George Orwell: A Life in Letters

by Peter Davison

  ‘As I made clear in my review, it was not the intention of the rank and file of the P.O.U.M. to do other than fight against Franco. Being poor and ignorant men, the complexities of the revolutionary situation were beyond them; their leaders were to blame. As for being part of Franco’s fifth column, there is no doubt that whoever declined to co-operate with the central government and to abide by the law was, in fact, weakening the authority of that government and thus aiding the enemy. I submit that in time of war ignorance is as reprehensible as malicious sabotage. It is effect that matters, not the reasons for action.

  ‘I am sorry if Mr. Orwell thinks that I wanted to put readers off a magnificently written book: I didn’t: I want people to read it even if, in my opinion, his analysis is wrong. It is the essence of a democracy in peace time that all views should be available to everybody’.

  We are bound to say, in printing our reviewer’s reply, that we consider it hardly meets the points made by Mr. Orwell, to whom we express our regrets.—Editor, THE LISTENER2

  1.Philip Furneaux Jordan (1902–1951), journalist, novelist, and reviewer. He was on the staff of the Paris Daily Mail and edited the Riviera edition of the Chicago Tribune. In 1936 he joined the News Chronicle and served as its correspondent in Spain, 1936–37. He later became its features editor and then its foreign correspondent. In 1946–47 he was First Secretary at the British Embassy, Washington, and thereafter Public Relations Adviser to Prime Minister Clement Attlee.

  2.J. R. Ackerley (1896–1967) was literary editor, 1935–59. His support for Orwell despite his reviewer’s explanation is telling. (See Ackerley by Peter Parker (1989).)

  Eileen Blair* to Denys King-Farlow*

  22 June 1938

  [The Stores] Wallington

  Dear Denys,

  When I told you on the telephone that I was more or less writing to you it was quite true. But I was also having flu, although at that time incredulously because the time even of this year seems so odd.

  I hadn’t forgotten this money: indeed I have thought of it often with growing appreciation as the ‘advance’ on the Spanish book went on not coming. Eventually it was extracted by instalments! Poor man—I mean poor publisher. I hope it was time that you didn’t need. As a matter of fact I shouldn’t have kept the cheque if I’d had any doubt about repaying it almost at once. Or I think not.

  Eric isn’t so ill as they thought, as you’ll have gathered. He of course has never believed that he was ‘ill’, but for the first two months or so he appeared to have phthisis in both lungs which could have been pretty hopeless. Now it turns out to be bronchiectasis, which people do go on having more or less indefinitely under really favourable conditions. I suppose he told you that we can probably go abroad for the winter together instead of his going to a sanatorium, & after that we have to find a perfect cottage in one of the southern counties at an inclusive rental of about 7/6. I shall come back early to do this— They even think that he might leave Preston Hall in August & spend a month or so under normal conditions in England—he must of course be very ‘careful’ but the treatment really only consists in resting a great deal & eating a lot. We might perhaps stay on a farm somewhere. By that time this cottage will be handed over either to the landlord or to an unfortunate old uncle of Eric’s who is suggested as a tenant.1

  I’m so glad you went to see Eric & took him out. I think it’s really more depressing for him to be in this semi-confinement than to be in bed, & he loved having a party.2 It was particularly nice of you to send that money instead of offering to.

  With many thanks,

  Yours sincerely,

  Eileen Blair

  [XI, 455A, pp. 164–5; handwritten]

  1.Although Orwell’s parents had seventeen brothers and sisters between them, the only uncles to whom Eileen could be referring were Charles Limouzin, at one time secretary of a golf club at Parkstone, Bournemouth; George Limouzin, who was married to Ivy; and Eugène Adam, who was married to Nellie Limouzin. None took the cottage.

  2.If the party was to celebrate anything, it might have been for the publication of Homage to Catalonia on 25 April; or a party slightly ahead of Orwell’s thirty-fifth birthday, 25 June.

