by Silva Payne

Created on: May 15, 2009   Last Updated: February 23, 2010

My two favourite novels could not be more different from each other, yet each has found a place in my soul as a companion and safe haven when times get rough. They have been my favourite novels for a long time; one from childhood, one from my late teens. Both came at the right time and I have returned to them often, perhaps to check that at least some things never change.

My childhood has been described as a cross between Heidi and a Miss Reed novel, but from my own perspective, "The Hobbit" sums up the ethos that my parents instilled in me. I first read "The Hobbit" after trying unsuccessfully to read Tolkien's other masterpiece "The Lord Of The Rings" when I was 8 years old. I got so scared when the Dark Riders came to the Prancing Pony Inn that I simply could not go any further with them (and did not until after I had seen the Peter Jackson films, some 25 years later).

My parents would take us to the library in the next village every other Friday evening, and the Librarian must have known why I was handing the Rings trilogy back so soon because she suggested I might want to try "The Hobbit" next. I already believed that everything in Tolkien's imagination was perfectly real, considering we lived not 10 miles from a place called Buckleberry, in a Shire just as the Hobbits did. Within a few pages, certainly by the time all the dwarves were assembled in Bilbo's home eating everything he put before them (and much that he hadn't), I knew I was going to finish this journey with them, come what may.

The way Bilbo rises to strengths and courage he never knew he possessed on his travels inspired me and still does. My parents would always answer my daydreams of what I wanted to do when I grew up with the words "anything's possible". It is that spirit that allowed my belief in Bilbo to extend perhaps for more years into adulthood than it would otherwise have done. Of course, the supporting cast in the story are such a mixture of characters, they mimicked in may ways people I knew then and have met since, from the huge Beorn, to Gollum, the three trolls and the men of Dale. But it was undoubtedly Tolkien's skillful writing that really brought these written images to life for me, so much so that I still cannot read of Smaug's attack on Dale without ducking as he swoops, and feeling the heat from his flames on my skin.

In my teenage years, as many young women do, I was searching for a heroine who was just a little bit different. Someone half-way between Enid Blyton's

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