George Orwell: A Life in Letters (35 page)

To the Editor,
Time and Tide

22 June 1940

Sir: It is almost certain that England will be invaded within the next few days or weeks, and a large-scale invasion by sea-borne troops is quite likely. At such a time our slogan should be
ARM THE PEOPLE
.
I am not competent to deal with the wider questions of repelling the invasion, but I submit that the campaign in France and the recent civil war in Spain have made two facts clear. One is that when the civil population is unarmed, parachutists, motor cyclists and stray tanks can not only work fearful havoc but draw off large bodies of regular troops who should be opposing the main enemy. The other fact (demonstrated by the Spanish war) is that the advantages of arming the population outweigh the danger of putting weapons into the wrong hands. By-elections since the war started have shown that only a tiny minority among the common people of England are disaffected, and most of these are already marked down.

ARM THE PEOPLE
is in itself a vague phrase, and I do not, of course, know what weapons are available for immediate distribution. But there are at any rate several things that can and should be done
now
, i.e. within the next three days:

1. Hand grenades. These are the only modern weapon of war that can be rapidly and easily manufactured, and they are one of the most useful. Hundreds of thousands of men in England are accustomed to using hand grenades and would be only too ready to instruct others. They are said to be useful against tanks and will be absolutely necessary if enemy parachutists with machine-guns manage to establish themselves in our big towns. I had a front-seat view of the street fighting in Barcelona in May, 1937, and it convinced me that a few hundred men with machine-guns can paralyse the life of a large city, because of the fact that a bullet will not penetrate an ordinary brick wall. They can be blasted out with artillery, but it is not always possible to bring a gun to bear. On the other hand, the early street fighting in Spain showed that armed men can be driven out of stone buildings with grenades or even sticks of dynamite if the right tactics are used.

2. Shotguns. There is talk of arming some of the Local Defence Volunteer
¹
contingents with shotguns. This may be necessary if all the rifles and Bren guns are needed for the regular troops. But in that case the distribution should be made
now
and all weapons should be immediately requisitioned from the gunsmiths’ shops. There was talk of doing this weeks ago, but in fact many gunsmiths’ windows show rows of guns which are not only useless where they are, but actually a danger, as these shops could easily be raided. The powers and limitations of the shotgun (with buckshot, lethal up to about sixty yards) should be explained to the public over the radio.

3
. Blocking fields against aircraft landings. There has been much talk of this, but it has only been done sporadically. The reason is that it has been left to voluntary effort, i.e. to people who have insufficient time and no power of requisitioning materials. In a small thickly-populated country like England we could within a very [few] days make it impossible for an aeroplane to land anywhere except at an aerodrome. All that is needed is the labour. Local authorities should therefore have powers to conscript labour and requisition such materials as they require.

4. Painting out place-names. This has been well done as regards sign-posts, but there are everywhere shopfronts, tradesmen’s vans, etc., bearing the name of their locality. Local authorities should have the power to enforce the painting-out of these immediately. This should include the brewers’ names on public houses. Most of these are confined to a fairly small area, and the Germans are probably methodical enough to know this.

5. Radio sets. Every Local Defence Volunteer headquarters should be in possession of a radio receiving set, so that if necessary it can receive its orders over the air. It is fatal to rely on the telephone in a moment of emergency. As with weapons, the Government should not hesitate to requisition what it needs.

All of these are things that could be done within the space of a very few days. Meanwhile, let us go on repeating
arm the people
,
in the hope that more and more voices will take it up. For the first time in decades we have a Government with imagination, and there is at least a chance that they will listen.

[XII, pp. 192–3; typewritten]

1
.
Orwell attended a conference on the formation of the Local Defence Volunteers, which he joined, at Lord’s Cricket Ground on 12 June 1940. This was later re-named the Home Guard. Orwell was soon promoted Sergeant in C Company, 5
^th
County of London Battalion and proved a keen and innovative member. His lecture notes survive and are included in the
Complete Works
.

To Sacheverell Sitwell*

6 July 1940

18 Dorset Chambers

Chagford Street

Ivor Place NW 1

Dear Mr. Sitwell,

I had your book on poltergeists to review for
Horizon
and was very interested by it. I could only do a review of about 600 words and I don’t know whether they’ll print all of that, as they haven’t much space. When I read that very creepy incident you describe of the girl medium dressing dummies or arranging clothes about the room, it brought back to me a memory of 10 years ago which I thought you might like to hear, as I believe it has a remote bearing on your subject.

About ten years ago I was out for a walk on Walberswick common, near Southwold, in Suffolk, with a backward boy I was tutor to at the time.
¹
Under a gorse bush the boy noticed a neatly tied-up parcel and drew my attention to it. It was a cardboard box about 10'' by 6'' by 3'' deep. Inside we found that it was lined with cloth and made up like a little room, with tiny furniture made of matchwood and scraps of cloth glued together. There were also (for the sake of complete accuracy I must say that I am not sure whether these were in the same box or another) some tiny female garments including underclothes. There was also a scrap of paper with ‘This is not bad is it?’ (or nearly those words) written on it in an evidently feminine hand. The neatness and flimsiness of the whole thing made me feel sure it had been made by a woman. What chiefly impressed me was that anyone should go to the trouble of making this thing, which would have meant some hours’ work, then carefully tie it up in a parcel and thrust it away under a bush, and in a rather remote spot at that. For what such ‘intuitive’ feelings are worth, I may say that I felt convinced (a) that it had been put there with the intention that someone should find it, and (b) that it had been made by someone suffering from some kind of sexual aberration. Walberswick has a very small population and one could probably have deduced who was responsible with a little trouble. I may add that the boy I was with could have had nothing to do with it. He was not only very backward but was a cripple and so clumsy with his hands as to have been quite incapable of anything of the kind. The strange thing is that I do not remember what finally happened to the box. To the best of my recollection we put it back under the bush and on coming back some days later found it was gone. At any rate I didn’t keep it, which would seem the natural thing to do. I have often puzzled over the incident since, and always with the feeling that there was something vaguely unwholesome in the appearance of the little room and the clothes. Then in your book you linked up the doll-dressing impulse in girls with definite mental aberration, and it struck me that this affair had a sort of bearing on the subject. The fact that I promptly remembered the incident when reading that passage in your book seems to establish a kind of connection.