  To Jack Common*

  5 July 1938

  New Hostel

  Preston Hall

  Aylesford, Kent

  Dear Jack,

  You know I have to go abroad for the winter, probably for about 6 months starting about end of August. Well, would you like to have our cottage rent free & in return look after the animals? I’ll tell you all the facts & you can work out the pros & cons for yourself.

  i. The doctors say I must live somewhere further south. That means giving up the cottage when we come back at latest. But I don’t want to scrap the livestock, because we have now worked the flock of fowls up to about 30, which can be worked up to about 100 next year, & it would also mean selling the hen-houses, which cost a lot but which you don’t get much for if you sell them. We have therefore the choice of getting someone to inhabit the cottage, or of paying someone to look after the animals, which plus storage of furniture works out at about the same expense as keeping on the rent of the cottage.

  ii. You know what our cottage is like. It’s bloody awful. Still it’s more or less livable. There is one room with a double bed & one with a single, & I fancy there is enough linen etc. to do for 2 people & a kid. When there is sudden rain in winter the kitchen tends to flood, otherwise the house is passably dry. The living room fire, you may remember, smokes, but I think the chimney will have been seen to before we leave—anyway it doesn’t need anything very drastic doing to it. There is water laid on, but no hot, of course. There is a Calor Gas stove, which is expensive (the gas, I mean), but there is also a little oil oven that can be resuscitated. As to produce, there won’t be many vegetables, as of course Eileen alone couldn’t cope with all of the garden, but at any rate there will be potatoes enough to see you through the winter. There’ll also be milk, about a quart a day, as the goat has just kidded. A lot of people are prejudiced against goats’ milk but really it’s no different from cow & is said to be good for kids.

  iii. As to the looking after animals. This means feeding etc. about 30 fowls & feeding & milking the goats. I’ll leave careful instructions about food etc. & arrange for the corn merchant to deliver supplies & send the bill on to me. You could also sell the eggs (the butcher who calls twice a week buys any quantity) & put the money aside for us. There won’t be many eggs at first, as most of the birds are young pullets hatched this year, but by early spring they should be laying about 100 a week.

  Let me know would you whether you would like to take this on. It would suit us, & for you at any rate I dare say it would be a quiet place to work in.1

  All the best to Mary & Peter.

  Yours

  Eric Blair

  [XI, 461, p. 171; handwritten]

  1.They did take the cottage

  From Morocco to the BBC

  1938 – 1941

  It was thought that the climate of North Africa would be beneficial for Orwell’s health. That, however, was chiefly illusory although the relative rest probably helped him. He still managed to grow a few vegetables and keep one or two hens and goats. His time in Morocco was plagued by anxiety that he had borrowed more than he could easily repay although, unbeknownst to him, the novelist L.H. Myers had advanced the cost, £300, as a gift. Orwell harped on this ‘debt’ on many occasions and eventually repaid what he thought he owed to an intermediary, Dorothy Plowman.

  Whilst in Morocco, the Orwells spent a few days in the Atlas Mountains and he wrote Coming Up for Air, the typescript of which he delivered to Leonard Moore, his agent, for Gollancz immediately on his return to England on 30 March 1939. On 28 June 1939, Orwell’s father died of cancer and Orwell wrote movingly about wandering the seafront at Southwold pondering what to do with the pennies that had weighted down his father’s eyes at his death. He eventually threw them into the sea.

  T
he outbreak of war on 3 September 1939 began a period of great frustration for him. He could obtain no work to advance the Allied cause and was far too unfit for the Army. Eileen was engaged at first in (ironically) a Whitehall Censorship Office. Even more ironic was that later one of her notebooks used to record censored mail was used by Orwell to record his earnings so that he could declare them to the Inland Revenue. He reviewed books, plays and films and in May 1940, after Dunkirk, he joined what would become the Home Guard, serving actively as a Sergeant. The photograph included in this volume of Orwell with the Home Guard shows the composition of his section. On the right is his publisher, Fredric Warburg. He had served as a lieutenant at Passchendaele. Other’s in Orwell’s section included two wholesale grocers, the owner of a large garage and his son, a Selfridge’s van-driver, Denzil Jacobs (a chartered accountant who later served as an RAF navigator) and his father, both of whom visited Orwell in University College Hospital in 1949. Denzil Jacobs told the editor that to Orwell, ‘commitment was everything’.

