George Orwell

 

Picture this, us mugs wandering around a muddy graveyard in the dark with just our torches while trying to identify a tree in order to find a specific grave. Well our last stop on our way home from Stroud looked exactly like that. We stopped off at Sutton Courtenay to visit Eric Arthur Blair, or as he is best known- George Orwell.

We thought we'd have more light but thanks to traffic time was against us. However, we did indeed find him, so here is more on the famed author of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

He was born in Motihari on the 25th June 1903 into a lower-upper-middle class family, as if class sytems back then weren't difficult enough to understand! A year later his mother took Eric and his siblings back to England where she chose Oxfordshire as home. His father was rarely on the scene and young Eric was sent to a convent school as they were not able to afford the public schooling his mother wished for him. When he was older he gained a scholarship to St Cyprian's in Eastborne thanks to his Uncle and although he wasn't told of his scholarship he noticed the difference between himself and his peers immediately, which went on to form a slight resentment throughout his educational years. This soon grew to hatred of the school which he called home for five years to the point he wrote an essay 'Such, Such Were the Joys' about it which was then published following his death. The positive from his time at the school was befriending Cyril Connolly who went on to become a writer and then editor of the Horizon and he published several of Orwell's essays.

For his further education, Blair went to Wellington where he described it as 'beastly' to his childhood sweetheart, Jacintha, and then managed to get a place at Eton. Unfortunately, it seems that he neglected his studies and so his scholarship was due to be revoked as his results were quite poor. His parents couldn't afford to send him to another University without a scholarship so instead the Imperial Police was suggested. He continued his studies at another school where he read up on Classics, English, and History so that he could pass the Imperial exam. He came 7th out of 26th so all that studying paid off.

As his career kicked off within the Imperial Police, Blair chose a station in Burma in 1922. He then went on to train at a police training school in Mandalay and was appointed Assistant District Superintendent. It was during this period of his life that he learnt to speak Burmese, isolated himself from his colleagues and adopted a pencil moustache. He even got some tattoos, his knuckles sported blue circles which in local culture protected against bullets and snake bites.

In 1927 he got dengue fever and so returned to England to recover. He went on a trip to Cornwall with his family while on leave and then decided against returning to Burma where he had become discontented. He resigned and decided to pursue becoming a writer and so this is how he continued from March 1928.

He'd moved to London in 1927, specifically Portobello Road, and befriended an old family friend, Ruth Pitter. She became his writing guru and respectfully pointed out flaws in his poetry and provided guidance on what to write about. She shaped his essays and inspired Blair to write about what he actually knew. He opted to go out and experience his areas of interest like how the poor live in London and so disguised himself often in order to live through his potential characters eye. On one occasion he disguised himself as a tramp under the name of P.S Burton and continued like this for a while. This inspired the essay The Spike and the second half of Down and Out in Paris and London. 

Blair then moved to Paris in 1928 and relied on his aunt, who also lived there, for social and sometimes financial support. It was here that his focus switched to novels, but his true shining calling was journalism. His next three pieces all focused on his life undercover in the poorer parts of these cities and they were a hit, that was until he fell ill in 1929.

Despite falling ill for the second time in 2 years, the experience following his medical care was what gave him more material to forge his career. He was taken to Hopital Cohn which was a free hospital as it was where medical staff were trained on the job. This inspired the essay 'How the Poor Die' based off his own experiences and it was published in 1946.  Already down on his luck, when he came out of hospital his money was stolen from his lodgings and he had to get small odd jobs in order to make ends meat which again inspired aspects of Down and Out in Paris and London. Despite all  this, he still sent The Spike to be published in London six months after his second illness and it was accepted. Four months later marked his return to England and he moved back in with his parents in Suffolk where he stayed for the next five years. In this time he proposed to Brenda Salkeld, was rejected and made new friends through his sister's tea house while also renewing friendships with those he knew before his police days.

