George Orwell: A Life in Letters

by Peter Davison

  Yours sincerely

  Eric Blair

  P.S. I’ll send you the address of the hospital as soon as I’m there, but any way this address will find me.

  [XIX, 3313, pp. 233–4; handwritten]

  1.Probably for the Persian-language version, Enqelāb Hayvānāt, arranged by the Central Office of Information and translated by Ali Javāherkālām, 1947.

  To Frederick Tomlinson, The Observer

  23 December 1947

  Ward 3

  Hairmyres Hospital

  East Kilbride

  Nr. Glasgow

  [Tel:] East Kilbride 325

  Dear Tomlinson,

  I’m afraid it’s all off about Africa so far as I’m concerned, much as I’d like to have done the trip. As you see I’m in hospital & I think likely to remain here 3–4 months. After being really very ill for about 2 months I got a chest specialist to come from the mainland, & sure enough it was T.B. as I feared. I’ve had it before, but not so badly. This time it’s what they call ‘extensive’ but they seem confident they can patch me up in a few months. For some time I’ve been far too ill even to attempt any work, but I’m beginning to feel somewhat better, & I was wondering whether the Obs. would like to start letting me have some books to review again. I suppose this isn’t your department, but perhaps you could be kind enough to shove the suggestion along to Ivor Brown.*1

  I haven’t heard from David [Astor]* so don’t know if he’s back yet. Please give all the best to everybody from me.

  Yours

  Geo. Orwell

  [XIX, 3315, p. 235; handwritten]

  1.Ivor Brown wrote to Orwell on 27 December saying how sorry he was to hear that Orwell was ill and offering to find some of the ‘pitifully small’ space available for him to contribute book reviews. He also suggested some might be short leader-page articles appropriate to the subject matter. Orwell thanked him, saying he would prefer sociological books or literary criticism; he was happy to write short leader-page articles (XIX, 3321, p. 239).

  To David Astor*

  31 December 1947

  Hairmyres Hospital, East Kilbride

  Dear David,

  I have to continue this 1 in pencil as my Biro pen is giving out. I was so glad to get your letter and know you were back. I’d love it if you did come and see me some time—don’t put yourself out of course, but if you had to visit these parts anyway. I came by car, so I’m not certain how far out of Glasgow this is, but I think about 20 minutes drive. They don’t seem to be very lavish with visiting hours. The official hours are: Sundays, Weds. & Sats., 2.30 to 3.30 pm, Tuesdays 6–7 pm.

  As to what you say about Richard, he’s in Jura with my sister at present, but later in the year I might be very glad to take advantage of your offer and dump him on you for a few weeks. The thing is that I don’t know about my movements. The treatment they are giving me is one that must take a long time, and even if I get well enough to get out of bed and even leave the hospital, I imagine I should have to stay for some months in London or Glasgow or somewhere and go once a week for a ‘refill’, which means having air pumped into one’s diaphragm. My sister is going up to London for a short while in January or Feb. to do shopping etc., and she will leave R. with friends in Edinburgh. I am going to have him X-rayed then, though I must say of his appearance he doesn’t look very T.B. I kept him away from me as best we could after I knew what was wrong with me, and we are getting a T.T.2 cow so as to make sure of his milk. We boil all his milk, but of course one can forget sometimes. Although he is still backward about talking, he is getting very big and rowdy, and loves working round the farm. I think he much prefers machinery to animals. One has to keep him off anything that can be taken to pieces. He even succeeded in uncoupling the trailer from the Fletchers’ tractor. This is the first Christmas that he has more or less understood what it is all about, so I was very glad to get away just beforehand and not be a skeleton at the Christmas dinner. There were 4 of them there so I dare say they had quite a good time.

