Journeys in Middle-earth 3

Inquisition

Know also, my friends, that I learned more yet from Gollum. He was loth to speak and his tale was unclear, but it is beyond all doubt that he went to Mordor, and there all he knew was forced from him.

My reading of The Lord of the Rings continued after my return from the United States in 1965. My copies of the trilogy accompanied me in a number of moves while I was at University and thereafter.

A reading of the trilogy became an annual feature, generally in winter when nights were long. Occasionally my path would cross with others who had read and enjoyed the books. Often the discussion would turn to favourite scenes. Differing views, different perspectives on the one book. And then, usually over a few beers, a challenge. What do you really know about The Lord of the Rings. And informal Lord of the Rings trivia discussions would follow. These were fun, always friendly but were the start of a delving into the books for facts, names, places, events, dates, relationships.

There was another development. There was a rumour abroad in the mid-1970’s that The Silmarillion, Tolkien’s real masterwork, was likely to be published and in 1977 that rumour became real. And I managed to obtain an early copy which I still have and which has an unusual feature about it, in that it was printed by William Clowes, printers, but subsequent impressions were printed by another company. Thus, Clowes printings of The Silmarillion have a unique quality to them.

I devoured The Silmarillion but it was clear from the outset that it was quite different for The Lord of the Rings. The books had been edited by Christopher Tolkien, his father’s literary executor for J.R.R. Tolkien had passed beyond the realms of the earth on 2 September 1973.

It later became apparent that The Silmarillion was a compilation from a number of sources. Tolkien had an enormous output. He would often have a number of versions of the same story, developed at different times. So it was Christopher’s job to try and stitch together what has father might have thought fit for publication. He selected and edited materials to tell the story from start to end. In a few cases, this meant that he had to devise completely new material, within the tenor of his father's thought, to resolve gaps and inconsistencies in the narrative.

The Silmarillion has five parts. The first, Ainulindalë, tells in mythic style of the creation of Eä, the "world that is." The second part, Valaquenta, gives a description of the Valar and Maiar, supernatural powers of Eä. The next section, Quenta Silmarillion, which forms the bulk of the collection, chronicles the history of the events before and during the First Age, including the wars over three jewels, the Silmarils, that gave the book its title. The fourth part, Akallabêth, relates the history of the Downfall of Númenor and its people, which takes place in the Second Age. The final part, Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, tells the history of the rings during the Second and Third Ages, ending with a summary of the events of The Lord of the Rings.

Only with the publication of the multi-volume History of Middle-earth – a twelve volume series of books published between 1983 and 1996 are we able to see the   development over time of Tolkien's conception of Middle-earth as a fictional place with its own peoples, languages, and history, from his earliest notions of "a mythology for England" through to the development of the stories that make up The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings.

It is not a "history of Middle-earth" in the sense of being a chronicle of events in Middle-earth written from an in-universe perspective; it is instead an out-of-universe history of Tolkien's creative process.

The Silmarillion was commercially successful, but received generally poor reviews on publication. Scholars found the work problematic, not least because the book is a construction, not authorised by Tolkien himself. Rayner Unwin, Tolkien’s publisher, thought the reviews were unfair.

The Silmarillion was criticised for being too serious, lacking the light-hearted moments that were found in The Lord of the Rings and especially The Hobbit. Reviewers missed the fact that The Silmarillion was quite a different undertaking for Tolkien. It was his created mythology – what provided much of the “depth” for The Lord of the Rings.

Time magazine lamented that there was "no single, unifying quest and, above all, no band of brothers for the reader to identify with". Other criticisms included difficult-to-read archaic language (the style was lofty) and many difficult and hard-to-remember names.

Robert M. Adams of The New York Review of Books called The Silmarillion "an empty and pompous bore" and "not a literary event of any magnitude". He suggested that the main reason for its "enormous sales" was the "Tolkien cult" created by the popularity of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and predicted that more people would buy The Silmarillion than would ever read it.

The School Library Journal called it "only a stillborn postscript" to Tolkien's earlier works. Peter Conrad of the New Statesman stated that "Tolkien can't actually write" and was deficient in imagination.

A few reviewers praised the scope of Tolkien's creation. The New York Times Book Review acknowledged that "what is finally most moving is ... the eccentric heroism of Tolkien's attempt".

Time described The Silmarillion as "majestic, a work held so long and so powerfully in the writer's imagination that it overwhelms the reader".

