George Orwell: A Life in Letters (25 page)

The above address will find me for a bit. I’ll give you the new one when I have it—probably a poste restante address, as I don’t think they will deliver letters where we are going to. Best love to Mary and Peter. Eileen also sends love.

Yours

Eric

P.S. [
handwritten at top of first page
] Yes, I did once just meet Alec Henderson
²
at a party. The village people are really very nice, especially the Hatchetts, Mrs Anderson, Titley, Keep, Edie (Mrs Ridley’s daughter) & her husband Stanley, & Albert, Mrs R’s other son in law. I don’t know what one can really do for old H[atchett] except occasionally to give him eggs when his hens don’t lay. He is a dear old man. Tell them all you’ve heard from me & I wanted to be remembered to them.

[XI, 489, pp. 210–12; typewritten]

1
.
Orwell’s goat, with whom he is to be seen in a very familiar picture (see Crick, plate
19). Also the name of the goat in
Animal Farm.

2
.
Possibly this was a neighbour at Wallington, but since he is separated from the ‘village people’ he may not be local. ‘Alec’ could be an error for ‘Arthur’, Arthur Henderson, Sr (1863–1935). His son (1893–1
966), like his father, was a Labour
MP
, 1923–24, 1929–31, and 1935–66.

Marjorie Dakin* to Eileen Blair* and Orwell

3 October 1938

166 St Michael’s Hill

Bristol

My dear Eileen and Eric,

Thanks very much for your letters, and the £1 enclosed. Marx is being perfectly good except for such natural wickedness as will never be eradicated. He is very obedient out of doors, and comes directly when called, also is learning to keep on pavements, as we let him off the leash in quiet roads to train him. He has simply terrific games with the children, especially on the downs. A sword of Damocles has been hanging over his head, he was threatened with being made into sausages if there was a food shortage, also Tor, though he is getting a bit tough.

As you will have gathered there has been complete wind-up about war, everybody thought it had really come this time, as indeed it may yet. All preparations are being pushed on just the same. I took the children down to get their gas-masks the other day, not that I have much faith in them, but still it is the correct thing to do. I have heard that the A.R.P. is a farce so far, if there was a really bad bombing raid, there would be practically nobody who knew what to do.
¹
I also heard that all the warning that Bristol would get would be four minutes, and London only 25 seconds, but I don’t know if this is true.
²
If it is it hardly seems worth while to do anything, as I don’t see myself getting the children into gasmasks and shelter in four minutes.

Humph has been transferred
pro. tem.
into the Ministry of Transport, and has been sent off to Salisbury, but I imagine he will be back quite soon now. As far as he could make out all the high officials in London (in transport) moved out in a body to the south of England with their wives and families. The head man took over the Truro district. Humph as the only outsider was given Salisbury, it being the most dangerous place.

Everything here was perfectly calm, no meetings of any kind. All the parks and gardens have been dug up into shelters, and England is swept clean of corrugated iron and sand bags. I believe the grocers have done a roaring trade ‘better than Christmas’. I didn’t go in for a food hoarding myself except to buy a sack of potatoes, which the grocer offered me.

Devon and Cornwall are simply packed, there is not a house or rooms to be had for love or money, people who went up to London on Friday said it was practically empty, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens have miles of trenches in them. The bill has now to be paid.

I hope Chamberlain rounds off the thing properly, and offers to give back Germany her mandated colonies, also tries to do something about removing tariffs. Otherwise I think we shall have everything to be ashamed of, in saving our skins at the expense of the Czechs. But I bet he won’t. It looks as if poor France has had a kick in the pants, to be vulgar, agreements being signed without reference to her. Personally I think there is going to be a most awful row over the whole thing, when the hysteria has died down a bit. One school of thought says that we shall not be ready for war for another two years and that the Govt. will do anything to put it off till then,
³
others, that now that the great ones of the earth realise that it is really going to be a ‘free for all’ and that is not just a case of ‘giving’ one’s son it puts a different complexion on things.

I think if there is another war, I shall have Humph in a lunatic asylum in two twos,
⁴
his nerves are in an awful state, I was really quite glad when he went off to Salisbury poor dear, as he was adding to the horrors of the situation very considerably and of course the children
⁵
didn’t care two hoots, and were enjoying the whole thing, Hen[ry] went round and really had his fill of looking at searchlights and machine guns, and Jane was perfectly indifferent, except that she hoped they wouldn’t turn the Art School into a Hospital.

