George Sayer’s Friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien

I read George Sayer’s biography of C.S. Lewis, Jack: C.S. Lewis and His Times, many years ago.  I’m now reading Joseph Pearce’s Tolkien: A Celebration, a collection of 15 essays that begins with Sayer’s “Recollections of J.R.R. Tolkien.”  While reading, I was reminded of George Sayer’s great writing style, straightforward and conversational, with lots of anecdotes and character descriptions.  This essay provides a portrait and life sketch of J.R.R. Tolkien, from one of his friends –and thus a much more engaging and positive view than that of Humphrey Carpenter’s biography from the 1970s.

I have come across online references saying that Humphrey Carpenter really did not like J.R.R. Tolkien.  That distance comes out in the overall tone and the lack of friendliness regarding his subject, in J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography – a very objective read with lots of biographical information, but not as heartwarming as what Sayer shared.  It’s also interesting to see that in the collection of The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolkien himself mentioned his friend George Sayer, on three separate occasions — whereas Carpenter was a brief acquaintance near the end of his life, and never mentioned in Tolkien’s letters.  Yet it happened that the family asked Carpenter, soon after Tolkien’s death, to do a biography; Carpenter had his own biases, against Tolkien’s religion for one thing, but the family wanted someone who could write an official biography.  Sayer apparently did not then have the writer-publisher experience that was desired; his biography of C.S. Lewis, the only book he is really known for, was published years later, in 1988.  Yet I think a Sayer biography of Tolkien would have been much better than Carpenter’s.  What George Sayer shares in his essay is in agreement with much of what I already knew about Tolkien, but comes across in a way that endears the man to us, as someone that Sayer really cared about as his friend.

Describing a time he went on a hike with the Lewis brothers and Tolkien with wit and humor, we hear about C.S. Lewis’ opinion of Tolkien:

“He’s a great man, but not our sort of walker. He doesn’t seem able to talk and walk at the same time. He dawdles and then stops completely when he has something interesting to say. Warnie finds this particularly irritating.”

I soon found that the brothers liked to walk hard and fast for half an hour, a period which Warnie would time, for Jack never worse or, as far as I know, owned a watch. Then they would have what they called a ‘soak’. This meant sitting or lying down for the time it took to have a cigarette. Then the other man would shoulder the pack, which was their name for the rucksack, and they would go on walking hard for another half-hour.

[The arrangement for Sayer to walk with Tolkien] It worked really well. Tolkien seemed glad to be left behind by the Lewis brothers, whom he described to me as ‘ruthless walkers, very ruthless indeed’. … He also liked to stop to look at the trees, flowers, birds and insects that we passed. He would not have suited anyone who, like the Lewis brothers, walked partly for health, in order to get vigorous exercise. But it delighted me. He talked so well that I was happy to do nothing but listen. …. He talked faster than anyone of his age that I have known, and in a curious fluttering way. …. He knew more natural history than I did, certainly far more than the Lewises, and kept coming out with pieces of curious information about the plants that we came across.

Sayer even remembered a couple examples of the plant information Tolkien gave him.  Later recollections from Sayer fit well with what comes out in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien from the early 1950s, when Tolkien was trying to get Lord of the Rings along with The Silmarilion published.  Tolkien was focused only on that, his own troubles, and for a while become quite depressed.  Sayer and his wife spent some time with Tolkien, and found that introducing Tolkien to an early-technology tape recorder helped Tolkien snap out of his depression.  Sayer noted the risk he took in his friendship, since he knew how Tolkien hated technology, but Tolkien was so depressed that he took the chance.  Tolkien first recorded The Lord’s Prayer in Gothic–“to cast out the devil that was sure to be in it since it was a machine.”  This was not just whimsy.  All of life for him was part of a cosmic conflict between the forces of good and evil, God and the devil.  I played it back to him.  He was surprised and very pleased.  He sounded much better than he had expected.  He went on to record some of the poems in The Lord of the Rings.  Some he sang to the tunes that were in his head when writing them.  …. The more he recorded, and the more often he played back the recordings, the more his confidence grew.

It was after this visit that Tolkien apparently considered George Sayer as a close friend.  Tolkien’s letter 134 (August 29, 1952) notes the tape recording event:

I have recently made some tape-recordings of parts of the Hobbit and The Lord (notably the Gollum-passages and some pieces of ‘Elvish’) and was much surprised to discover their effectiveness as recitations, and (if I may say so) my own effectiveness as a narrator, I do a very pretty Gollum and Treebeard. Could not the BBC be interested? The tape-reel is in the possession of George Sayer (English Master at Malvern) and I am sure he would forward it for your or anyone else’s trial. It was unrehearsed and impromptu and could be improved.

Sayer also shared delightful anecdotes of Tolkien in his Catholic worship, showing him as a devout Catholic during these years:  the pre-Vatican type of Catholic that did not see the need for the 1965 Vatican II changes, and always went to confession before Mass.  Tolkien attended church with the Sayers at this time, and George Sayer shared Tolkien as one who was very friendly with young children.  I noted this similar quality while reading Tolkien’s Letters from Father Christmas, that magical quality of story telling and kindness to his own children.

I went back and found him kneeling in front of the Lady Altar with the young children and their mother, talking happily and I think telling stories about Our Lady.  … he loved children and had the gift of getting on well with them. ‘Mummy, can we always go to church with that nice man?’

and

The last time I met him was after his return to Oxford. He was with children (perhaps great-grandchildren), playing trains: ‘I’m Thomas the Tank Engine. Puff. Puff. Puff.’  That sort of thing.  I was conscripted as a signal.  This love for children and delight in childlike play and simple pleasures was yet another thing that contributed to his wholeness and the success of his books.

Sayer’s essay is delightful, and an excellent start to this book of essays, great reading for the many of us who love Tolkien’s Middle Earth and care about Tolkien the writer and the man.

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