[Estelyn Telcontar]

It's fascinating to read your account of the beginnings, Mithadan! I wasn't here for the start, but joined in January 2002 after reading about the Barrow-Downs in a magazine after the release of the first movie. I was desperately seeking for someone with whom to share my thoughts on the movies and the book, and lurked for a few days before registering and jumping in to post. I remember taking my time to think up a cool user name!

I actually discovered the main site first, with its various features - the Elvish name generator was very popular back then! Then I found the link to the forum, which sealed my fate and made me a Downer for life. Later I also participated in the chat room, which was where a lot of personal friendships formed, some of them leading to real life meetings and friendships.

I don't remember when I joined the team as a moderator - maybe a year later? Of course that involved a good deal of monitoring for behaviour that was not consistent with our policies, such as chatspeak in forum posts, off-topic posting, flame wars, or language that was not family friendly. We always prided ourselves on being a place where young persons were safe and even learned something in the process - like spelling, grammar, etc.! It was a joy to see second-language members improving their English and being accepted into an international fellowship of Tolkien fans.

Oh, and remember the birthday parties we celebrated back then?! There was so much going on that you couldn't keep track of all the posts! We did virtual partying way before Corona made social distancing necessary.

The Barrow-Downs encouraged me to read those Tolkien books I had not previously come across, to attend international Tolkien conferences, and to join a Tolkien Society in the country I live in (Germany). As a result, I lectured on several topics at various moots and even published essays and contributions to secondary literature.

I can definitely say that not only Tolkien has influenced the course of my life, but also that the Downs has been instrumental in making that happen. Though I have rarely posted in recent years, I still look in to see what's happening as often as possible. The personal friendships have largely moved over to Facebook (which reminds us of birthdays almost as faithfully as Galadriel55 does on the forum!).