
primitive. It was only partly built; damaged
by the fortunes of battle. He had signallers
going across No Man's Land carrying flares
to say, we have arrived. Further flares -
"we have taken prisoners", they carried
pigeons; pigeons were about the most reliable
method of communication. One of Tolkien's
signallers won a military medal for managing
to get his pigeons across No Man's Land and
do the job correctly.
VO: The attack is a success and many
prisoners are captured. Of all the combat
Tolkien encounters, one of the most significant
battles is also one of his last; an attack
on Regina Trench.
John Garth: This was in October, by which
time the battlefield had been reduced to mud.
The attack had been delayed by heavy rain
but on October 21st there was a cold snap
so the ground was frozen hard and the
attack was able to go ahead.
(Deep boom. Loud Artillery Fire)
(Gunfire, bullets zipping by)
(solemn music)
John Garth: He saw violent death, he also
saw and felt extreme terror.
He never, as far as we know, described at
length what trench warfare was like but he
summed it up in two words, in one of his
letters, and this was; "animal horror".
It would reduce you from humanity and
turn you into a retched beast desperate only
to cower and survive. And it's very
interesting if you look in The Lord of The Rings
whenever the characters are in situations of
extreme fear, they're always described as
stooping and stupefied, un-manned by terror.
Paul Golightly: A lot of British trenches
were deliberately uncomfortable because
the Generals wanted the men to believe
that they were only temporary, that they
would be advancing beyond this, that this
wasn't their home.
VO: Out on the Western Front, Tolkien feels
isolated from home and letters to, and from,
Edith are a lifeline. For reasons of
strategic importance Tolkien is forbidden
from sharing his location in his letters, so
he devises a code of dots to keep Edith
informed of where he is.
John Garth: He simply found the letters
of the alphabet within what he wrote to her
and put a dot above the relevant ones to
spell out the name of the place where he was
currently located. And Edith kept a map
on her wall and pins to show where he was
at that time.
VO: After the successful attack on Regina
Trench, the Battalion is withdrawn from the
front and paraded in front of the top brass.
Tolkien however, falls ill.
John Garth: It was trench fever. And this
was a louse born disease due to the unhygienic
conditions in the trenches.
Paul Golightly: It spread through contact
with lice and it symptoms aren't very pleasant
It gives you a headache, you can have stomach
cramps, you can have pain in you joints
and in your bones, you can get lesions on
your skin; it's not fatal but it can become
very debilitating. So debilitating you can't
be an effective soldier. Tolkien got a very
bad case, so bad that he had to be invalided
"back to Blighty" as they put it.
And in fact it was the end of his war.
John Garth: It saved Tolkien's life, it took
him out of the battlefield and back to Britain.
He was shipped home to Birmingham, to
The First Southern General Hospital as it
was called at the time, which was actually set
up in the grounds of Birmingham University.
And it was there that Tolkien was re-united
with his wife, Edith and where he began
writing the first stories of Middle-Earth.
His re-union with Edith was deeply emotional
and was an inspiration for various pieces of
writing in his mythology, notably the
story of Luthien and Beren; which features
in the Silmarillion and is mentioned in
The Lord of The Rings. A love story between
a mortal man and an immortal elf.
(Gentle Piano Music)
VO: However, Tolkien's respite is short lived.
Shortly after returning to Birmingham, Tolkien
learns from Christopher Wiseman, that
good friend G.B.Smith has been killed.
John Garth: The Battle of the Somme was
over, and Smith had been organising a
football match for his men about four miles
behind the Frontline, when a stray shell
exploded near him.
He was hit by shrapnel and developed what
they called Gas Gangrene, which killed
him within a few days. Early in 1916, while
Tolkien was still in training, he had a letter
G.B.Smith, who by that time was in the trenches
in France.
VO: Smith was about to go out on Night Patrol.
The officer who had led the patrol the night before
had been captured and most likely killed.
John Garth: It was about the most dangerous
activity that you could do on the Western Front
and Smith was about to go into it and he took
the opportunity to write to Tolkien, and
tell him; "I'm about to go out on Night Patrol,
I am a wild and wholehearted admirer of
what you've written and what you will write"
He told Tolkien, "you I'm sure are chosen,
and you must publish."
Smith was essentially the first Middle-Earth
fan.
Simon Stacey: Smith says in the letter that
death couldn't put an end to the TCBS, to
the "immortal four" as he put it, that Tolkien
may say the things that he had wanted to
say, long after he is there to say them.
That's very moving because Tolkien, although
very much his own individual artistic self,
I think did see his later career as an
attempt to fulfil the artistic dreams that
they'd shared.
John Garth: He was able to gather his strength
and perhaps see Smith as an ideal to be lived up to.
