A student inquired: "Did J.R.R. Tolkien ever have a maid?"

Not all the time. The sad truth is - and that is really a truth, as in: not made up - that Tolkien once complained in an unpublished letter that he missed a deadline because of not having a maid.

It is such a sad thought. Just how much more productive could the Tolkiens have been if they had been consistently supported in their daily housework by a maid?

And of course Tolkien would not just have had any maid. He deserved no-one less than TOP MEIDO!