'New Videos On Youtube & J.R.R. Tolkein'

Well folks, I have been working like stink since returning from Grassington and have now uploaded two videos of my adventures there to my Youtube channel, Maybrick44. Sadly, we bloggers are no longer allowed to posts video links as part of our posts here and so you will need to actually visit channel Maybrick44 to view the films. While you are there check out the video for my Christmas Video Single this year, 'Heart Full Of Joy' - I uploaded that a few days before I went on my break but forgot to post about it here, until now!

One of the other places we visited on the holiday was Harrogate. Now, I thought Harrogate was a quaint old Yorkshire village like Grassington but actually it is nothing of the sort! We only had about a couple of hours to look round and I did not get to see very much at all because I came across a record shop en-route to the main part of the town and got no further!

Before that, however, I had browsed in a few of the charity shops on the far reaches of the town centre and found a few 'christmassy finds' including a hardback book all about the letters from Father Christmas that J.R.R. Tolkein habitually made up and sent to his children each year.

Aside from, 'Lord Of The Rings' I know nothing at all about Tolkein and had no idea that he was a 'Christmas person'. Mind you, I suppose its not much of a leap of faith to think that a fantasy writer who pens tales of elves, goblins and made up lands might be a 'believer' in Father Christmas and do all he can to spread the word and keep Christmas alive, is it!

The book has lots of lovely colour photos of the letters themselves and of the paintings and drawings that J.R.R. sent with his letters. He even went to the trouble to paint fake stamps on the envelopes and fake post office markings! The letters themselves (which date from the 1920's) are great fun to read and paint a calamitous picture of life at the North Pole and I can only imagine how magical it must have been to have had J.R.R. for a Dad! Mind you, I've been pretty lucky with mine as well - even if he does HATE Christmas!

I only paid £1.50 for the book so I reckon I got a bargain as I've not seen nor heard of it before?

Christmas time is THE perfect time to believe in fairy stories and I plan to take the book with me on Friday when I go to my monthly Storytelling, Poetry and Song evening at Horum (The Steelyard Collective - check them out on Facebook) and read out a few of the best of J.R.R.'s festive tales!