The Tea Club and Barrovian Society

“Tell us the Christmas story, Grandpa,” the children chorused. “The one about the ghost.”

The old man settled into his chair before a roaring fire, shifting and stirring as his arthritic joints complained. His gnarled hands rested on his lap, cradling a mug of cocoa. He looked down and thought how once on that long-ago winter in the fields of France, his tin mug had held a Christmas ration of rum, and the hands that held it were young not old. His lungs were shot, ruined by the gas he breathed on the battlefields all those many years ago. Cold weather made him wheeze and cough. That part of the story he wouldn’t be sharing with them.

The old man scratched his head, stalling, teasing his grandchildren “And which story would that be?” He smiled down at the six children gathered on the floor around his chair.

“You know, the one about him that wrote the Hobbit,” called one young lad, hair still wet from the bath and wrapped in a toweling robe over his pajamas.

“Father,” said one of his adult sons, “You must keep up the Christmas tradition of telling your story of Tolkien in the trenches. We’re all waiting for it.”

I’d have been half their age then, he thought, looking at his two sons, sitting knees-up on the sofa, mugs of coffee in their hands. Their generation had their own war, he thought, but at least my boys were spared. He’d seen to it they were educated, unlike himself, pushed them to do well in school until they qualified for scholarships. University men, both of them, one a teacher, the other an engineer. He knew an education would keep them out of another war and he’d been right. Their jobs kept them safe from conscription. No point in enlisting as an officer and dying quickly. In my war, he thought, junior officers only lasted a few weeks.

“Well, I was just a young’un then. Enlisted with all the other lads I knew from Lancashire. Off to have a grand adventure. To fight for King and Country. T’would be a lark and we’d all be home in time for Christmas. Or so we thought.” The old man paused, his eyes clouded with bad memories. The sound of the guns and the smell of the dead. Everything he’d seen. It never left you.

He took a sip of his hot cocoa and continued. “I’d been down the mines since I were fourteen, so the trenches felt that familiar to me. Mind you the constant bombin’ and shellin’, none of us were used to that. Never did. Most of them men, they’d been in the mills or worked the looms…” He took a deep breath and ploughed on. “Anyway, we were all that young and quite out of the way of things. The 11th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers, that was my regiment. We had a Colonel in charge—a right git he was—barkin’ out orders. Fancied he was back in the Boer War. One man in a thousand can lead… that’s what Lieutenant Tolkien used to say. Our Colonel, well, he wasn’t that man. The Lieutenant was our signal officer and I’d been assigned to him as his batman. I got to move to the Communications Trench, which was back from the front lines, so I were that grateful to be out of the thick of it. The Lieutenant, he were always direct and kind to everyone. Not many of the officers treated us lower-ranks too well, but he weren’t like the others. Man to man, you felt with him.

“Lieutenant Tolkien, he had three friends all stationed nearby. They’d been at school together. Formed some sort of group—Tea Club and Barrovian Society, they called it. TCBS for short. He said they used to meet in the school library, smuggle in bread, butter and jam and make tea over the fire.”

He took a sip of his cocoa, trying to warm his memories. He paused. “Now, where was I?” he asked his audience.

“The Tea Club, Grandpa,” one of the younger children called out.

“Ah yes. Well, the lads had been writin’ back and forth to each other, even on the front lines. We had mail every day, y’know. Important to the war effort. I brought him his letters—every blessed day they wrote. Don’t know which of ‘em came up with the idea. Lieutenant Tolkien said he’d forgotten. But one day, he came to find me all excited like and said, ‘Well, Bradman, we’re going to have one last meetin’ of the TCBS and I need your help.’ Well, of course, I says, I’d help in any way I could.”

“Seems he were after butter. They’d all decided to come on the morrow, and he’d gotten bread from the Y canteen, and we’d our tea and sugar rations, but he was still needin’ butter. Couldn’t find it anywhere. I’d no more luck than he and went back to tell him.

“He was in a rare good mood that day, jokin’ with me and the men. He could take some dark turns, be real quiet like and not speak much. Some got like that with the shellin’.”

