-
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 school 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 Garth] 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 Ovier; 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
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that had affected them so deeply.
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(retrospective piano music)
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[Paul Golightly] The generation that fights
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the First World War, should be called courageous.
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[Simon Stacey] The sacrifice of that generation
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was extraordinary.
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[John Garth] It was a tragic loss not only for
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families, for friends, but for civilisation as
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a whole. It shook long-held beliefs and
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assumptions in honour and glory.
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[Simon Stacey] It is the first thorough
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going war of the machines. So many
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thousands and ultimately millions of men
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could be wiped out, could be destroyed without
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necessarily facing their individual enemy.
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[Paul Golightly] These men don't have
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the privilege of dying one at a time, they die
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on mass; and it's those numbers that I think
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traumatise us so much. That's why we have
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the memorials at Thiepval and Menin Gate;
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where it's just one long list of names.
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These bodies have simply disappeared, and
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they're all separate lives but they've all
-
vanished at once.
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[John Garth] When you read the King Edward's
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School Chronicle, as I have to research
-
Tolkien's life here, you get to know the boys
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with whom he grew up and you see their
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achievements, you see what they were learning,
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you see how wonderfully intelligent, potentially
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creative and brilliant they were. And then
-
the First World War; and you see that they're
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heading for this.
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[Paul Golightly] These young men, with their
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whole lives in front of them, have, yes it's
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a phrase that we all know, have been cut off
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in their prime. They were full of potential,
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full of life, full of vigour, full of plans,
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full of ambition; wanting to do all kinds of
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things with their professional lives and
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their personal lives, and denied that opportunity.
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[John Garth] When you look at the fortunes
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of war, it's quite astonishing that Tolkien
-
survived and went on to produce the great
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works of literature that he did; works that
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have shaped our culture. And one does
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wonder how many others didn't survive,
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what potential was locked inside them that
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they never had time to bring out of themselves.
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So there is an uncountable loss there.
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[Simon Stacey] G.B.Smith gives a brief glimpse
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of a young life snuffed out and only very
-
incompletely communicating its dreams.
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[Paul Golightly] This is a generation that did
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not talk about the way it felt. So in that
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sense I think the psychological affect was
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long lasting. A number of veterans surived
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the war only to find that they couldn't survive
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the peace.
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[VO] In the chapel at King Edward's School,
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eight brass plaques hold the names of
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245 Old Edwardians who lost their lives during
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the First World War. Tolkien and his TCBS
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friends, are just four of almost
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fifteen hundred Old Edwardians who answered
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their country's call and fought in The Great War,
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and each of their stories is worth telling.
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[Paul Golightly] The graveyards that you can
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walk around in northern France now have become
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almost 21st century cathedrals; where some
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really important questions need to be ask about
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the nature of war and the nature of
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sacrifice, and in the First World War's case,
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the scale of that sacrifice. Whether any war
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could be worth that.