A Life in Letters Read online

  This is our address for the rest of this week. We are staying with the Blairs & I like it. Nothing has surprised me more, particularly since I saw the house which is very small & furnished almost entirely with paintings of ancestors. The Blairs are by origin Lowland Scottish & dull but one of them made a lot of money in slaves & his son Thomas who was inconceivably like a sheep married the daughter of the Duke of Westmorland (of whose existence I never heard) & went so grand that he spent all the money & couldn't make more because slaves had gone out. So his son went into the army & came out of that into the church & married a girl of 15 who loathed him & had ten children of whom Eric's father, now 80, is the only survivor & they are all quite penniless but still on the shivering verge of gentility as Eric calls it in his new book which I cannot think will be popular with the family.10 In spite of all this the family on the whole is fun & I imagine unusual in their attitude to me because they all adore Eric & consider him quite impossible to live with-indeed on the wedding day Mrs Blair shook her head & said that I'd be a brave girl if I knew what I was in for, and Avril the sister said that obviously I didn't know what I was in for or I shouldn't be there. They haven't I think grasped that I am very much like Eric in temperament which is an asset once one has accepted the fact If I'd written this from Wallington it would have been about the real things of life-goats, hens, broccoli (eaten by a rabbit). But it would be better perhaps to tell you because this has got out of hand. Poor girl, miss it all out except the bit about the Wednesdays & say you can come on the 18th or the 25th to meet Pig11

  [LO, pp. 63-7 (with substantial additional notes); X, 331A, p. 515; handwritten]

  1.Orwell's parents' home.

  2.Orwell was able to roll his own cigarettes by hand. Evidently Eileen required a hand-roller.

  3.Nellie Limouzin had lived in Paris with her husband, Eugene Adam, an ardent Esperantist, when Orwell was living there (1928-29). Adam left Nellie and went to Mexico where, in 1947, he committed suicide.

  4.Eileen's mother, Marie O'Shaughnessy, evidently spent the week before the wedding with her daughter and Orwell, doubtless preparing for the event. Given the cramped and bare conditions, the lack of electricity, bathroom or indoor w.c., coupled with pre-wedding tensions, it is plain why Eileen was so distressed - and also why she found Aunt Nellie's long stay burdensome.

  5.On 12 June Orwell submitted 'Shooting an Elephant' to John Lehmann, editor of New Writing. He published it in New Writing, 2, Autumn, 1936 (X, 326, pp. 501-6).

  6.As well as sending off 'Shooting an Elephant', between his wedding and leaving for Spain, Orwell was very busy earning money from book reviewing and was writing The Road to Wigan Pier, which he completed just before he left for Spain about 23 December 1936. In this period he wrote twelve reviews of thirty-two books.

  7.Confusingly, especially in letters Eileen was to write from Spain, her brother, Dr Laurence O'Shaughnessy* was also known in the family as Eric. The proofs to which she refers are her brother's and Sauerbruch's Thoracic Surgery.

  8.Lydia Jackson.*

  9.This is as written by Eileen: nothing has been left out.

  10.The family background is well summarised by Sir Bernard Crick in A Life, pp. 46-7 and in the family bible. Orwell's mother, though born in Penge, South London, lived most of her early life in Moulmein, Burma. As Emma Larkin reports in Finding George Orwell in a Burmese Teashop (2004), there is a street sign, 'Leimmawzin', which means Orange-shelf Street but is a corruption of Limouzin Street (pp. 145-6). The phrase 'on the shivering verge of gentility' does not sound like Orwell; it does not appear in his 'new book', presumably Keep the Aspidistra Flying, published by Victor Gollancz on 20 April 1936, nor in the one he was writing, The Road to Wigan Pier. This may suggest it appeared in a draft read by Eileen. If so, that suggests a greater involvement by Eileen in Orwell's writing (other than for Animal Farm, where it is well established) than has been suspected.

  11.It is ironical that Eileen's pet name should have been that of the animals Orwell pilloried in Animal Farm.

  Jennie Lee* on Orwell's Arrival in Barcelona

  Orwell saw Gollancz on the 21st December 1936 about the publication of The Road to Wigan Pier. He arrived in Barcelona about the 26th (Crick, p. 315). After Orwell's death, Jennie Lee wrote on 23 June 1950 to a Miss Margaret M. Goalby of Presteigne, Radnorshire, who had asked her about Orwell. This is part of that letter.