My heart goes out to you over the four-foot tray, I have one of the same ilk, but I had a trestle made to go under it and use it as [a] table. I have had some pretty B.
⁶
furniture landed on me from Dr. Dakin’s
⁷
house, things I have loathed from my childhood, but I am hoping to be able to discreetly jettison them soon. Excuse typing faults, I am doggedly practising on all my friends and relations.

Have you read any books by a man called R. C. Hutchinson.
⁸

I have just read a book of his called
Shining Scabbard
which I thought was awfully good. I believe his latest one
Testament
is even better.

Thanks very much for the offer of the cottage, but if things become really desperate, I expect we should try to get up to Middlesmoor,
⁹
the cottage there is still furnished, a friend of mine took it over, and I daresay we could all fit in, as it is a magic cottage, and will hold an unlimited amount of people.

Best love to you both

Marge.

[XI,
492, pp. 215–7; typewritten]

1
.
In January 193
8 the government decreed that children be issued gas masks and in April 1938 the rest of the population be measured for them, many months before the Munich crisis. A.R.P. = Air Raid Precautions (which were more effective than Marjorie feared).

2
.
It was not correct: there was generally adequate time to seek shelter. Bristol would be severely bombed.

3
.
This was a reasonable approximation of the position.

4
.
In the 1930s this meant the brief time necessary to add dabs of rouge and powder to each cheek before dashing out. In the nineteenth century it referred to an overrouged overpowdered street woman.

5
.
Marjorie and Humphrey Dakin had three children: Jane, born 1923; Henry,
1925; and Lucy, 1930.

6
.
Bloody.

7
.
Humphrey’s father. Both he and Humphrey served in World War I, and were on the Somme together. Humphrey was wounded and lost an eye. His father, who was a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps, patched him up.

8
.
Ray Coryton Hutchinson (1907–1975
).
Shining Scabbard
was published in 1936 and
Testament
had just appeared.

9
.
In his Wigan Pier Diary for 9 March 1936 Orwell writes that he had gone to stay there with Marjorie and Humphrey.

Eileen Blair* to Geoffrey Gorer*

4 October 1938

Chez Mme Vellat

Marrakech

Dear Geoffrey,

Your letter has just arrived. Of course
we
are blameworthy. I thought Eric had written to you & now I see he can’t have done so. For myself I don’t remember the last few weeks in England except that they were spent almost entirely in trains. People had to be said good-bye to & things (including Eric) collected from all over the country & the cottage had to be handed over furnished but nakedly to the Commons who are spending the winter there & mustering the goats etc. We were thrust out of England very hurriedly partly in case war broke out & partly because Eric was getting rebellious & I had rebelled. As it turns out this was rather a pity. Marrakech is the
dernier cri
of fashionable medicine. Certainly it is dry. They’ve had three years’ drought, including 17 months entirely without rain. But the climate doesn’t get tolerable in any year until the end of September & this year the hot weather still persists. We are both choosing our shrouds (the Arabs favour bright green & don’t have coffins which is nice on funeral days for the flies who leave even a restaurant for a few minutes to sample a passing corpse
¹
), but have now chosen instead a villa. It’s in the middle of an orange-grove in the palm-tree country at the foot of the Atlas from which the good air comes. I think Eric really will benefit when we get there but it isn’t available until the 15
^th
. We’ve bought the furniture—for about £10. I’ve only seen the place once for five minutes & I wasn’t allowed to open the shutters & there was no artificial light, but I believe it could be very attractive. Garnished with us & our ten pounds’ worth it may be odd to the eye but will be comforting to the spirit. We shall even have goats who will be physically as well as emotionally important because fresh milk is otherwise unobtainable. It’s five kilometres from Marrakech.

Do you know Morocco? We found it a most desolate country—miles & miles of ground that is not technically desert, i.e. it could be cultivated if it were irrigated but without water is simply earth & stones in about equal proportions with not even a weed growing. We got all excited the other day because we found a dock. The villa is in one of the more fertile bits. Marrakech itself is beautiful in bits. It has ramparts & a lot of buildings made of earth dug up about five feet below ground level. This dries a soft reddish colour so the French call Marrakech ‘la rouge’ & paint everything that isn’t earth a dreadful salmon-beige. The best thing is the native pottery. Unfortunately it generally isn’t glazed (except some bits painted in frightful designs for the tourist trade) but we’re trying to get some things made watertight. There are exquisite white clay mugs with a very simple black design inside. They cost a franc & it seems to us that people here generally earn about a franc to two francs an hour.