  Orwell’s The Lion and the Unicorn was published on 19 February 1941. He made a few broadcasts for the BBC including four for its Overseas Service. Then, on 18 August 1941, he was appointed a Talks Assistant in the BBC Overseas Service at £640 per annum. After attending a short training course (called rather unfairly ‘The Liars’ School’ – it was, in fact, very straightforward and practical), he began two years of hard, intensive work. Although he would come to regard these as ‘two wasted years’, they were, in fact, more valuable than he realised. By now, Eileen had moved from the soul-destroying Censorship Department to more enjoyable work in the Ministry of Food, working on such programmes as ‘The Kitchen Front’, advising the population on how to make the most and best of such food as was available at a time of severe rationing.

  From Orwell’s letter to his mother, 25 February 1912

  Eileen* to Orwell’s mother, Ida*

  15 September 1938

  Majestic Hotel

  Marrakech

  Dearest Mrs Blair,

  I think Eric sent postcards today, explaining that I’d been ‘upset’ as he says. We could both be said to have been upset, partly I expect by the climate & partly by the horror we conceived for this country. My additional achievement was some kind of fever, possibly from food poisoning but more probably from mosquitoes—Eric has eaten the same things but hasn’t been bitten to any extent whereas I look as though I were made of brioches.

  The journey until we left Tangier was so pleasant that we were spoilt. It’s true that we went to Gib by mistake & then got held up at Tangier because the boats to Casablanca were full, but Gib was quite interesting & Tangier enchanting. Eric’s stuff for seasickness worked even on the crossing from Gib. to Tangier, which was rough (he walked round the boat with a seraphic smile watching people being sick & insisted on my going into the ‘Ladies’ Cabin’ to report on the disasters there), & the Continental Hotel in Tangier was very good indeed. If we could have come here by sea as we intended we should probably like Morocco better but we had to come by train which meant having breakfast at 5 a.m., going through endless agonies to satisfy police & customs authorities of all nations before getting into the train at all & then having more police & customs interrogations a) before the train left the International Zone, b) before entering the Spanish zone & c) before entering the French zone. The Spaniards were very pleasant & careless which was as well because at the last minute a man came round & collected the French newspapers that most people had & that were not allowed in Spanish territory. We had in our suitcases a collection of about 20 newspapers, Fascist & anti-Fascist. The French were in character, absolutely refusing to believe that we were not coming to Morocco to break the law. However, they agreed to let the Morocco police do the arresting & we got as far as the junction where we were to change into a train with a restaurant car. By this time it should have been 11 a.m. & was 11.45. Everyone fled across the station surrounded by hordes of Arab porters, aged 10–70, & the train started before we were well in it. Our junior porter, who was about 3' 6 '', had not unnaturally put the two cases he was carrying down on the platform so that he could catch us to get his tip (he said they were in the dining-car), but to establish this took us hours & to get the cases at Casablanca took two days. Then we came to Marrakech, again leaving at 7 a.m., & went to the Hotel Continental which had been recommended to us & which may have been quite good once. Lately it has changed hands & is obviously a brothel. I haven’t much direct knowledge of brothels but as they offer a special service they can probably all afford to be dirty & without any other conveniences. However we stayed for one day, partly because Eric didn’t notice anything odd about it until he tried to live in it & partly because my temperature was by that time going up about one degree an hour & I only wanted to lie down, which was easy enough, & to get drinks, which were brought me by a limitless variety of street Arabs who looked murderous but were very kind. Eric of course ate out & this is very expensive in Morocco so we moved here as soon as possible. This is the second most expensive hotel in Marrakech but it’s much cheaper to have full pension here (95 fr. a day for two)1 than to go to restaurants.

  Sunday.