  In the first year of the Spanish Civil War I was sitting with friends in a hotel in Barcelona when a tall thin man with a ravisheddeg complexion came over to the table. He asked me if I was Jennie Lee, and if so, could I tell him where to join up. He said he was an author: had got an advance on a book from Gollancz,1 and had arrived ready to drive a car or do anything else, preferably to fight in the front line. I was suspicious and asked what credentials he had brought from England. Apparently he had none. He had seen no-one, simply paid his own way out. He won me over by pointing to the boots over his shoulder. He knew he could not get boots big enough for he was over six feet. This was George Orwell and his boots arriving to fight in Spain.

  I came to know him as a deeply kind man and a creative writer. . . . He was a satirist who did not conform to any orthodox political or social pattern. . . . The only thing I can be quite certain of is, that up to his last day George was a man of utter integrity; deeply kind, and ready to sacrifice his last worldly possessions - he never had much - in the cause of democratic socialism. Part of his malaise was that he was not only a socialist but profoundly liberal. He hated regimentation wherever he found it, even in the socialist ranks.

  [XI, 355A, p. 5]

  1.This advance was for The Road to Wigan Pier.

  Eileen Blair* to Norah Myles*

  [16 February 1937?]

  24, Croom's Hill

  Greenwich1

  [no salutation]

  A note to say that I am leaving for Spain at 9 a.m. tomorrow (or I think so, but with inconceivable grandeur people ring up from Paris about it, and I may not go until Thursday). I leave in a hurry, not because anything is the matter but because when I said that I was going on the 23rd, which has long been my intention, I suddenly became a kind of secretary perhaps to the I.L.P. in Barcelona. They hardly seem to be amused at all. If Franco had engaged me as a manicurist I would have agreed to that too in exchange for a salvo conducto,2 so everyone is satisfied. The I.L.P. in Barcelona consists of one John McNair,* 3 who has certainly been kind at long distances but has an unfortunate telephone voice and a quite calamitous prose style in which he writes articles that I perhaps shall type. But theoretically George gets leave at the end of this month4 and then I shall have a holiday, willy John nilly John. By the way, I suppose I told you George was in the Spanish Militia? I can't remember. Anyway he is, with my full approval until he was well in. He's on the Aragon front, where I cannot help knowing that the Government ought to be attacking or hoping that that is a sufficient safeguard against their doing so. Supposing that the Fascist air force goes on missing its objectives and the railway line to Barcelona is still working, you'll probably hear from there some day. But letters take 10-15 days as a rule, and if the railway breaks down I can't think how long they'll take. Meanwhile it would be a nice gesture if you were to write a nice letter yourself, addressing it c/o John McNair, Hotel Continental, Boulevard de las Ramblas, Barcelona.5 I am staying at the Continental too to begin with, but as we have now spent practically all the money we shall have until November, when the Left book Club wealth will be available,6 I think I may be doing what the Esperantists call sleeping on straw - and as they are Esperantists they mean sleeping on straw. The I.L.P. of course is not contributing to my support, but the Spanish Government feeds George on bread without butter and 'rather rough food' and has arranged that he doesn't sleep at all, so he has no anxieties.

  This is longer than I meant it to be - (that should be a long dash, but you have to move the carriage.) Write the letter, because I think it likely that I may loathe Barcelona, though I'd like to see
some of the excitements that won't happen.7 I don't know of course how long we'll be there. Unless George gets hurt I suppose he'll stay until the war qua war is over - and I will too unless I get evacuated by force or unless I have to come and look for some money. But to-day's news suggests that the war may not last very long - I doubt whether Mussolini or even Hitler would feel enthusiastic about trying to push Franco across Catalonia, and certainly they'd need a lot more men to do it.8

  The dinner gong is going. Is it not touching to think that this may be the last dinner unrationed available for

  Pig.

  Give everyone my love - even yourself. Eric is lecturing at Bristol,9 but I think not till May. Hey Groves 10 came to the heart lecture at the College of Surgeons and then invited him to talk to you, but the date isn't settled yet. He has some pretty pictures. I could have come with him - perhaps after all I shall come with him. If you meet Hey Groves tell him to make the date after the war is over.

