it was very kind of you to write. You can imagine my astonishment,when I saw your signature! I can only say, for your comfort I hope,thet the' sam Gamgee ' of my story is a most heroic character,now widely beloved by many readers,even though his origins are rustic .So that perhaps you will not be displeased by the coincidence of the name of this imaginary character ( of supposedly many centuries ago ) being the same as yours.The reason of my use of the name is this. I lived near Birmingham as a child,and we used 'gamgee' as a word for 'cotton-wool'so in my story the families of Cotton and Gemgee are connected. I did not khow as a child , though I khow now .that 'Gemgee' was shortened from 'Gemgee-tissue' ,and that it was named after its inventor (a surgeon I think) who lived between 1828 and 1886 .it was probably his son who died this yesr,on 1 March,aged 88,after being for many years professor of surgery at Birmingham University. Evidently 'Sam'or something like it,is associated with the family-thong I never khew this until a faw day ago, when I saw professor Gemgee's obituary notice ,and saw that he was son of Sampson Gemgee-and looked in a dictionary and found that the inventor was S. Gemgee (1828-86),&probably the same.