J. R. R. Tolkien - A Biography' by Humphrey Carpenter - Unabridged Audiobook - Part 7: Chapter 3

Chapter 3 Merton Street After Tolkien had begun to recover from the first shock of Edith's death, there was no question of his remaining at Bournemouth. Clearly he would come back to live in Oxford, but at first there was uncertainty about what arrangements could be made. Then Merton College invited him to become a resident honorary fellow and offered him a set of rooms in a college house in Merton Street, where a scout and his wife could look after him. This was a most unusual honour and the perfect solution. Tolkien accepted with the greatest enthusiasm, and after spending the intervening weeks with members of his family, he moved into 21 Merton Street at the beginning of March 1972, typically making friends with the three removal men and riding with them in their Pantechnicon from Bournemouth to Oxford. His flat in Merton Street consisted of a large sitting room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. Charlie Carr, the college scout who acted as caretaker, lived in the basement with his wife. The Carrs showed much kindness to Tolkien, not only providing him with breakfast in his rooms, which was part of the official arrangement, but also cooking lunch or supper for him, if he did not feel well or if he did not wish to dine in college. Another alternative to eating in Merton was to have a meal at the Eastgate Hotel next door, which had changed greatly since he had first dined there with Lewis in the thirties. Ed was no longer cheap, but he was now a rich man and he could afford to eat there whenever he liked. Nevertheless, a good many of his meals were taken in college, for he was entitled to free lunches and dinners, and was always made most welcome in the senior common room. Thus, his way of life in 1972 and 1973 was on the whole entirely to his liking. He had suffered much distress at the loss of Edith, and he was essentially a lonely man now, yet he was free, as he had not been within memory, and he could live his life as he pleased. Just as Bournemouth had in some ways been a reward for Edith for all that she had faced in the early days of their marriage, so his almost bachelor existence in Merton Street seemed to be a reward for his patience at Bournemouth. There was no question of his becoming inactive. He paid frequent visits to the village near Oxford, where Christopher and his second wife Bailey lived, and in the company of their small children, Adam and Rachel, he would forget his lumbago and run about the lawn in some game, or would throw a matchbox into a high tree, and then try to dislodge it with stones to amuse them. He went with Priscilla and his grandson, Simon, to Sidmouth for a holiday. He revisited his old TCBS friend, Christopher Wiseman. He spent several weeks with John and his parished Stoke-on-Trent, and with John he motored to visit his brother Hillary, still living on his fruit-farm at Eversham. Ronald and Hillary now resembled each other far more than they had ever done in their youth. Outside the window the plum-trees, whose crop Hillary had picked patiently for more than four decades, had grown old and bore little fruit. They should be cut down, and fresh saplings planted in their place. But Hillary was past tackling such work, and the trees had been left standing. The two old brothers watched cricket and tennis on the television, and drank whisky. These two years of Tolkien's life were made happy by the honors that were conferred upon him. He received a number of invitations to visit American universities and receive doctorates, but he did not feel that he could face the journey. There were also many honors within his homeland. In June, 1973, he visited Edinburgh to receive an honorary degree, and he was profoundly moved when in the spring of the previous year he went to Buckingham Palace to be presented with a CBE by the Queen. But perhaps most gratifying of all was the award in June, of an honorary Doctor of Letters from his own University of Oxford, not, as was made clear, for the Lord of the Rings, but for his contribution to philology. Nevertheless, at the degree ceremony, the speech in his honor by the public orator, his old friend Colin Hardy, contained more than one reference to the Chronicles of Middle-earth, and it concluded with the hope, that in such green leaf as the road goes ever on, he will produce from his store Silmarillion and scholarship. As to the Silmarillion, the months were again passing with little to show for them. There had been an inevitable delay while Tolkien reorganized his books and papers after the move from Bournemouth, yet when at last he resumed work, he found himself once more enmeshed in technical problems. Some years previously, he had decided that in the event of his dying before the book was finished, Christopher, who was of course well versed in the work, should complete it for publication. He and Christopher often discussed the book, contemplating the numerous problems that remained to be solved, but they made little progress. Almost certainly he did not expect to die so soon. He told his former pupil Mary Selyeu that there was a tradition of longevity among his ancestors, and that he believed that he would live for many years more. But late in 1972 there were warning signs. He began to suffer from severe indigestion, and though an X-ray failed to reveal any cause more specific than dyspepsia, he was put on a diet and warned not to drink wine. And despite his unfinished work, it seemed that he did not realize the prospect of many more years living at Merchant Street. I often feel very lonely, he wrote to his old cousin Marjorie Inkleton. After term, when the undergraduates depart, I am all alone in a large house with only the caretaker and his wife far below in the basement. True, there was a ceaseless stream of callers, his family, old friends, Joy Hill from Ellen and Unwin, to attend to fan mail. There was constant business to be attended to with Rainer Unwin, and with Dick Williamson, his solicitor and advisor in many matters. There was also the regular Sunday morning drive, by taxi, to church in Heddington, and then to Edith's grave in Wolvercote Cemetery. But the loneliness did not cease. As the summer of 1973 advanced, some of those close to him thought that he was more sad than usual, and seemed to be aging faster. Yet his diet had apparently been successful, and in July he went to Cambridge for a dinner of the Erd-Unde, an inter-varsity dining club. On the 25th of August, he wrote a belated note of thanks to his host, Professor Glynne Daniel. Dear Daniel, It is a long time since July the 20th, but better, I hope, late, than never to do what I should have done before being immersed in other matters, to thank you for your delightful dinner in St. John's, and especially for your forbearance and great kindness to me personally. It proved a turning point. I suffered no ill effects whatever, and have since been able to dispense with most of the diet taboos I had to observe for some six months. I look forward to the next A dinner, and hope that you will be present. Yours ever, Ronald Tolkien. Three days after writing this letter, on Tuesday the 28th of August, he travelled down to Bournemouth to stay with Dennis and Justin Tolhurst, the doctor and his wife, who had looked after him and Edith when he had lived there. The end was swift. On the Thursday he joined in celebrations to mark Mrs. Tolhurst's birthday, but he did not feel well, and would not eat much, though he drank a little champagne. During the night he was in pain, and the next morning he was taken to a private hospital, where an acute bleeding gastric ulcer was diagnosed. It so happened that Michael was on holiday in Switzerland, and Christopher in France, and neither could have reached his bedside in time, but John and Priscilla were able to come down to Bournemouth to be with him. At first the reports on his condition were optimistic, but by Saturday a chest infection had developed, and early on the Sunday morning, the 2nd of September 1973, he died, aged 81.