  I’m writing to I[vor] B[rown] suggesting that I should do an article once a fortnight, as I did before. I think I’ll try and fix another article with somebody else, as I think I’m probably up to doing one a week now, and I might as well earn some money while I’m on my back. Of course I’ve done no work at all for 2–3 months, and indeed haven’t been out of bed during that time. I’ve lost a stone and a half of weight, and still feel deadly sick and so forth all the time, but I think I’ve been better the last week or two. The treatment they are giving me is to put the affected lung out of action, which is supposed to give it a better chance to heal. I suppose this takes a long time, but they say it generally works. It is a nice hospital and everyone is extraordinarily kind to me.

  Hoping to see you some time.

  Yours,

  George

  P.S. You don’t want to sell Bob, I suppose? You know we have been wintering him again. He seems very good and tractable, and McIntyre seemed glad to get rid of him for the winter, as he said they had ‘plenty to winter already’. Bill Dunn rides him when he goes to round up the sheep, but we did plan also to use him in the trap when the car goes to be overhauled, also for dragging wood etc.

  [XIX, 3320, pp. 238–9; handwritten]

  1.Nothing has been omitted.

  2.Tuberculin-tested

  Hairmyres and Jura

  1948

  In November 1947 Frederick Tomlinson, news editor of the Observer, had suggested to Orwell that he might like a three-month assignment to cover the progress of what would prove to be a disastrous groundnut scheme in East Africa, and the South African elections. Orwell was tempted but by the end of the year he had become so ill that he had to turn down the offer. Instead he had to move to Hairmyres Hospital, East Kilbride, near Glasgow. He was there until almost the end of July when he was able to return to Barnhill. Through David Astor, streptomycin (then a new drug) was obtained from the USA but although it was beneficial at first, Orwell proved allergic to it. Nevertheless, by May his health was improving and he was getting a little stronger. He thought ‘Such, Such Were the Joys’ was important enough to devote time and energy to making final revisions to it even though he knew the essay could not be published for many years for fear of libel actions. He also started the second draft of Nineteen Eighty-Four. He wrote several essays, including one on an author he greatly admired, George Gissing. It was intended for Politics and Letters but that failed before the essay could be published. It finally appeared in the London Magazine ten years after Orwell’s death.

  Orwell’s thoughts were very much at Barnhill and with Richard. He was terrified that contact with his son could entail his passing on his TB. From the references in his letters it is clear that he closely followed Richard’s development. He also describes the Christmas they had had at Barnhill, glad to have got away before the day so that he was not ‘a death’s head’, and contrasts the inevitably hollow jollity of Christmas in hospital. He suffered the painful treatment he underwent, dreading it but never complaining: ‘we all noticed how much self-control he had’, as one of the surgeons put it.

  Although very much the invalid, he was able to enjoy a final few months at Barnhill, but was too weak to make even slight exertions – apart, that is, from slogging away at Nineteen Eighty-Four. By early November he had finished the final draft and hoped that a typist could be induced to come to Barnhill to produce a fair copy of what the facsimile shows was a very much altered and overwritten text. But no one could be found to make the journey and Orwell suffered agonies typing the final copies (a very difficult task on a mechanical typewriter, with carbon copies to make and correct). Much of the time he typed in bed. By 4th December the final copies were completed and he posted them to Leonard Moore, his literary agent, for Warburg and for consideration in the USA. He was by now very ill indeed, but not so ill that he could not take Roger Senhouse to task for his proposed blurb for the book: it was not, as Senhouse seemed to suggest, ‘a thriller mixed up with a
love story’. The year ended with his arranging to go to a private sanatorium and, almost as significantly, giving up his lease on his flat in Canonbury Square, Islington.

