LITMIR.BIZ

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the Empire will receive five or six years hence. It was no mummer’s rabble that defiled before the King, it was no semi-organized collection of train bands; it was a force of young soldiers, led by seasoned soldiers, trained by seasoned soldiers, quitting themselves like men, like citizens of a great Empire’ (p. 9).

      8 July 1911 Jane Neave and Ellen Brookes-Smith (*Brookes-Smith family) become joint owners of Church Farm (to be renamed Phoenix Farm), Manor Farm, and adjoining parcels of land in Gedling.

      26 July 1911 Summer term and Ronald’s time at King Edward’s School end with Speech Day and prize-giving, followed by musical and dramatic performances. Ronald is one of six recipients in the Classical First Class of the Head Master’s Leaving Prizes. The final item on the programme is a performance in Greek of Aristophanes’ play The Peace in which Ronald takes the part of Hermes, W.H. Payton is Trygaeus, Christopher Wiseman is Sicklemaker, Rob Gilson is Crestmaker, R.S. Payton is the Trumpet Seller, and T.K. Barnsley is in the Chorus. (Aristophanes’ Peace is summarized in a printed programme: ‘Trygaeus an Athenian farmer weary of the long war decides to drag up Peace to the light from the pit in which she is buried. With the aid of a number of his friends and the god Hermes he achieves this object in spite of the opposition of sundry interested persons….’) The evening closes with the national anthem sung in Greek. Ronald will later recall that ‘the school-porter was sent by waiting relatives to find me. He reported that my appearance might be delayed. “Just now,” he said, “he’s the life and soul of the party.” Tactful. In fact, having just taken part in a Greek play, I was clad in a himation and sandals, and was giving what I thought a fair imitation of a frenzied Bacchic dance’ (quoted in Biography, p. 49). See note.

      August 1911 The Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board issue a report on King Edward’s School, Birmingham. In this – prepared evidently in the Board’s role as examiner of schools or school programmes rather than of individual students – Tolkien and some of his friends are singled out for mention for their work in Class 1 on Roman history:

      The best work was undoubtedly done by [Robert Q.] Gilson in both papers…. [F.T.] Faulconbridge and [Sidney] Barrowclough were also very fair, and shewed considerable promise. Tolkien gave signs of a more acute and independent judgement than anyone else; his style also was more matured, but he seemed to have no control over it and sometimes became almost unintelligible; he was also very irrelevant, particularly on the Special Period, in which he only attempted four questions.

      (Quoted in Giampaolo Canzonieri, ‘Tolkien at King Edward’s School’, Tolkien and Philosophy, ed. Roberto Arduini and Claudio A. Testi (2014), p. 149.)

      August–early September 1911 Ronald joins a walking tour in the Swiss Alps organized by the Brookes-Smith family, along with his Aunt Jane Neave and his brother Hilary. See note. Both he and Colin Brookes-Smith, at that time a young boy, will later recount parts of the holiday, from which the following seems a reasonable reconstruction of events. The party apparently numbers twelve at the start. The Brookes-Smiths and their guests travel from England to Innsbruck, Austria by train and boat, and from there make their way to *Switzerland. They proceed mainly on foot, by mountain paths avoiding roads, carrying heavy packs, sometimes sleeping rough in barns, sometimes staying in inns or small hotels, often cooking and eating in the open. Their route takes them from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen, Mürren, and the Lauterbrunnental, over the two Scheidegge to Grindelwald past the Eiger and the Mönch, and on to Meiringen, where they have a fine view of the Jungfrau. They then cross the Grimsel Pass to reach the Rhône and Brig.

      From there (according to Tolkien, though he does not name the village) they make their way upwards again and stay at a châlet inn in Belalp at the foot of the Aletsch glacier. Ronald will later recall several incidents while in Belalp, including the fun he and others had by temporarily damming a rill that ran down the hillside towards the inn. The party venture onto the glacier a few days later, where some of the members, including Ronald, pose for a photograph (The Tolkien Family Album, p. 31) and Ronald comes ‘near to perishing’ in an avalanche: ‘the member of the party just in front of me (an elderly schoolmistress) gave a sudden squeak and jumped forward as a large lump of rock shot between us. About a foot at most before my unmanly knees’ (letter to Michael Tolkien, after 25 August 1967, Letters, p. 393; Colin Brookes-Smith, however, will recall that an avalanche occurred when the party was returning to Arolla – see below – from a day trip to a high-altitude hut).

