The Chain of Events

The link goes like this.....
Monica, my colleague tells me her story about how her grandfather came to emigrated from Spain to Mexico fleeing the Franco regime.

I go on to listen to Orwell's book 'Homage to Catalonia' and Laurie Lee's 'A Moment of War'.
I read about the war on Wikipedia.  I see that Tolkien is listed as a writer on the nationalist side. Interesting.  It's because Tolkien is incensed by the burning of thousands of churches by the Anarchists.
I read that Tolkien's life was probably saved by German body lice.  In the First World War, during the battle of the Somme, Tolkien served as officer with the Lancastershire fusiliers    They occupied a German trench and slept in a dugouts, picking up the pest which no amount of ointment could eradicate.  Tolkien contracted trench fever and was sent home to his wife.  Everyone one of his battalion was wiped out.

Tolkien was born in South Africa.  His father was originally from Konigsberg in East Prussia.  Tolkien claimed that his name was a corruption of the German word tollkühn, meaning foolhardy, but others have said it is more likely to mean 'son of Tolk'. 

Apparently Royal Holloway is a British centre for the study of the Spanish Civil War.  They are also hot on King John, Runnymede, providing a number of short talks on youtube for me to watch.