  From Orwell’s letter to his mother, 1 December 1912

  To Gwen O’ Shaughnessy*

  1 January 1948

  Hairmyres Hospital

  East Kilbride

  Dear Gwen,

  I thought you’d like to hear how I was getting on. I believe Mr Dick* sent you a line about my case. As soon as he listened to me he said I had a fairly extensive cavity in the left lung, & also a small patch at the top of the other lung—this, I think, the old one I had before. The X-ray confirms this, he says. I have now been here nearly a fortnight, & the treatment they are giving me is to put the left lung out of action, apparently for about 6 months, which is supposed to give it a better chance to heal.1 They first crushed the phrenic nerve, which I gather is what makes the lung expand & contract, & then pumped air into the diaphragm, which I understand is to push the lung into a different position & get it away from some kind of movement which occurs automatically. I have to have ‘refills’ of air in the diaphragm every few days but I think later it gets down to once a week or less. For the rest, I am still really very ill & weak, & on getting here I found I had lost 1½ stone, but I have felt better since being here, don’t sweat at night like I used & have more appetite. They make me eat a tremendous lot. At present I am not allowed out of bed because apparently one has to get adjusted to having the extra air inside. It is a nice hospital & everyone is extremely kind to me. I have also got a room to myself, but I don’t know whether that will be permanent. I have of course done no work for 2–3 months, but I think I may be equal to some light work soon & I am arranging to do a little book-reviewing.

  Richard was tremendously well when I came away. After I was certain what was wrong with me I tried to keep him out of my room, but of course couldn’t do so entirely. When Avril goes up to London in Jan. or Feb. to do some shopping I am going to take the opportunity of having Richard thoroughly examined to make sure he is O.K. We boiled his milk ever since you warned us, but of course one can forget sometimes. I am trying to buy a T B.-tested cow, & I think we are on the track of one now. With Bill Dunn in the house it is easier about animals, as he is going to pay part of his board by looking after our cows, which means that at need we can go away. I must say Richard doesn’t look very T.B, but I would like to be sure. I think they had quite a good Christmas at Barnhill. There were 4 of them including Richard, & there was a nice goose we bought off the Kopps. I was glad to get away before Xmas so as not to be a death’s head. I am afraid I didn’t write any Xmas letters or anything & it’s now a bit late even for New Year wishes. I hope by the summer I shall be well enough to go back to Barnhill for a bit & you & the kids will come again. Maybe there’ll be a pony to ride this time—we have got one at present but he is only borrowed. They had a New Year party for the patients here, all the beds dragged into one ward & there were singers & a conjuror. I hope you had a good Christmas. Love to the kids.

  Yours

  George

  [XIX, 3324, pp. 247–8; handwritten]

  1.In Remembering Orwell, pp. 197–8, Professor James Williamson, who was a junior doctor in the Thoracic Unit at Hairmyres Hospital when Orwell was a patient, describes Orwell’s condition and treatment:

  It was a fairly trivial operation: you could do it in five minutes. You just pull the muscle aside, expose the nerve, and tweak it with a pair of forceps. The patient would get one sudden pain, and the diaphragm would jump, and that was the diaphragm paralysed for three to six months, until the nerve recovered again. Then we pumped air into his abdomen. The diaphragm was pushed up by this, and the lungs were collapsed. You put anything from four hundred to seven hundred cc of air in, under low pressure, with a special machine, through a needle which was a fairly elephantine-looking thing, a hollow needle about three inches long, actually. The first time you did it, you used a local anesthetic,° because you had to go very cautiously and advance it very slowly. But after that you just stuck it in, because patients agreed that if it was done expertly, one sharp jab was better than all this fiddling about with anesthetics and things.

  I remember he used to dread each ‘refill’ and couldn’t relax at all when he was on the table. But he never complained. In fact we all noticed how much self-control he had. There was never a gasp, or any kind of noise from him when we did this.

  I don’t think he would ever have been terribly infectious. The person who is highly infectious is the person who is coughing a lot, whose sputum has a lot of TB bacilli in it. He wasn’t coughing a lot, nor was his sputum, as I remember it, terribly strongly positive. But he would still be a potential danger to other people, particularly to young people like his son.

  Most patients made much use of sputum mugs but Orwell’s tuberculosis was not of that kind, and Williamson did not recall his having a sputum mug on his bedside locker: ‘Mind you, I don’t think there was any room for anything on his bedside locker because there were always books everywhere.’

