FT Magazine  29/30 July 2006 J.R.R. Tolkien and the Somme were inextricably linked. I learned this forty-four years ago, shortly after I was elected to my first university appointment, at Merton College, Oxford. I was twenty-six years old. In those days there was a strict seating order at college dinners. … Continue reading What Tolkien Taught Me About the Battle of the Somme