Tolkien's inspiration

I read JRR Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit' when I was 16. I was quite taken by it all, but then I was only 16. Since then lots of others, often far older people, fell in love with him. They read the books, they watched the movies, and a lot of them went to New Zealand to visit Middle Earth.

Or at least, they went to visit the fabulous wild countryside on New Zealand's South Island, where the movies were shot.

They've got it all wrong however. Tolkien grew up in Birmingham, in what is now the suburb of Moseley. The bits of countryside that inspired him are the Moseley Bog, and the Lickey Hills, a few kilometres to the west.

And then there's the old mill, Sarehole Mill, which was supposedly the inspiration for the mill in Hobbiton.

I went for a little exploration of the Moseley Bog, and witnessed a rather Lord of the Rings-ish episode. There was suddenly a near fight to the death between a big fluffy dog and a monster Staffordshire Terrier killing machine. The young Hobbits supposedly controlling them screamed and kicked them helplessly. It lasted several minutes. The ents looked on silently.