VO: In the summer of 1918, Tolkien and
Wiseman gather some of Smith's poems and
have them published in a small volume,
entitled; "A Spring Harvest".
Tolkien's war is over, but the impact of his
experiences will stay with him forever, and
will even feature in his future writings.
John Garth: The whole experience of the War
had an ongoing affect on much of Tolkien's
mythology. As soon as Tolkien returned from
the Somme he started writing a story called,
"The Fall of Gondolin" which was the first
element of his mythology that dealt with battle.
And the fascinating thing about it is that the
attacking forces use things that are termed
by Tolkien, "dragons" or "beasts" or "monsters"
but they're described as metallic and rolling
and they spout fire and some of them have
troops inside them, and it's pretty clear that
this is a kind of mythologising of the Tank.
Which was Britains secret weapon, which
had just been launched on the Somme while
Tolkien was there.
The Lord of The Rings focusses on a fellowship,
they're separated on different battlefronts,
much like the TCBS were.
Simon Stacey: It's almost unimaginable that,
in writing of the breaking of the fellowship,
in The Lord of The Rings, that Tolkien wouldn't
have been influenced by his own loss during
the First World War and the breaking of the
TCBS fellowship.
There is a late letter in which he mentions
that the dead marshes, through which Frodo,
Sam and Gollum travel, owe something to
northern France, in the area of the Somme
where he fought.
John Garth: Frodo and Sam are very much
the equivalent of an officer and his batman; his
servant. And Tolkien actually said that, "my
Sam Gamgee is inspired by the Privates and
Batmen I knew in the First World War".
Frodo represents really, the feelings of a young
man like Tolkien himself, thrown into a war
unwillingly and having to shoulder a terrible
burden; a burden of duty. You can see that
Frodo develops symptoms of what we would now
call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or
War Trauma, or what they called then,
Shell Shock. He becomes withdrawn from
the World, increasingly enclosed within himself
he says he can't remember what grass was like,
what sunlight was like.
When the war is over in The Lord of The Rings,
Frodo does not strut his stuff as a hero,
he is visibly traumatised by the whole
experience. This was very true of many of the
soldiers who returned from the Western
Front, unable to talk about the experiences
that had affected them so deeply.
(retrospective piano music)
Paul Golightly: The generation that fights
the First World War, should be called courageous.
Simon Stacey: The sacrifice of that generation
was extraordinary.
John Garth: It was a tragic loss not only for
families, for friends, but for civilisation as
a whole. It shook long-held beliefs and
assumptions in honour and glory.
Simon Stacey: It is the first thorough
going war of the machines. So many
thousands and ultimately millions of men
could be wiped out, could be destroyed without
necessarily facing their individual enemy.
Paul Golightly: These men don't have
the privilege of dying one at a time, they die
on mass; and it's those numbers that I think
traumatise us so much. That's why we have
the memorials at Thiepval and Menin Gate;
where it's just one long list of names.
These bodies have simply disappeared, and
they're all separate lives but they've all
vanished at once.
John Garth: When you read the King Edward's
School Chronicle, as I have to research
Tolkien's life here, you get to know the boys
with whom he grew up and you see their
achievements, you see what they were learning,
you see how wonderfully intelligent, potentially
creative and brilliant they were. And then
the First World War; and you see that they're
heading for this.
Paul Golightly: These young men, with their
whole lives in front of them, have, yes it's
a phrase that we all know, have been cut off
in their prime. They were full of potential,
full of life, full of vigour, full of plans,
full of ambition; wanting to do all kinds of
things with their professional lives and
their personal lives, and denied that opportunity.
John Garth: When you look at the fortunes
of war, it's quite astonishing that Tolkien
survived and went on to produce the great
works of literature that he did; works that
have shaped our culture. And one does
wonder how many others didn't survive,
what potential was locked inside them that
they never had time to bring out of themselves.
So there is an uncountable loss there.
Simon Stacey: G.B.Smith gives a brief glimpse
of a young life snuffed out and only very
incompletely communicating its dreams.
Paul Golightly: This is a generation that did
not talk about the way it felt. So in that
sense I think the psychological affect was
long lasting. A number of veterans surived
the war only to find that they couldn't survive
the peace.
VO: In the chapel at King Edward's School,
eight brass plaques hold the names of
245 Old Edwardians who lost their lives during
the First World War. Tolkien and his TCBS
friends, are just four of almost
fifteen hundred Old Edwardians who answered
their country's call and fought in The Great War,
and each of their stories is worth telling.
Paul Golightly: The graveyards that you can
walk around in northern France now have become
almost 21st century cathedrals; where some
really important questions need to be ask about
the nature of war and the nature of
sacrifice, and in the First World War's case,
the scale of that sacrifice. Whether any war
could be worth that.
(Piano Solo)