“So, come the next day, bless me if his two friends didn’t turn up just before lunch—that’d be Lieutenant Smith with the 3rd Salford Pals, just a few trenches down, Lieutenant Wiseman, on the Superb—in the Navy, he was– no bleedin’ idea how he got there, but come he did, with a 24-hour pass an’ all. All that were missing were Lieutenant Gilson.”

“Lieutenant Smith were carrying a box, I remember. Bang down on the table he puts it and starts handin’ tins to Lieutenant Tolkien. There was gooseberry jam and butter. Lieutenant Smith, he starts tellin’ this long story about gettin’ lost on patrol and findin’ a root cellar full of tins in a bombed out house. He’d liberated a few, he said, afore the Procurement Officer got wind of it.”

“Lieutenant Tolkien lit up like a Christmas tree, he were that happy to see his old mates. ‘The staples of our secret library meetins,’ he said, ‘bread, butter, jam and tea.’ Then Lieutenant Gilson showed up—it were like one minute he were just there, just appeared in the bunker. Well, they were that glad to see him.”

“They shared some of their food with me—bless me, the bread tasted like sawdust and the tea was that weak … Well, anyway, they still made a fine tea party. Sat and talked for hours about books, and poems, and writin’ and such. I couldn’t follow most of it. I just kept popping in an’ out as me duties took me. We had a Big Push comin’ and it were right good to have somethin’ to take all our minds off it.”

“Then the Colonel comes marching into the bunker. ‘Lieutenant, he says, who are these men?’ Lieutenant Tolkien told him. Well, that did it! The Colonel he goes all red in the face… got right set off. ‘This isn’t some bloody country house weekend, Lieutenant, we’re at war,’ he says, ‘I want these men back at their units within the hour.’ He was goin’ on about this is what comes of not usin’ proper military men to fight a war, and stormed off, blusterin’ on about tea parties at the front.

“‘Well, this is just like old times,’ says Lieutenant Tolkien. ‘Hidin’ in the library, smugglin’ in food, all of us in trouble with the Head Master. You three had better go on. Wait, where’s Rob?’ he says.

“‘He never could handle your strong tea, JR’ says Lieutenant Smith.

“‘I’ll find him and explain. Well, Bradman,’ he says to me, ‘You’d better clear away the evidence.’

“I took the tins out and found the second post had come. There was a letter for the Lieutenant so I took it back for him. He ripped it open and gave a strange cry. I asked him what were wrong and he said it was from Lieutenant Gilson’s CO to tell him our young man has been killed in action. Well, I thought that was right strange—he’d just been there a few minutes before.

“And then young Lieutenant Gilson was there—just appeared sudden, like before.”

The children were holding their breath, leaning forward eager to hear more.

“‘There you are, Rob,’ says Lieutenant Tolkien, ‘I’ve had this absurd letter sayin’ you were killed. They’ve made a mistake.’

“‘No,’ says Lieutenant Gilson, ‘I went leadin’ a charge over the top. I never felt a thing.’ The ghost—‘cause now I’m thinkin’ this must be what he is—he’s shakin’ his head and lookin’ real sad.

“‘I don’t understand,’ says the Lieutenant.

“‘That poor soul’ he says to Lieutenant Tolkien, 'I didn’t understand at first why I’d been held back, but now it’s clear. Your words. Your stories… it’s your genius that’ll light the world and bring it a new mythology in its darkest hour. You’re the one who’ll carry our light to future generations and give ‘em hope. You’ll make it worth all the sacrifice of the TCBS.’

“‘But it means nothing without all of you…’ says Lieutenant Tolkien.

“Young Gilson goes on. ‘Hear me, JR. The world is crying out for myth, for story. You’re the man to give it to ‘em. You must survive this war. Your regiment’ll be lost. That must not include you, my dear Tolkien. This is why I was held back. I was given one more mission. One I could not refuse any more than I could refuse a charge over the top.’

“As he’s speakin, he’s dissolvin’ like and I can see the trench wall thru him. I were that terrified—I were rooted to the spot. Me tongue were frozen like, too.

“‘I can’t see how I have any influence over this fate you see for me… and now that I know that you’re gone ahead of us… I’m not sure I want to,’ says my Lieutenant.

