George Sydney Benedict Sayer (1914–2005) born at Bradfield

Bradfield

-Australia:* Division of Bradfield, an electoral district in the Australian House of Representatives, in New South Wales-England:* Bradfield, Berkshire, England** Bradfield College, a public school in Bradfield, Berkshire, England* Bradfield, Devon, England...

, Berkshire, England, was a teacher in a famous English school and is probably best known for his biography of the author C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...

.

Career

Sayer was educated at Trinity College, Glenalmond, in Perthshire, Scotland, and at Magdalen College of the University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

 where he was tutored by C. S. Lewis. He Joined the staff of Malvern College

Malvern College

Malvern College is a coeducational independent school located on a 250 acre campus near the town centre of Malvern, Worcestershire in England. Founded on 25 January 1865, until 1992, the College was a secondary school for boys aged 13 to 18...

 in 1945 after having been a captain in Army Intelligence on account of his fluent German, and became Head of English in 1949.

Lewis and Sayer became close friends to the extent that Lewis sought Sayer's advice when considering marrying Joy Gresham

Joy Gresham

Joy Davidman was an American poet and writer, and a radical communist and atheist until her conversion to Christianity in the late 1940s. Her first husband was the writer William Lindsay Gresham. They had two children together: David and Douglas. Her second marriage was to C. S...

. On Lewis's death, Sayer was made a trustee of the Lewis estate.

Sayer was also a close friend of J. R. R. Tolkien

J. R. R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...

. Excerpts from The Hobbit

The Hobbit

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, better known by its abbreviated title The Hobbit, is a fantasy novel and children's book by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published on 21 September 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald...

and The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...

were recorded in Malvern in 1952, at the home of George Sayer. The recordings were later issued on long-playing gramophone record

Gramophone record

A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...

s. In the liner notes for J.R.R. Tolkien Reads and Sings his The Hobbit & The Fellowship of the Ring, George Sayer wrote that Tolkien would relive the book as they walked and compared parts of the Malvern Hills to the
White Mountains of Gondor

White Mountains (Middle-earth)

The White Mountains, a loose translation of the Sindarin Ered Nimrais "Whitehorn Mountains", is a fictional mountain range in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. The mountains are named after the glaciers of their highest peaks...

.

Jeremy Paxman

Jeremy Paxman

Jeremy Dickson Paxman is a British journalist, author and television presenter. He has worked for the BBC since 1977. He is noted for a forthright and abrasive interviewing style, particularly when interrogating politicians...

, a pupil at Malvern College from 1964 to 1968, described Sayer as "the most wonderful, inspirational teacher ... a profoundly decent and compassionate man ... the sort of teacher you dream of having".

Personal life

Sayer's first wife, Moira Casey died in 1977 following a long illness. In 1983 Sayer married Margaret Cronin.

Major work

Sayer, George (1988) Jack: C.S. Lewis and His Times Foreword by Lyle W. Dorsett.
Part memoir and part biography. The work is recommended by Douglas Gresham

Douglas Gresham

Douglas Gresham is an American-born British biographer and film producer, resident in Malta, and one of the two stepsons of C. S. Lewis.- Personal life :...

as the very best C. S. Lewis biography available.