In 1930 Blair turned to writing reviews or Adelphi, stayed with his older sister and husband in Leeds, and then became tutor to a disabled child, and later three young brothers, one of which was Richard Peters who ended up quite the famed academic. But Eric Blair was leading a double life. Here we have him semi-sponging off his family while he works decent enough jobs to get by while also moonlighting as a journalist. On the other hand we have Eric Blair who stays with his friends in London in order to change into his tramp alter ego to investigate he rough city life unnoticed and to gather material for the work which actually meant something to him, but came in drabs. He even took a job on the Kent Hop Fields as a picker and kept a diary to note his experiences which helped with A Clergyman's Daughter. It also inspired his essay Hop Picking which was featured in the October 1931 issue of New Statesman. This put him into the right circles and led him to Leonard Moore who became his literary agent in 1932. Christmas of that year he got himself arrested, on purpose, in order to experience Christmas in prison. Unfortunately he was let out after two days as they didn't deem his actions worthy of being imprisoned.

Despite his run in with the law, the new year brought a teaching position in April at The Hawthorns High School. He ended up befriending the curate of the local parish church and became active within the community there. By June Victor Gollancz Ltd had agreed to publish A Scullion's Diary and he returned to Southwold and his parents while also working on Burmese Days. He'd also grown close t his friend's girlfriend, Eleanor Jacques but his love for her seemed unrequited as she continued to court his friend. He published his essay Clink about his prison attempt and returned to his teaching post after the summer break. He then prepared for his publisher to move forward with Down and Out in Paris and London which would end up being his first book. He decided to use a pen name so that his family wouldn't be embarrassed over his time as Burton, but he left the choice of name up to his publisher. He wrote to them suggesting the names P.S Burton, George Orwell, Kenneth Miles, and H. Lewis Allways but ultimately Orwell was picked. It was taken from St George and the River Orwell which was Blair's favourite place so it was a fitting name in the end.

1933 he was published and Orwell's first book was a hit and he was even compared to Dickens. It went abroad and was published in New York, but despite being a hit, he only made a modest wage from it and so didn't give up teaching. He instead moved to a post at Frays College which meant he had a larger audience of students to teach. Blair then bought a motorbike and liked to take trips around the area, but he ended up with pneumonia from one of these outings and was hospitalised. Once he recovered enough to be discharged he moved back in with his parents and gave up teaching all together.

He continued with his writing however, but his publisher rejected Burmese Days even though his US publisher were willing to publish it. Instead he opted to work on his novel A Clergyman's Daughter taking from his own experiences up until his hospitalisation. Once completed and sent to his publisher he took a job as a part time assistant in Booklovers' Corner. This was a second-hand book shop which was run by friends of his aunt Nellie. While at this job he was able to write and socialise and prepare for his two current novels to be published. 

1935 brought the publishing of Burmese Days as well as a party which meant he met his future wife, Eileen O'Shaughnessy. 1936 brought his wedding and also he was placed under surveillance by the special branch due to his research for the road to Wigan pier.

He then went off to fight in the Spanish civil war in 1936 where he ended up a corporal. Orwell was hospitalised with a poisoned hand and then once he returned to the front line hospitalised again by a snipers bullet to the throat, he was then medically unfit for service but had to remain in Spain with his wife in hiding as the organisation they had joined were under attack. These experiences inspired Homage to Catalonia. When he eventually made it back to England in June of 1937 it wasn't long before trouble struck again. 

In early 1938 Orwell was sent down to our neck of the woods, Kent. He was taken to Preston Hall Sanatorium in Aylesford due to what was thought to be Tuberculosis. He stayed there until September, which is why he ended up visiting Kit's Coty House in August as it was likely that they let him out on walks for fresh air. It was also around this time that Homage to Catalonia was published but unfortunately it wasn't well received.

Not much later WWII came. Eileen had joined the Ministry of Information and Orwell had himself applied for war work, but he was ignored. So he turned back to writing to distract himself from both the war around him and the fact that his father had just passed away. The war office eventually got back to him to say that he was unfit for service, but that didn't stop Orwell. He joined the Home Guard instead. He held steady and in 1941 proper war work finally came his way. The BBC took him on to cover the Eastern service, his role was to supervise cultural broadcasts to India and to counter the propaganda spread by the Nazis.

