John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, was born on the 3rd January, 1892. He and his brother Hilary, experienced a difficult childhood; when Tolkien was just four, they lost their father, Arthur, to rheumatic fever. As a widow with low income, his mother Mabel, home school the brothers and played a vital role in their early education and development. Tolkien was a smart young boy, with a fascination and thirst for languages. Tolkien sat the entrance exam for King Edward's School, Birmingham and passed. From the Autumn of 1900, for a fee of 12 pounds a year, Tolkien would be educated in an environment that would help fulfil his academic potential. [John Garth] Going to King Edward's was vitally important to Tolkien; he was an exceptionally talented boy. King Edward's offered him a vast amount of scope and also the company of other boys who were similarly talented. Which was probably quite hard for Tolkien to find. [Simon Stacey] Not only did he play rugby but he was a leading light in the debating society and the literary society; he was the life and soul really and he missed the school a great deal, I think, when he finally had to leave. [VO] At the age of just 11, Tolkien and his brother Hilary, lose their mother, Mabel, to diabetes. Grief stricken, he plunges himself into school life more energetically than before. Academically he excels, but in 1905, meets his intellectual rival, Christopher Wiseman. [John Garth] Tolkien met his greatest friend at King Edward's, Christopher Wiseman on the rugby pitch. A musician, a mathematician; quite different from Tolkien. They developed such a strong bond on the rugby field that they called themselves; "The Great Twin Brethren", which was a phrase from "Lays of Ancient Rome" by Lord Macauley. [Simon Stacey] They also were friendly rivals in the school, both being very academic boys. Wiseman had a formidable intellect and he was interested in a lot of the things that Tolkien was getting interested in; languages, I think he was looking at Egyptian and was looking at hieroglyphics. [John Garth] Tolkien and Wiseman must have helped define each other through their teenage years because they would argue; they would argue strongly about all their beliefs in life. [Simon Stacey] Wiseman was a very talented musician; Tolkien was supposed to be tone deaf but that didn't stop them getting on! [VO] Tolkien also befriends, son of the headmaster, Rob Gilson. Tolkien, Wiseman and Gilson, form a strong bond which will last throughout their school years and beyond. Outside of King Edward's, Tolkien's life is about to change, yet again. [John Garth] Tolkien was living in lodgings with his brother, Hilary, and when he was 16 he met fellow lodger, Edith Bratt, who was 19 at the time. And she was a beautiful young girl; talented pianist and also an orphan. And the two of them bonded on their shared sadnesses but also on their hopes and dreams. The difficulty for Ronald, as she called him, and Edith, was that he was a Roman Catholic and she was an Anglican. [VO] Tolkien's Guardian, Father Francis Morgan, a Catholic Priest, feels this is major divide; and also believes that Edith will distract Tolkien from his attempts to get into Oxford University. [John Garth] Father Francis Morgan, forbade them from seeing each other, or even from communicating. He was thrown back upon his friendships at King Edward's and it was this final phase of his time here, that he began to flourish and make the place his own; he and his friends ruled the roost. [VO] Making the most of his final year at King Edward's and the friendships he has formed, Tolkien and his peers create an informal society. These young intellectuals gather in the school library and do what they are forbidden to do: brew tea. Outside of school hours, they meet in a cafe at Barrow's Stores in Birmingham and so, self-mockingly, they call themselves the "Tea Club and Barrovean Society" or the TCBS for short. (nostalgic music) [John Garth] The core of the TCBS was probably Tolkien and Wiseman and the others gravitated around them. There was Robert Quilter Gilson, the son of the headmaster here; Rob was a cultured and sociable chap, he was perhaps the social glue of the group; he would welcome anyone and find common cause with them. A gentle artistic fellow who loved to sketch. [Simon Stacey] He was a gifted artist and had ambitions to be an architect. There was a late arrival, Geoffrey Bache Smith, who was fascinated by mythology, Celtic mythology; so this gave him common ground with Tolkien; it was another of Tolkien's passions. [Simon Stacey] Smith was quite an accomplished and advanced poet who recommended contemporary poetry to Tolkien. When he started writing poetry, Tolkien was to a certain extent, inspired by Smith and the wider group. And that was really the beginnings of Tolkien as a writer. [John Garth] From the beginnings which were mostly about fun, later on, during the war years, this developed into a fellowship from which each of them drew tremendous strength and comfort. [VO] Later that year, Tolkien's time at King Edward's comes to an end and he begins his first term at Oxford, having successfully gained entrance. On the eve of his 21st birthday, and his independence from Father Francis Morgan, Tolkien writes to Edith and less than a week later, they are re-united. Edith is engaged to marry another man, but despite almost certain ridicule, she agrees to break the engagement to be with her Ronald. Over the next few months, a growing sense of trouble brews across Europe and on the 28th of June, 1914, everything changes. (gun shot sound) (solemn music) Gavrillo Princip is arrested for the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. A diplomatic crisis ensues and within weeks, Europe's major powers are at war. Germany invades Belgium and Britain declares war on Germany. Parliament issues a call to arms from the British public. [Paul Golightly] There isn't a rush to the colours straight away. It becomes much more obvious that people are willing to join up when atrocity stories start to emerge, then you get a much more concerted rush to join. [John Garth] There was an air of excitement about the war, there was a naive sense that this would allow young men to fulfil their potential in a way that wasn't possible in peace time. There was a tremendous sense of patriotism and a sense of duty towards whatever England, or Britain, stood for. [Paul Golightly] They are attracted to the idea of a settling of accounts with the Germans, or at least some of them will be. On the whole, they thought they were going to give the Germans a bloody nose. [John Garth] "The Germans has been dastardly" and needed to dealt with and shown their place. [Paul Golightly] Men join up out of economic necessity and you'll find that in any war. Life is not very exciting and the romance and colour of joining the army and being part of something very big indeed, I'm sure has some allure. (solemn music) And they see things in rather romantic ways, which of course is doomed to fail; we all know what the First World War turns into. It's not a war of movement, of dash and élan; it's not cavalry charges and distant trumpets; I'm afraid it's the pitter-patter of machine gun fire and the crump of artillery that's going to dominate. So they, I think, have expectations about what the war will be like, and I think their main emotion was, will it be over before I can get to France. [John Garth] Tolkien, who's reading covered ancient heroic literature, that is surprisingly frank about what happens in war, went into the war much more open-eyed. He described himself as a "young man with too much imagination" and so he did not relish battle in any sense. [Paul Golightly] And I think that applies to, not just men like Tolkien who fought in it, but also the politicians and generals who directed it; I think a lot of people understood that this war could be terrible. [Simon Stacey] What you get in the letters between Gilson, Tolkien and Wiseman and then in Smith's poetry, is a serious determination to do their duty and that they should be prepared to give their lives. A realistic appreciation that this is a dark time and that they've got to come through it. [VO] G.B. Smith and Rob Gilson both join the army in 1914, Tolkien's brother, Hilary, signs up as a bugler and Christopher Wiseman joins the navy. Tolkien however, faces a dilemma. [Simon Stacey] Tolkien was in a difficult position when war broke out; he had a year of his degree at Oxford to run and Tolkien needed a degree badly because he wanted to pursue an academic career; he didn't have any money in his family unlike Gilson and therefore, having committed three years to the degree it was very important that he completed it. So he discovered a scheme whereby he could undergo some training in the Officer Training Core whilst completing his degree, which he did triumphantly with a first at Oxford. [VO] He follows good friend, G.B.Smith into the Lancashire Fusiliers in the hope of being posted to the same battalion.