  To Julian Symons*

  2 January 1948

  Hairmyres Hospital

  East Kilbride

  Dear Julian,

  Thanks ever so for sending the pen, which as you see I’m using. Of course it’ll do just as well as a Biro & I prefer the colour of the ink. My other was just on its last legs & you can’t use ink in bed.

  I think I’m getting a bit better. I don’t feel quite so deathlike & am eating a lot more. They stuff food into me all the time here. I don’t know whether my weight is going up, because I’m kept strictly in bed at this stage of the treatment. They have put the affected lung out of action, which involves pumping air into one’s diaphragm. I have this done every few days. It’s a nice hospital & everyone is very kind to me. I was recommended to come here by my London chest specialist, & did so rather than go to London simply to avoid the long journey. It wasn’t much fun coming even here in that state, but I could do most of it by car. It’s funny you always think Scotland must be cold. The west part isn’t colder than England, & the islands I should think decidedly warmer on average, though probably the summer isn’t so hot. When I’m well enough to leave hospital I shall have to continue with this air-pumping business, so shall stay either in Glasgow or London for some months & just dodge up to Jura when I can. I have arranged things fairly well there. We, ie. my sister & I, have the house, & a young chap who lost a foot in the war & is taking up farming lives with us & farms the croft. Another friend of mine acts as a sort of sleeping partner,1 financing the croft & coming to help at the busy times. So I don’t have bad conscience about living in a farmhouse & keeping someone else off the land, & at the same time can go away whenever I want to as our animals will be looked after in our absence. I’m just going to embark on cows, just one or two, because I’m in terror of Richard getting this disease & the safest thing is to have a T.T cow. I’m also going to get him thoroughly examined when my sister goes up to London. Of course I kept him off me once I was certain what was wrong with me, but he has certainly been exposed to infection. He has got such a splendid physique & I don’t want him to wreck it.

  About book reviewing. I had no thoughts of going back to the M[anchester] E[vening] News. I am merely arranging to do a review once a fortnight for the Observer, & I think I shall try & fix one once a fortnight for someone else, as I’m probably up to doing one article a week now. I think that shows I’m better, as I couldn’t have contemplated that a few weeks ago. I can’t do any serious work—I never can do in bed, even when I feel well. I can’t show you the part-finished novel. I never show them to anybody, because they are just a mess & don’t have much relationship to the final draft. I always say a book doesn’t exist until it is finished. I am glad you finished the life of your brother.2 It is such a ghastly effort ever to finish a book nowadays.

  I agree with you about Tribune, though I think it’s probably Fyvel* rather than Kimche3 who
is responsible for the over-emphasis on Zionism. They would have done better when Labour got in to label themselves frankly a government organ, a. because in all major matters they are in agreement with the government, b. because Labour has no weekly paper definitely faithful to it & is in fact on the defensive so far as the press goes. The evil genius of the paper has I think been Crossman,4 who influences it through Foot & Fyvel. Crossman & the rest of that gang thought they saw an opening for themselves in squealing about foreign policy, which in the circumstances was bound to go badly, & so Tribune has been in the position of coming down on the side of the government whenever there is a major issue, eg. conscription, & at the same time trying to look fearfully left by raising an outcry about Greece etc. I really think I prefer the Zilliacus lot, since after all they do have a policy, ie. to appease Russia. I started writing an open letter to Tribune about this, but was taken ill before I finished it.5 I particularly hate that trick of sucking up to the left cliques by perpetually attacking America while relying on America to feed & protect us. I even get letters from American university students asking why Tribune is always going for the USA & in such an ignorant way.

  Well, this is quite a long letter. So my thanks again for sending the pen. I’ll send my old Biro sometime when I’ve got a bit of paper & perhaps you’d be kind enough to get it refilled. My best respects to your wife.

  Yours

  George

  [XIX, 3325, pp. 249–51; handwritten]