249 From a letter to Michael George Tolkien

[Written by Tolkien to his grandson from the Hotel Miramar in Bournemouth.]

16 October 1963

I have had three rather exhausting experiences since Monday. On Monday I visited an 'admirer' who wrote to me & proved to be living nearly next door to this hotel. But she also proved to be stone-deaf (inoperable & incurable), though highly intelligent & well-read. (Name Elgar, husband distantly related to Edward E.) Conversation by writing pad is defeating. Yesterday in the middle of lunch I had to rescue an old lady (staying with us) who was choking with a whiting-bone, and get her to a doctor. Then in the afternoon entertain another deaf old lady! Almost the last of the children of the great Sir James Augustus Henry Murray of the Dictionary. (His living descendants are now more than 100.) She is on mother's side a Ruthven and has been researching for years into the Gowrie conspiracy. As my knowledge of Scottish History is v. small I find it difficult to follow who murdered whom, or why – the general trend of Scots history. I hope you can read this! I cannot write decently without a proper table or with a ball-point.