I have ventured to write to you though not knowing you. Possibly you have seen some of my books however. I believe your sister at any rate knows of me as we have a common friend in Geoffrey Gorer.*
²

Yours sincerely

George Orwell

[XII, 653, pp. 208–9; typewritten]

1
.
Bryan Morgan who had been crippled by polio. (See D.J. Taylor, p.
112.)

2
.
Sitwell replied on 22 July, saying he would have written earlier but was trying to finish a book. Orwell’s story was, he said, ‘most interesting—and decidedly weird. I wish one knew the secret of it.’ He also wished they could meet sometime and said that his sister, Dame Edith Sitwell (1887–1964), was staying with him and had asked him to say that she had ‘read with admiration nearly everything you have written’.

To Leonard Moore*

22 October 1940

18 Dorset Chambers

Chagford Street NW 1

Dear Mr Moore,

I have only just had your letter as I have been in the country for a week. I didn’t get a previous letter you refer to in it. That is what the posts are like.

I have thought it over and I don’t think I can do that thing for Hutchinson’s. I am sorry you have been to some trouble about it. But I don’t really know anything about the subject and it would mean doing research which is very difficult at present, especially as I can’t leave London for any length of time. Please apologise to them for me, and accept my own apologies for yourself.
¹

I have nearly finished the short book I am doing for Warburg and shall have it done in about 10 days° time. I would have finished it earlier only I have been ill, which was why I went down to the country. The title is to be
The Lion and the Unicorn
.
²

Yours sincerely

Eric Blair

[XII, 699, p. 277; typewritten]

1
.
It is not known what this proposal was.

2
.
This was the first of the series of Searchlight Books. The series was planned by Fredric Warburg, Tosco Fyvel and Orwell. The full title is
The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius
. It was published on 19 February 1941. The first run comprised 7,500 copies and was followed by a second impression of 5,000 copies. Unfortunately unsold stock and the type, with that for
Homage to Catalonia,
were destroyed when the Mayflower Press in Plymouth was bombed. (See also Eileen’s letter to Norah,
5.12.40
.)

Eileen* to Norah Myles*

[c. 5 December 1940?]

24 Croom’s Hill
SE
10

[
no salutation
]

This is to accompany a Charming Gift but I don’t know what the gift is yet because it will be bought this afternoon. Or so I hope. I have been
ILL
. Ever so ill. Bedridden for 4 weeks & still
weak
. You know or Quartus does perhaps though it’s more than all my local doctors do. They diagnosed cystitis and then they diagnosed nephrolithiasis & then they diagnosed Malta fever
¹
with ovarian complications & then they went all hush-hush while they diagnosed a tuberculous infection so that I couldn’t possibly guess what they were testing for. They haven’t yet diagnosed cancer or G.P.I.
²
but I expect they will shortly. They’re in a great worry because nothing can be found wrong with my heart as that was assumed to be giving out very soon. Meanwhile a perfectly sweet little pathologist like a wren did an ordinary blood count & found the haemoglobin down to 57%. This is much despised by the clin-icians but in fact they can find nothing else. So now I hear I’ll be cured when I weigh
9 stone
. As my present weight is 7st 12
. with my clothes on I think perhaps they’ll lose interest before the cure is complete. I went to Norfolk for a fortnight’s convalescence and wanted to start work on Monday as all this is just silly, but I can’t go back without a health certificate & the wretched man won’t sign one. However I am now allowed to go shopping on medical grounds though the financial ones aren’t so good.

How is your paint?
³
I hope for a Word at Christmas. Marjorie (née Blair) says they’re quite O.K. but I don’t know where S. Michael’s Hill is
⁴
& have no inside information about the Bristol blitz. I may give up this job for a bit anyway & perhaps see for myself after all. I had arranged a long weekend (which I was going to spend with
y
ou
) because the pain was worse but then it got a lot worse & the long weekend was merged in sick leave.

George has written a little book, no 1 in the Searchlight Books (Secker & Warburg 2/-), out next month, which please note. Explaining how to be a Socialist though Tory. It was going to cost 1/-, which would have been better, but Warburg changed at the last minute & the book had to have another 10,000 words inserted to give value for twice the money. Some of the later ones look like being good.

I hope you have a tolerable Christmas. We’re having the Dinner on Boxing Day, theoretically for lonely soldiers but they are so lonely that we don’t know them yet. Mother is still away of course. Now I shall go and shop. But can you send on an envelope to Mary, of whose address I have no idea[?] I also don’t know whether she got any further news about Teddy though he was posted Missing in the
Times
months after the
Glorious
went down.
⁵
She was really magnificent about that. I have been assuming that it was hopeless but of course it’s possible that he was taken prisoner. George Kopp,* whom I had also assumed dead, was captured with two bullets in his chest & part of his left hand shot off. Later he escaped to unoccupied France & he’s now trying to get here
⁶
but his letters take about two months to come so one can’t know much of what is happening.