The heatwave summer that hatched Tolkien’s T.C.B.S.

It’s been hot and humid the past week as I write here in the UK. If you have air-conditioning, spare a thought for those of us who don’t.

But let’s withhold our sympathies from Tolkien and schoolfriends in the broiling summer term 115 years ago, when they brewed up their now-famous Tea Club and Barrovian Society. In the June 1911 issue of the King Edward’s School Chronicle, Tolkien proclaimed himself delighted.

Still, as he sat down to write the issue’s opening editorial, he claimed the steaming temperatures left him with a dilemma.

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