The Horn Book Magazine lauded the "remarkable set of legends conceived with imaginative might and told in beautiful language". John Calvin Batchelor, in The Village Voice, lauded the book as a "difficult but incontestable masterwork of fantasy" and praised the characterisation of Melkor, describing him as "a stunning bad guy" whose "chief weapon against goodness is his ability to corrupt men by offering them trappings for their vanity".

But for me The Silmarillion was added to the annual re-read of The Lord of the Rings. But the time was approaching when everything I knew about The Silmarillion had to be put to one side and The Lord of the Rings was to be the focus of attention.

The television quiz programme Mastermind started screening in the late 1970’s. It was originally developed in the UK by the BBC and the format was devised by Mr. Bill Wright.

Mr. Wright during World War II had been captured and interrogated by the Gestapo. A feature of that interrogation was the sense of isolation and, at the same time, exposure. The subject was seated under a dazzling light. He could not see his interrogators. Questions were fired out of the dark.

From this experience Mr. Wright developed the show which features an intimidating setting and challenging questions. Contestants face two rounds, one on a specialised subject of the contestant's choice, the other a general knowledge round.

For the first round, each contestant in turn is given a set length of time, usually two minutes to answer questions on a specialist subject which they have chosen. The contestant scores one point for each correct answer and may “pass” as often as desired. If the contestant responds incorrectly, the questioner gives the correct answer before continuing to the next question; answers to passed questions are read out only after time has expired.

If time runs out while a question is being read, the questioner will finish it and give the contestant a few seconds to answer. This has led to the programme's catchphrase, "I've started so I'll finish." If a question has been read out in full when time expires, but the contestants have not yet given an answer, they are allowed a few seconds to do so.

During the second round, each contestant in turn answers a series of general knowledge questions. The same format applies

The show was licensed by TV in New Zealand. Peter Sinclair, a well-known broadcaster, was the interrogator. He was excellent. He was very well-educated and had a very clear delivery – absolutely essential in a quiz-master. The show was produced by Max Cryer who had had a varied career and was something of a personality. Between them he and Sinclair spoke seven languages.

And like so many New Zealanders I watched the programme with my family and found that I was able to answer at least two of the specialist subject questions and most of the general knowledge questions.

After a couple of seasons my wife suggested that I should give it a go, if only to sit in the chair. The specialist subject was easy – it had to be The Lord of the Rings. And so I wrote to TVNZ and received the entry form. At this stage a bit of thought was required.

For lawyers, defining the word, the argument, the terms, the scope of whatever is extremely important. I had to be careful that my definition of my specialist topic was sufficiently wide to fit within the competition but sufficiently narrow so that the vast bulk of material that was comprised in the trilogy could be capably managed. So I defined the topic as “The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien excluding languages.”

One of the rules of the contest was that if the contestant was lucky enough to make it through to the semi-final the specialist subject had to change. The entry form for 1980 (which I have in front of me) requested an alternative second specialist topic in the event that the first choice was not accepted or was duplicated by another applicant.

My first choice for a second specialist subject was the Wars of the Roses 1452 – 1485 and my second choice was The Crusades to the Middle East 1095 – 1192 AD. As it turned out the Wars of the Roses had been selected by another contestant as his first specialist subject. I redefined my alternative to The Third Crusade to the Middle East 1189 – 1192. The earlier topic was far too wide and covered the first three crusades plus the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Too much information.

By letter dated 23 June 1980 I was invited to appear on the 1980 series of Mastermind. The studio day for filming was 29 July 1980. Preparation began.

As it happened there were three quiz books on Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings which came out around this time and they provided what I thought at the time were ample study materials. In addition I put aside reading anything else and for the next month immersed myself in The Lord of the Rings.

Studying for General Knowledge is difficult. I worked on the basis that it was likely that I had seen all sorts of information about a wide variety of different things and I was, even at that time, a very wide reader. It was just a question of bringing that information buried deep in the brain back to the surface and getting out a quick answer.

The advice that was sent out with the application form said that Mastermind “requires you to make quick decisions on what you know and what you don’t know.” One of the required skills was to know immediately what you don’t know, pass on the question and get to the next one as quickly as possible. On the things you do know, answer immediately. If you can anticipate the question – a dangerous tactic – you were entitled to interrupt the interrogator.

There were eight heats. The winner of each heat went on to the semi-finals and the first two in each semi-final went on to the final. That was a long way away. My objective was to sit in the chair and do as well as I could. No shame in not winning. That was not why I was there – at that stage.