“The spirit (‘cause that’s what he was) didn’t answer but steps close to the Lieutenant and grabs his left shoulder with its hand. ‘What have you done?’ says Lieutenant Tolkien.

“‘I’ve given you a touch of the grave. It’ll sicken but not kill you. You’ll live a long time now,’ says the ghost, ‘Forgive me, old friend. You’re too important to be left to history’s whims.’ That’s what ‘e said! ‘History’s whims.’

“And then, blimey, the ghost was just gone again.

“The Lieutenant, he went all grey. I went over and helped him sit. He was tremblin’ and burnin’ up with fever. He coughed and his whole body shook. ‘I don’t feel at all well,’ he says, ‘P’haps you had better go and fetch the doctor, Bradman.’

“Looks like trench fever, I told him. ‘This could be your Blighty ticket, Sir. Just think of it. Home to England! Where the hot buttered toast never runs out and there’s endless pots of good strong China tea.’”

“Father, that’s quite a tale,” said one of the sons. “Perhaps you should have become a writer as well.”

The old man’s face changed as a smile slowly crept across it. “I’m not done, yet. The story has a new part.”

“Go on, go on!” cried the children, elated. The sons raised their eyebrows, and glanced at each other wondering what he’d decided to add. The old man can still surprise, thought Bradman as he watched them and chuckled.

“Your gran and I were passin’ by that bookshop in the High Street and saw a great crowd of people inside. I looked in and there he was himself. Oh, he’s old now, hair gone white, but I still knew him straight away. Down to that blessed pipe he always carried. Hang on, I said to the missus, that’s my old Lieutenant Tolkien. She was all for not makin’ a fuss, not disturbin’ the great important man. But I went inside. Quite a turn out there was.

“‘Bradman,’ he called out when he spotted me and headed straight over. Even though he was a famous writer, he greeted me like a long, lost friend. ‘My good man, how wonderful to see you’, he says and shook my hand. ‘How’ve you been keepin’ all these years?’ Well, sir, I says—’

“‘Bradman,’ he cut in, ‘we’re not in Kitchener’s Army anymore—please call me John or Tolkien, as my friends do.’

“He told me he often did public readings of the Hobbit. The curse of being popular, he said.

“We talked about the wives and the kids, catchin’ up like. Then I asked him straight out if he remembered about the ghost. He went all quiet. “Did you see him?” he asked me. I told him of course I seen him, standing there large as life. He had thought it was the fever that made him see Lieutenant Gilson.

“I looked him straight in the eye. ‘No, he were real. I heard him tell you somethin’ about your books being important. How you had to live to write all your stories down. How our regiment would be wiped out. Which it was. He was standin’ right in front of you, and then he reached out and squeezed your shoulder. Then you took a turn and went all grey. Like that Frodo,’ I says.

“‘Ah, you caught that, did you?’

“‘Then they evacuated you, S—… Mr. Tolkien… back to England. And then you wrote those wonderful books, just like poor Lieutenant Gilson said you would. My kids—and the grandkids—love ‘em. They say your Hobbit is the greatest book of all time. That spirit knew what he was on about, eh?’

“He were silent. Then he says, ‘I want to honor him with one last tale. No one will believe it. No one except you. I’m very glad I met you again, Bradman.’

“‘Darn’t matter if they do or not. T’would be a nice memorial to him, all written down in one of your stories. We’ve only got the stories ‘cause of him.’

“And then he smiles. ‘What was it you said again just before the doctor came? Somethin’ about tea and toast? It all went a bit murky.’

“I didn’t even need time to think, what with tellin’ the tale to you lot every Christmas. ‘You’re going home to England. Where there’s good thick hot buttered toast that never runs out and endless cups of good strong China tea,’ I says.”

*

Author’s Note:

The Tea Club and Barrovian Society was a real group formed by Tolkien and three close school friends. All four TCBSers enlisted in the First World War. Two, Gilson and Smith, were killed. JRR Tolkien fought at the Battle of the Somme in France in 1916. He contracted trench fever and was sent back to England, where he had a long convalescence and served out the rest of the war in the Home Army. Tolkien’s regiment was later wiped out.