  Could you tell Mary 11 (not urgently) that I simply hadn't time to write separate letters to the two old Oxford Friends - which is simply true.

  [LO, pp. 68-70; XI, 361A, p. 12; typewritten]

  1.The O'Shaughnessy family home in London, SE 10.

  2.salvo conducto: safe conduct.

  3.John McNair* was a Tynesider so his 'unfortunate telephone voice' might have been his Geordie accent, with which Eileen, who came from South Shields, would have been familiar. She was probably being comically ironic.

  4.Leave was not given.

  5.No such letter survives.

  6.It is a common mistake to believe that Orwell was commissioned to go to Wigan and to write The Road to Wigan Pier by the Left Book Club. In fact the Club had not been formed when he left for Wigan and it was not decided by the Club to adopt the book until January 1937, well after Orwell had handed in his manuscript.

  7.She tells her mother on 22 March, after her return from the front, 'I'm enjoying Barcelona again', so her worst fears were not realised though she would experience in all their pain the 'May Events' in Barcelona when their Communist 'allies' violently suppressed the POUM.

  8.Orwell was shot through the throat (see note preceding 2.7.37). Communist attacks on the POUM meant they had to leave surreptitiously on 23 June 1937 (with John McNair and the young Stafford Cottman).

  9.Eric here is her brother Laurence, called Eric (from his middle name, Frederick) by his family.

  10.Ernest William Hey Groves (1872-1944), was a distinguished surgeon specialising in reconstructive surgery of the hip; he developed the use of bone grafts.

  11.Bertha Mary Wardell graduated with Eileen. She married Teddy (A.E.F.) Lovett, a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy. He was serving on HMS Glorious which, with her two escorting destroyers, Ardent and Acasta, was sunk off Norway on 8 June 1940, there being only 40 survivors from Glorious, two from Ardent and one from Acasta.

  Eileen Blair* to her mother, Marie O'Shaughnessy

  22 March 1937

  Seccion Inglesa

  10 Rambla de los Estudios

  Barcelona1

  Dearest Mummy,

  I enclose a 'letter' I began to write to you in the trenches! It ends abruptly--I think I've lost a sheet--& is practically illegible but you may as well have a letter written from a real fighting line, & you'll read enough to get the essential news. I thoroughly enjoyed being at the front. If the doctor had been a good doctor I should have moved heaven & earth to stay (indeed before seeing the doctor I had already pushed heaven & earth a little) as a nurse--the line is still so quiet that he could well have trained me in preparation for the activity that must come. But the doctor is quite ignorant & incredibly dirty. They have a tiny hospital at Monflorite in which he dresses the villagers' cut fingers etc. & does emergency work on any war wounds that do occur. Used dressings are thrown out of the window unless the window happens to be shut when they rebound onto the floor--& the doctor's hands have never been known to be washed. So I decided he must have a previously trained assistant (I have one in view--a man). Eric did go to him but he says there is nothing the matter except 'cold, over-fatigue, etc' This of course is quite true. However, the weather is better now & of course the leave is overdue, but another section on the Huesca front made an attack the other day which had rather serious results & leave is stopped there for the moment. Bob Edwards2 who commands the I.L.P. contingent has to be away for a couple of weeks & Eric is commanding in his absence, which will be quite fun in a way. My visit to the front ended in a suitable way because Kopp* decided I must have 'a few more hours' & arranged a car to leave Monflorite at 3:15 a.m. We went to bed at 10 or so & at 3 Kopp came & shouted & I got up & George3 (I can't remember which half of the family I write to) went to sleep again I hope. In this way he got 2 nights proper rest & seems much better. The whole visit's unreality was accentuated by the fact that there were no lights, not a candle or a torch; one got up & went to bed in black dark, & on the last night I emerged in black dark & waded knee deep in mud in & out of strange buildings until I saw the faint glow from the Comite Militar where Kopp was waiting with his car.

  On Tuesday we had the only bombardment of Barcelona since I came. It was quite interesting. Spanish people are normally incredibly noisy & pushing but in adeg emergency they appear to go quiet. Not that there was any real emergency but the bombs fell closer to the middle of the town than usual & did make enough noise to excite people fairly reasonably. There were very few casualties.