The day arrived and we turned up at the studio in the afternoon. I was the last contestant in the heat which was something of an advantage because in that way I was able to see what the opposition was like but more importantly get a sense of the flow and rhythm of the questions.

My time came. I was called upon to sit in the chair – the trademark of the show – and it began. I cannot recall anything about it. The reason for that was that the focus became intense. My eyes were on Peter Sinclair. I can’t read lips but seeing and hearing became as one and the questions flowed. And at the end of the first round I was in the lead. Then followed general knowledge and lo – I had won the heat.

That created a problem. The Lord of the Rings went to one side. I had a month to get the Third Crusade in some sort of shape. Filming the semi-finals was on 27 August 1980. And so the whole process started afresh.

The semi-finals involved a lot of luck in that I did not win but came second to a real gentleman named David Foreman who had nominated Russian Literature as his subject. But I was through to the final.

Filming day was 8 October 1980. I had about six weeks to get prepared. All of a sudden a one in 32 chance of winning had become one in four.

The game had become serious.

Yes, I am competitive. Even now when I am at the pool I “compete” with the swimmer in the next lane. And the competitive streak became very obvious as we sat and planned how I was going to win this thing.

The first thing was to get a study copy of The Lord of the Rings. The trilogy was out in paperback so that wasn’t a problem.

The next thing was to isolate every fact that appeared in the text and that involved reading the books through and highlighting everything with a yellow highlighter.

I realized that this was a fallible process so a second reading resulted in additional highlighting using a blue highlighter.

A third reading added further green highlighting to what was becoming a heavily marked up text.

On one weekend I went up to our beach place alone and reduced all those highlightings to “question and answer” flashcards. Question on one side of the card, answer on the other. It took a while as the sun wheeled over followed by the stars and time had no meaning. The result was that I had distilled 3000 facts from the books which were reduced to Q & A. And the flashcards became the study aid. I still have them.

Recreational reading involved The Lord of the Rings. I had to be careful to put The Silmarillion out of my mind. The time that I had that was not occupied with work was engaged in study for the final.

I had a copy of Pears Cyclopaedia which I used for General Knowledge and went through the book, page after page writing down the stuff I didn’t know and ensuring it remained stuck in my ming.

I developed a mnemonic form of association learning so if someone said “ballet” I would associate Sadlers Welles, Ninette de Valois, Margot Fonteyn (formerly Hookham) married Robert Arias of Panama, Bolshoi, Anna Pavlova, Rudi Nureyev, Michail Barishnikov, American Ballet and so on and so on.

And 8 October rolled around and the filming took place. I don’t know exactly what happened in the ordering of things but I wasn’t the last contestant. I know David Foreman was second and a lawyer from Christchurch was first up.

The questions came thick and fast. The preparation had been solid. The tactic of knowing what you don’t know kept things moving. Thirty points was enough to win. And that was it.

Well as a matter of fact it wasn’t. Winning the local show meant that the whole thing started again with the International Mastermind programme which was meant to be filmed in London. But that all changed.

The prize for winning the show was an all-expenses paid trip for two to London – ostensibly to compete in the International. But the producer of the International Show had died and his filing cabinet – which was his memory – died with him. It was not possible for the BBC to put the show together.

The Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) was celebrating its 50^th Anniversary and offered to host the show on stage at the Sydney Opera House. In addition an Australian had won the International the preceding year so that gave weight to the Australian hosting of the competition.

The date was set for early June 1981. I had always fancied the idea of treading the boards at the Sydney Opera House. And so the preparation work began again.

A week before my wife and I left for Sydney I had read Lord of the Rings a total of 31 times from that first reading back in 1958 and between February and May of 1981 5 times. My wife had not read it once. But as we later found out, neither had Mrs. Tolkien so she was in good company.

I adopted the same preparation that I had for the local competition although the nature of the competition was more intense. I had no idea who or what I was up against. I knew there were contestants from Ireland Australia and the UK. I also knew that the interrogator was one Huw Evans who, like Peter Sinclair, was very clear and very articulate. I had a chance to see some tapes of him in action so had an idea of who I would be facing.

Max Cryer refused to let me see any tapes of any of the other contestants, especially the UK person. Apparently he was so good that to see him in action would be demoralizing. In addition, of course, there was no Internet, no Google, no YouTube and therefore no chance of getting a look. All I knew was that his name was Fred Housego and that he was a London cabbie who had broken the stranglehold that the Oxbridge intellectual elite seemed to have over the Mastermind programme in England.