      From Brig (according to Colin Brookes-Smith) the party travels to Visp and Stalden, over a high pass from St-Niklaus to Gruben, over the Forcletta Pass to Grimentz, and on to Haudères, Arolla, and eventually Sion. Ronald will recall ‘our arrival, bedraggled, one evening in Zermatt and the lorgnette stares of the French bourgeoises dames. We climbed with guides up to [a] high hut of the Alpine Club, roped (or I should have fallen into a snow-crevasse), and I remember the dazzling whiteness of the tumbled snow-desert between us and the black horn of the Matterhorn some miles away’ (Letters, p. 393).

      For Ronald this holiday will be a seminal experience. In later years he will often remark (like Bilbo in *The Lord of the Rings) that he would like to see mountains again, or say that some of his experiences on his trip to Switzerland were incorporated into his writings, for instance the ‘thunder-battle’ in *The Hobbit, Chapter 4. He will also note that the Silverhorn in the Alps is ‘the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams’ (Letters, p. 392). The scenery around the Lauterbrunnental and Mürren almost certainly will influence how he visualizes and draws Rivendell and Dunharrow in Middle-earth, while the Alps will appear as the Misty Mountains in pictures such as Bilbo Woke up with the Early Sun in His Eyes for The Hobbit (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 113; Art of The Hobbit, fig. 39).

      17 August 1911 Christopher Wiseman writes to thank Ronald for postcards he sent from Switzerland.

      September 1911 Ronald writes a poem, The New Lemminkäinen, in the style of the Kalevala, based on Kirby’s translation.

      4 October 1911 Rob Gilson as Librarian of King Edward’s School writes to Ronald, pointing out that the latter has not returned two books, including the first volume of the Kalevala, to the School library, nor has he handed over the keys to the tea closet or the fine box. He thinks it a pity that Ronald, who is to play Mrs Malaprop in a performance of The Rivals by Richard Brinsley Sheridan at King Edward’s School in December, will not return to Birmingham until 7 October, the day after T.K. Barnsley (who is to play Bob Acres) leaves, so they will not be able to rehearse together. Gilson asks Ronald to read his part with him on the evening of 9 October.

      End of the second week in October 1911 Ronald and L.K. Sands, another former pupil of King Edward’s School, are driven by R.W. Reynolds to Oxford in a car, then a novelty. Ronald will later recall that the weather was still hot, and everyone seemed to be dressed in flannels and punting on the river. He takes lunch at the Mitre Hotel (*Oxford and environs), and considers it a privilege to do so. Now he takes up residence in Exeter College; his rooms, no. 7 on the no. 8 staircase three flights up in a building known as the ‘Swiss Cottage’, comprise a bedroom and sitting room overlooking Turl Street. He will settle in quickly and make friends. He is one of 99 Roman Catholic students at Oxford, and one of 37 Catholics among 921 freshmen. (According to an article in the London Standard (‘Freshmen at Oxford’, 21 October 1911, p. 5), the last number is close to the Oxford average, about 200 fewer than those matriculating at Cambridge, and with fewer foreign students than usual). A new Roman Catholic chaplain, Father Lang of Brighton, has replaced the ailing Monsignor Kennard. Two second-year Catholic students, probably *Anthony Shakespeare and *B.J. Tolhurst, will take Tolkien in hand. See note.

      15 October 1911 Michaelmas Full Term begins at Oxford University.

      17 October 1911 Tolkien matriculates at Oxford.

      Michaelmas Term 1911 Tolkien begins to read Literae Humaniores or Classics, mainly Greek and Latin authors but also Philosophy and Classical History. During his first five terms at Oxford he will attend lectures and classes to prepare himself

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