Eric is going to write to you & I shall leave him the crisis. I am determined to be pleased with Chamberlain because I want a rest. Anyway Czecho-Slovakia ought to be pleased with him; it seems geographically certain that that country would be ravaged at the beginning of any war fought in its defence. But of course the English Left is always Spartan; they’re fighting Franco to the last Spaniard too.

I hope the old book & the new go well.
²
Are you going to America? If you happen to come to the south of Europe, call on us. It isn’t very difficult—indeed there’s an air service from Tangier—& we have a spare room (quite spare I should say, not even furniture in it) & we could go & look at the country on donkeys & possibly at the desert on camels, & we should enjoy it very much.

I’d better send love from us both in case Eric’s letter gets delayed. He has begun his novel
³
& is also carpentering—there is a box for the goats to eat out of & a hutch for the chickens though we have no goat yet & no chickens.

Yours ever

Eileen.

The villa is not in any postal district & I think we have to have a ‘box’. We’ll let you know the proper address when we discover it.

[XI, 49
3, pp. 217–8; handwritten]

1
.
Compare the first paragraph of Orwell’s essay, ‘Marrakech’(published Christmas 1939; XI, p. 416); ‘As the corpse went past the flies left the restaurant table in a cloud and rushed after it, but they came back a few minutes later.’ (See also
14–17.12.38
, n. 6.)

2
.
Probably
Hot Strip Tease and Other Notes on American Culture
(1937) and
Himalayan Village: An Account of the Lepchas of Sikkim
(1938; US, 1967).

3
.
Coming Up for Air
.

To Jack Common*

12 October 1938

Chez Madame Vellat

Marrakech

Dear Jack,

Thanks for yours. There were several important items I wanted to talk to you about but they were chased out of my mind by the European situation. The first is, I think we forgot to warn you not to use thick paper in the WC. It sometimes chokes the cesspool up, with disastrous results. The best to use is Jeyes paper which is 6d a packet. The difference of price is negligible, and on the other hand a choked cesspool is a misery. Secondly, if you find the sitting room fire smokes intolerably, I think you can get a piece of tin put in the chimney, which is what it needs, for a very small sum. Brookers in Hitchin would tell you all about it. Or you could probably do it yourself. I was always meaning to but put it off. Thirdly, I enclose cheque for £3. Could you some time get this cashed and pay £2 to Field, the postmaster at Sandon, for the rent of the field. It’s a lot overdue as a matter of fact but F. never remembers about it. Field goes past in his grey car, which he uses to carry cattle in, every Tuesday on his way to Hitchin Market, and one can sometimes stop him if one jumps into the middle of the road and waves. As to the remaining £
1, could you some time in the winter get some or, if possible, all of the ground in the vegetable garden dug over? Old H[atchett] is getting so old that I don’t really like asking him to do that kind of work, but he’s always glad of it and, of course, willing to work for very low rates. There’s no hurry, it’s just a question of getting the vacant ground turned over some time in the winter and preferably some manure (the goat’s stuff is quite good if there isn’t too much straw in it) dug in. The official theory is that we are to give up the cottage next spring, so I suppose on good business principles one ought to exhaust the soil by taking an enormous crop of Brussels off it and then let it go to hell. But I hate starving soil and in addition I’m not so certain of giving up the cottage. As I expect you’ve discovered by this time it’s truly a case of be it never so humble, but the fact is that it’s a roof and moving is so damned expensive besides being a misery. I think I would rather feel I had the cottage there to move into next April, even if when the time comes we don’t actually do it, because I don’t know what my financial situation will be next year. I don’t believe my book on Spain sold at all, and if I have to come back to England and start on yet another book with about £50 in the world I would rather have a roof over my head from the start. It’s a great thing to have a roof over your head even if it’s a leaky one. When Eileen and I were first married, when I was writing
Wigan Pier
, we had so little money that sometimes we hardly knew where the next meal was coming from, but we found we could rub along in a remarkable manner with spuds and so forth. I hope the hens have begun laying. Some of them have by this time, I expect, at any rate they ought to. We’ve just bought the hens for our house, which we’re moving into on Saturday. The hens in this country are miserable little things like the Indian ones, about the size of bantams, and what is regarded as a good laying hen, ie. it lays once a fortnight, costs less than a shilling. They ought only to cost about 6d, but at this time of year the price goes up because after Yom Kippur every Jew, of whom there are 13,000 in this town, eats a whole fowl to recompense him for the strain of fasting 12 hours.