And there was another thing. Fred was a Blue Badge guide and to get his taxi driver’s licence he had to have “the knowledge”. It works like this.

The London taxicab driver is required to be able to decide routes immediately in response to a passenger's request or traffic conditions, rather than stopping to look at a map, relying on satellite navigation or asking a controller by radio. Consequently, the "Knowledge of London" is the in-depth study of a number of pre-set London street routes and all places of interest that taxicab drivers in that city must complete to obtain a licence to operate a black cab. It was initiated in 1865, and has changed little since.

It is the world's most demanding training course for taxicab drivers, and applicants will usually need to pass at least twelve "appearances" (periodical one-on-one oral examinations undertaken throughout the qualification process), with the whole process averaging 34 months to pass.

Three hundred and twenty standard routes through central London, or "runs", are defined in the Guide to Learning the Knowledge of London, which is produced by the Public Carriage Office. In all, some 25,000 streets within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross are covered, along with the major arterial routes through the rest of London.

A taxicab-driver must learn these routes, as well as the "points of interest" along and within 1⁄2 mile (0.80 km) of each end of those routes including streets, squares, clubs, hospitals, hotels, theatres, embassies, government and public buildings, railway stations, police stations, courts, diplomatic buildings, important places of worship, cemeteries, crematoria, parks and open spaces, sports and leisure centres, places of learning, restaurants and historic buildings.

The Knowledge includes details such as the order of theatres on Shaftesbury Avenue, and the names and order of the side streets and traffic signals passed on a route.

There are a number of Knowledge Schools that provide books, maps and classroom tuition which help Knowledge students to learn the 320 runs and points of interest. There are separate, shorter courses for suburban London, with 30 to 50 runs, depending on the sector.

During training, would-be cabbies, known as Knowledge boys or Knowledge girls, usually follow these routes around London on a motor scooter, and can be identified by the clipboard fixed to the handlebars and showing details of the streets to be learned that day.

To have gone through such a course made Fred a formidable opponent. He was used to working under pressure. He had a prodigious memory which was clearly well trained. As far as Max was concerned, Fred was the contestant to beat.

And so to Sydney in June 1981. The ABC had done a first rate job promoting the show and there were functions, interviews, press conferences and photo-ops which were all on the schedule. There was not much time for preparation.

Then it was off to the Sydney Opera House. The show was to be filmed in the main auditorium before a live audience.

I have always been keen on getting a sense of the room. I would always check the courtroom ahead of time when in practice to get an idea of layout, acoustics and atmosphere. Similarly with the Opera House. It was and is an imposing and iconic building, but focus on the job at hand meant that the awe-inspiring sweep of the auditorium and the majesty of the place was ignored – at least for the time being.

All the contestants had met. They were a friendly group each as nervous as the other.

Filming was to take place in the late afternoon and we had some quiet time for some hours before the call. My wife offered to go through some of the flash cards (which I had taken with me) to get in the rhythm and that had a settling effect.

We arrived at the Opera House and it was off to make up and then introductions and onto the stage. I don’t know how it happened but I was fourth in the line up so I could see how the others would do and what I was up against.

The show was recorded and is on Youtube which can be found here.

Once again I have no recall of what happened until a point in the general knowledge round. I knew that 22 was the score to beat. I answered questions and then hit a point where I passed on a number of them. Then I answered one and I could hear an audience exhale of breath. At that point I knew I was on 23 and had won and there was time to increase the lead. The last question was an “I’ve started so I’ll finish type” and I had all the time in the world. In my preparation I had often struggled with the meaning of Islam. And there it was – the final question and I had locked in the answer – hence the slow confident delivery.

And that was it. One of the weirdest things was that during my Lord of the Rings round my wife told me that she could have answered 6 questions I was asked based on the flash cards – and she had never read the books.

Celebrations followed. Max Cryer introduced me to Spike Milligan who was in the audience and who joined us for dinner at Doyles in Rose Bay. The trophy – ah that statue of Hermaphroditus – an antiquity originating from the Greek colonies in Italy – holds pride of place. I don’t know “their” value and don’t want to. To me they are priceless. I just hope some museum doesn’t come back seeking return of the object.

After dinner we returned across the Harbour Bridge to our hotel. I recall going under the arch of the Bridge as Freddie Mercury and Queen were belting out “We are the Champions” on the radio. Nice.