Two years later Orwell's mother died. It was this year that he began Animal Farm, resigned from both the BBC and the Home Guard and instead turned to book reviews. He changed to the role of editor and even had his own column, but he wasn't satisfied. Eileen and he wanted children, they wanted them quite badly. But Orwell was sterile and Eileen had uterine cancer. So they adopted.

Tragedy struck the now completed family when Eileen went into hospital for what she thought would be a routine hysterectomy. She hadn't really spoken about it with Orwell, not thinking there was much of a risk. Unfortunately, she died when she had an allergic reaction to the anaesthetic and it was expected that following the death of the boy's adopted mother that Orwell would give him up. George Orwell, or Eric Blair, refused.

Instead he moved around and he raised the boy in some quite unorthodox methods, but it would have been an adventurous time for a child. Orwell treated him like a mini adult but this was mostly because he was afraid to show any affection to his son in the event he passed on his TB. He worried that this would hinder the bonding between father and son, but his son later found out why his dad held back on the affection a small boy needs.

In 1946 Orwell wrote a British cookery article which came under fire due to the state of the country at the time. It was the British Council who commissioned him to write the piece in order to promote British relations overseas. He wrote about hot drinks, afternoon tea and even included his own marmalade recipe. Unfortunately, the British Council then sent him a rejection letter stating that they would not publish the piece as it was problematic to write about food at the time of rationing. This article along with the rejection letter was found in 2019 and published along with an official apology from the British Council. We look forward to finding this and making the marmalade, this will of course be posted on the blog too!

So not only was Orwell commissioned and then rejected rather bizarrely, but 1946 also brought the death of his older sister. Orwell was losing relatives alongside his career and health. If only he knew quite how bleak his future had started to look. 

He'd just come to the end of writing 1984 when he'd gone on an awful boating experience with what was left of his family. He was left in bad health and taken to a sanatorium near Stroud (another place we've been to recently, seems very strange that we'd accidentally visited the sites leading up to the death of Orwell and ultimately his final resting place!) but ended up developing a rare side effect to the new medication used to treat TB. He struggled with this while 1984 was sent for publishing and then when it finally was released in 1949 it was a hit.

Still undergoing treatment, he became engaged to Sonia Brownell who is thought to be the inspiration for Julia in his last novel. However, it wasn't quite as romantic as it seems. Orwell's first marriage to Eileen was a rocky one, despite the love he had for her. They were both unfaithful to each other and he admits at times he treated her awfully and she did the same. When she died he felt lonely and he was desperate for a new wife as a companion to him and a mother to their son, Richard. We wonder if he knew he was going to die as his health had been questionable for years, so he was looking for a wife to provide family for his son. He'd gone on to propose to four women and been refused until Brownell eventually accepted. They had been courting for a time despite the fact that some thought she was a gold digger. Regardless, she visited him often in hospital and continued when Orwell was moved to the University College Hospital in London. They married there on the 13th of October 1949 and remained married for three months until his death.

Eric Arthur Blair, otherwise known as George Orwell, died 76 years ago today. The 21st of January 1950 took him from the world at age 46 due to complications of TB. His legacy is notably Animal Farm and 1984. He ended up in Sutton Courtenay because he'd requested an Anglican burial despite being of no religion and the local churchyards had no space. Sonia had requested help to fulfil his final wishes from his friends and All Saints' in Oxfordshire had space. In the end Richard was raised by Orwell's younger sister Avril instead of his stepmother.

Looking at this man with no prior knowledge of his works other than he'd written them, we see a man who enjoyed living his life with work as the means to provide the money to continue. He seems to have had no ambition other than to become a writer which he managed to do through desperation of the fact. We can't help but feel sorry for Eric Blair. He was a man hit by blows all his life but still managed to just about reach his goal before he was struck down. He had many different beliefs, most of which he is heavily criticized for to this day, especially when it comes to politics, but deep down he was human. That is all we are at the end of the day, flawed humans. So light a candle for Eric Blair today if you know his work, and we'll let you know how the marmalade turns out.