  Eric made me go to bed at that point, & since then we’ve been busy. He has written to you this morning while I unpacked, so you’ll know about Mme Vellat & the villa in prospect. I think the villa will be fun from our point of view. It’s entirely isolated except for a few Arabs who live in the outbuildings to tend the orange grove that surrounds it. We’re going to buy enough furniture to camp with. As it will be the cheapest French furniture obtainable the aesthetic effect may be unfortunate, but we hope to get some decent rugs as we want them to take home. There is a large sitting room, two bedrooms, a bathroom & a kitchen. No provision for cooking but we’ll have some little pots with charcoal in them & a Primus. The country is practically desert but may look different after the rains. Anyway we can have a goat & Eric will really get the benefit of the climate. In Marrakech itself he couldn’t. The European quarter is intolerable with a second-rate respectability, & very expensive. The native quarter is ‘picturesque’ but the smells are only rivalled by the noises. Eric was so depressed that I thought we should have to come home but he is now quite excited about the villa & I think will be happy there. According to Dr. Diot (who was recommended by a friend of my brother’s in Paris) the climate is ideal for him, or will be in a few weeks when it’s cooler. And the villa has a sort of observatory on its roof which will be good to work in.

  The second bedroom is of course Avril’s when she wants it. If she went to Tangier by sea the fare would be about £12 return. At Tangier one can stay at the Continental for 10/– a day all in. The fare from Tangier to Marrakech by train is 155 fr. second class. Unfortunately the train gets into Casablanca at 3 p.m. or so & the next one to Marrakech leaves at 8 & takes all night. It would be better to stay one night at Casablanca, which I suppose would cost another 10/– altogether, & get the morning train here. It only takes 4 hours & one sees the country such as it is. We loathed it but that was largely because we were sentenced to live in it for six months. As one approaches Marrakech camels become more & more common until they’re as ordinary as donkeys, & the native villages are extraordinary collections of little thatched huts about 5 feet square (but generally round), sometimes surrounded by a kind of hedge of dead wood or possibly a mud wall. We don’t know what the walls are for; they aren’t strong enough or high enough to keep anything out. Marrakech itself was largely built of mud & has enormous mud ramparts. The earth dries a reddish colour which is very beautiful in earth but unfortunate when approximately reproduced in paint by the French, who like to call Marrakech ‘la rouge’. Some of the native products are lovely, especially the earthenware pots & jugs they use.

  Dr. Diot hasn’t really examined Eric yet but intends to. He is not particularly sympathetic but he must be a good doctor & through him we’ll be able to know that the chest really is reacting properly.

 
Please give my love to Mr Blair & Avril. I do hope Mr Blair is getting out & that Avril will get out as far as Morocco. It’s said to be a wonderful light here for photography. From her point of view it might have been more interesting to stay in Marrakech but one can walk one way (about 3 miles) in cooler weather & a taxi will cost about 2/6 I think. She might be able to hire a car if she liked to do her International driving test before coming. Anyway there are buses from Marrakech to all the other places.

  With love

  Eileen.

  [XI, 481, pp. 198–200; handwritten]

  1.At a rate of exchange of 170 francs to the pound, about 11s 2d (about £22 at current values).

  Eileen* to Marjorie Dakin*

  27 September 1938

  Chez Mme Vellat

  rue Edmond Doutte Medina

  Marrakech

  French Morocco

  My dear Marjorie,

  We’ve just had our first letter—from Mrs Blair. It was full of good news. I’m so glad you have a well family & that Marx appreciates his good fortune.1 I only hope he behaves as they say.

  Yesterday we were rather hysterically writing semi-business letters in the hope that they’d be delivered before war broke out. Today the papers are somewhat calmer, but it’s maddening to see none except those published in Morocco (we can get others but 4 to 8 days late & those at the moment might as well be years old). The extraordinary thing is that no one here seems interested. We were in a cafe when the evening paper arrived yesterday & only one other person bought one & he didn’t open it. Yet there are many young Frenchmen here who would be mobilised for service in France I suppose. The general idea is that Morocco would be very safe, anyway inland. The Arabs don’t seem ripe to make trouble & if they did make it the poor wretches would have 15,000 regular troops to contend with in Marrakech alone, complete with artillery & all. So long as we’re allowed to stay here, & that will probably be as long as we have any money, we probably have a better chance than most of keeping alive. Though what we should be keeping alive for God knows. It seems very unlikely that Eric will publish another book after the outbreak of war. I was rather cheered to hear about Humphrey’s* dugout.2 Eric has been on the point of constructing one for two years, though the plans received rather a check after he did construct one in Spain & it fell down on his & his companions’ heads two days later, not under any kind of bombardment but just from the force of gravity. But the dugout has generally been by way of light relief; his specialities are concentration camps & the famine.