[Mithalwen]

There have been a few similar but ... why not...

My parents were readers but they never read Tolkien - just not their thing so I might have missed out but for the fact when I was quite young, The Hobbit was the book of the week on "Jackanory", - . In effect it was a televised version of a bed time story but with the voices done REALLY well. It was read by Bernard Cribbins (who played the station master in The Railway Children) and who was an absolute genius at such things.

I was hooked and listened each afternoon until Friday. On Friday I had Brownies and so I missed the ending. On Saturday I spent my pocket money on the book to find out what happened. So that was the start. I got LOTR from Father Christmas that year but I was a bit too young and ground to a halt at the end of the Two Towers.

A year or so later I was off school with one of those childhood diseases that mean don't feel THAT ill most of the time My mother had the strict rule that a child that was well enough to watch television was well enough to go to school so keeping quiet and reading was a good plan... and so I got addicted to LOTR at the second attempt.