Thousands of people attended Tolkien Weekend 2007, it was held at Sarehole Mill in Hall Green on the 19th and 20th May.
 | | Phil Coker giving a reading |
After giving a reading, Philip Coker, one of the event's organisers, chatted to us about Birmingham's role in the author's life and work. Phil is also an Assistant Community Librarian at Hall Green library Phil Coker: Tolkien has links with so many areas in Birmingham.听Like the Oratory on the Hagley Road where he used to serve mass in the morning. When the two Tolkien sons became orphaned, Father Francis Morgan at the Oratory became their guardian.听 There's the Lickey Hills, where his mother was sent to convalesce in 1904, this became the Shire in the books.听 Edgbaston and Edith
 | | Out of the trees, Tolkien Weekend |
There's the houses that he lived in Edgbaston, where he met another orphan called Edith Bratt, and they had a kind of love affair from window to window.听It was because of that that she was sent off to Cheltenham, because he was supposed听 to be a young man getting on with his studies. He was sent off to Oxford.听 Then there are Barrow's Stores in Corporation Street. Some people my age will remember Barrows Fruit Stores and tea shop in town.听That's where Edith and he used to meet. They married in 1916. The Two Towers There's been some speculation that because Tolkien was at the Oratory, and he lived near the reservoir, that he would have seen Perrott's Folly and the water tower听- which is the model for the two towers in The Lord of the Rings; The Two Towers. In his biography he said that the most formative years in his life were here in Birmingham.听He mentions the Shire in lots of his letters.听 A Short Cut to Mushrooms
 | | View from Sarehole Mill: Hobbit Hole |
And when we consider the chapter from Lord of the Rings - A Short Cut to Mushrooms.听 Well, there used to be a field of mushrooms on the other side of the River Cole and the children 'round here in Tolkien's time would take their shoes and socks off, ford the river and pinch the farmer's mushrooms.听 The farmer would come and collect their shoes and hide them, knowing that they dare not go home without their shoes, and then he'd give them a clip around the ear for pinching his mushrooms.听 Hence, A Short Cut to Mushrooms and Frodo's fear of the farmer. Slang: Gamgee There are so many other connections, like the name Gamgee [Frodo Baggins's servant and companion in The Lord of the Rings was Samwise Gamgee].
 | | Sign on Sarehole Mill |
That comes from around here, from the children around here, because it was a slang term听for the word bandage.听It was a doctor, Sampson Gamgee that invented a particular type of gauze bandage.听And that's where Tolkien picked that up from. His love for trees comes from around here, because it was here that he started drawing trees.听His love for languages, because his mother was teaching him a couple of foreign languages, while she was here as well as teaching him how to draw and sketch. Sarehole Mill And then there's the major part, Sarehole Mill itself.听The mill was a dangerous place for children to be playing around.
 | | Behind Sarehole Mill |
So the Miller, at that time they were milling bone meal, so the Miller would be covered in white, would come out and say "Get away from here!". The children nicknamed him the White Ogre.听If you've read Lord of the Rings, you'll know that the Miller Ted Sandyman gets quite a bad write up. And of course, Moseley Bog is the model for the Old Forest in The Lord of the Rings. We see all of these influences on Tolkien's work. Interview and photos: Ciar谩n Ryan | 
