[Mithalwen]

[QUOTE=davem;643234]I think many of us have a tendency to tip toe around the Estate, simply because the family are at the core of it & we don't like the idea of saying 'nasty' things about Tolkien's children & grandchildren. QUOTE]

Also maybe tempered by the fact that those of us who have had even slight contact with the family (which of course includes many who have attended an Oxonmoot) have found it a positive experience - I haven't heard a negative report personally. And we are aware of the tremendous good done with the processes of the jealously guarded rights via the Tolkien Trust.

It is a bit of a PR disaster though if it makes even informed and sympathetic Tolkienistas think that either there it some undisclosed scandal or that the estate is being draconian.

But while I am instantly suspicious of "true facts" (if it aint true it aint a fact!) , facts can have more than one perspective. For example, I happened to be doing my final teaching prac. at a Catholic school when it was reported in the paper that a catholic mass had been permitted to be celebrated in the chalpe of the Tower of London for the first time since the reformation. In the staff room there was a certain amount of chuntering about how dreadful it was that it had been forbidden so long. Now it happened that I sang in my college chapel choir and though it was a Methodist foundation, the chapel services were ecumenical and the services were led by different denominations and groups in rotation. There had been a huge fuss after the last time the Catholic service was held because it was a Mass and other than in exceptional circumstances they do not offer the sacrament to non Catholics (whereas in the Anglican tradition at least, communicant members of other denominations may receive it). So there was this awful division when the priest invited Catholics only up. Subsequently the Catholics were asked only to hold services in which an ecumenical congregation could participate equally and Vespers and Benediction were substituted. Now that could have been interpreted as a ban on the Mass but it wasn't quite that simple...