John often had difficulty falling asleep. When he was lying awake his
father would come and sit on his bed and tell him tales of Carrots, a
boy with red hair who climbed into a cuckoo clock and went off on a
series of strange adventures. This was the premise for the character of
Tom Bombadil in J.R.R. Tolkien's novel 'The Lord of the Rings'.
(on the Lord of the Rings movie Trilogy) "The Tolkien family is under
perpetual abuse of one kind or another. It goes on all the time. I am
anticipating endless bother when the film actually comes out."
