Tolkien the Spy

[davem]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I think he would have been quite good at code-breaking. 'Keen' indeed. I wonder if his motive for declining might have been partly a desire to avoid being mired in the general government red-tape and bureaucracy.

Possibly - & I think the staff had to stay on site - in which case he wouldn't have seen his family for extended periods. That said, he was always quite short of money, so turning down the equivalent of £50k a year must have been a hard thing to do.