  I'm enjoying Barcelona again--I wanted a change. You might send this letter on to Eric & Gwen, whom I thank for tea. Three lbs of it has just come & will be much appreciated. The contingent is just running out, Bob Edwards tells me. The other message for Eric is that as usual I am writing this in the last moments before someone leaves for France & also as usual my cheque book is not here, but he will have the cheque for PS10 within 2 weeks anyway & meanwhile I should be very grateful if he gave Fenner Brockway 4 the pesetas. (In case anything funny happened to the last letter, I asked him to buy PS10 worth of pesetas & give them to Fenner Brockway to be brought out by hand. Living is very cheap here, but I spend a lot on the I.L.P. contingent as none of them have had any pay & they all need things. Also I've lent John [McNair]* 500 ps. because he ran out. I guard my five English pounds, which I could exchange at a fairly decent rate,5 because I must have something to use when we--whoever we may be--cross the frontier again.) I hope everyone is well--& I hope for a letter soon to say so. Gwen wrote a long letter which was exciting--even I fall into the universal habit of yearning over England. Perhaps the same thing happens in the colonies. When a waiter lit my cigarette the other day I said he had a nice lighter & he said 'Si, si, es bien, es Ingles!' Then he handed it to me, obviously thinking I should like to caress it a little. It was a Dunhill--bought in Barcelona I expect as a matter of fact because there are plenty of Dunhill & other lighters but a shortage of spirit for them. Kopp, Eric's commander, longed for Lea & Perrinsdeg Worcester Sauce. I discovered this by accident & found some in Barcelona--they have Crosse & Blackwell's pickles too but the good English marmalade is finished although the prices of these things are fantastic.

  After seeing George I am pretty confident that we shall be home before the winter--& possibly much sooner of course. You might write another letter to the aunt6 some time. I have never heard from her & neither has Eric,7 which worries me rather. I think she may be very sad about living in Wallington. By the way, George is positively urgent about the gas-stove--he wanted me to write & order it at once, but I still think it would be better to wait until just before our return, particularly as I have not yet heard from Moore about the advance on the book.8 Which reminds me that the reviews are better than I anticipated, as the interesting ones haven't come through yet.

  I had a bath last night--a great excitement. And I've had 3 superb dinners in succession. I don't know whether I shall miss this cafe life. I have coffee about three times a day & drinks oftener, & although theoretically I eat in a rather grim pension at least six
times a week I get headed off into one of about four places where the food is really quite good by any standards though limited of course. Every night I mean to go home early & write letters or something & every night I get home the next morning. The cafes are open till 1.30 & one starts one's after-dinner coffee about 10. But the sherry is undrinkable--& I meant to bring home some little casks of it!

  Give Maud9 my love & tell her I'll write some time. And give anyone else my love but I shan't be writing to them. (This letter is to the 3 O'Shaughnesseys 10 who are thus 'you' not 'they'.) It is a dull letter again I think. I shall do this life better justice in conversation--or I hope so.

  Much love

  Eileen

  [XI, 363, pp. 13-15; handwritten]

  1.Offices of the POUM journal The Spanish Revolution.

  2.Robert Edwards (1905-90), unsuccessful Independent Labour Party parliamentary candidate in 1935, was a Labour and Co-operative MP from 1955 to 1987. In January 1937 he was Captain of the ILP contingent in Spain, linked to the POUM. He left Spain at the end of March to attend the ILP conference at Glasgow. In 1926 and 1934 he led delegations to the Soviet Union meeting Trotsky, Stalin and Molotov; was General Secretary of the Chemical Workers' Union, 1947-71; National Officer, Transport and General Workers' Union, 1971-76; and member of the European Parliament, 1977-79. (See Orwell Remembered, pp. 146-48, and especially Shelden, pp. 264-65, which demolishes Edwards's accusation that Orwell went to Spain solely to find material for a book.) 3.Eileen started to write 'Eric' but overwrote 'George.'

  4.Fenner Brockway (1888-1988; Lord Brockway, 1964) was General Secretary of the ILP, 1928, 1933-39, and its representative in Spain for a time. A devoted worker for many causes, particularly peace, he resigned from the ILP in 1946 and rejoined the Labour Party, which he represented in Parliament, 1950-64.

  5.In a footnote to Homage to Catalonia (p. 151), Orwell gives the purchasing value of the peseta as 'about fourpence' in pre-metric currency; 500 pesetas would be about PS8 6s 8d - say PS320 at today's values.