George Orwell: A Life in Letters (70 page)

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 Kimche
³
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]

1
.
Bill Dunn* and Sir Richard Rees*.

2
.
A. J. A. Symons: His Life and Speculations
(1950).

3
.
Jon Kimche (
1909–1994), author and journalist, was acting editor of
Tribune
, 1942–46, editor, 1946–1
948; and editor of the
Jewish Observer
, 1952–67. He and Orwell worked together at Booklovers’ Corner, 1934–35. He contributes several reminiscences to
Remembering Orwell.

4
.
R. H. S. Crossman (1907–1974), scholar, journalist, and left-wing politician (Labour
MP
, 1945–55); assistant editor of the
New Statesman
, 1938–55. Strenuous efforts were made to stop the publication of his political diaries (4
vols., 1975–81).

5
.
Konni Zilliacus (1894–1967), left-wing Labour MP, 1945–50 and 1955–67. He was frequently at odds with the Labour Party because of his extreme pro-Soviet opinions and was expelled in 1
949. (See Orwell’s ‘In Defence of Comrade Ziliacus’, XIX, 3254, pp. 179–84.)

To George Woodcock*

4 January 1948

Hairmyres Hospital

East Kilbride

Dear George,

I’d been meaning to write for some time to explain I wouldn’t be coming down to London after all. As I feared, I am seriously ill, T.B. in the left lung. I’ve only been in the hospital about a fortnight, but before that I was in bed at home for about 2
months. I’m likely to be here for some time, because the treatment, which involves putting the lung out of action, is a slow one, & in any case I’m so pulled down & weak that I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed for a couple of months or so. However, they seem confident they can patch me up all right, & I have felt a bit less like death since being here. It’s a nice hospital & everyone is very kind. With luck I may be out for the summer & then I think I’ll try & get a correspondent’s job somewhere warm next winter. I have [had] this disease before, but not so badly, & I’m pretty sure it was the cold of last winter that started me off.
¹

I hope the F.D.C.
²
is doing something about these constant demands to outlaw Mosley & Co.
Tribune
’s attitude I think has been shameful, & when the other week Zilliacus wrote in demanding what amounts to Fascist legislation & creation of 2nd-class citizens, nobody seems to have replied. The whole thing is simply a thinly-disguised desire to persecute someone who can’t hit back, as obviously the Mosley lot don’t matter a damn & can’t get a real mass following. I think it’s a case for a pamphlet, & I only wish I felt well enough to write one. The central thing one has [to] come to terms with is the argument, always advanced by those advocating repressive legislation, that ‘you cannot allow democracy to be used to overthrow democracy—you cannot allow freedom to those who merely use it in order to destroy freedom’. This of course is true, & both Fascists & Communists do aim at making use of democracy in order to destroy it. But if you carry this to its conclusion, there can be no case for allowing any political or intellectual freedom whatever. Evidently therefore it is a matter of distinguishing between a real & a merely theoretical threat to democracy, & no one should be persecuted for expressing his opinions, however anti-social, & no political organisation suppressed, unless it can be shown that there is
a substantial threat
to the stability of the state
.
That is the main point I should make any way. Of course there are many others.

I’ve done no work whatever for 2–3 months. In this place I couldn’t do serious work even if I felt well, but I intend shortly to start doing an occasional book review, as I think I’m equal to that & I might as well earn some money. Richard was blooming when I came away, but I’m going to have him thoroughly examined, as he has of course been subjected to infection. All the best to Inge.

Yours

George

[XIX, 3329, pp. 254–5; handwritten]

1
.
When snow began to fall on 24 January 1947 it was the start of the bitterest cold experienced in the UK in the twentieth century. It led, for example, to electricity cuts for five hours a day, suspension of the Third Programme and
TV
, cuts in radio transmission and suspension of many journals coupled with paper rationing, and an increase in unemployment from
400,000 in mid January to 1,750,000. (See David Kynaston,
Austerity Britain, 1945–51
(2007; pb, 2008, pp. 189–200).

2
.
The Freedom Defence Committee, of which Orwell was vice-chairman; George Woodcock, secretary; and Herbert Read, chairman. The FDC’s Bulletins for Spring and Autumn 1948 (Nos. 6 and 7), though reporting efforts to help other unpopular causes—deserters, Polish ‘recalcitrants’ (its quotes), Dr Allan Nunn May, and Norman Baillie-Stewart (a British Fascist) – make no mention of ‘Mosley & Co’.

To Helmut Klöse

12 January 1948

Hairmyres Hospital

East Kilbride

Dear Klöse,
¹

I am ashamed I have not written earlier to thank you for those apples you sent, also for your long letter of advice about the tractors. But as I dare say you know I have been seriously ill for about 3 months. It is TB of the left lung. I was brought to this hospital some weeks ago, & I am glad to say I am feeling definitely better. Of course I’m frightfully weak & have lost a great deal of weight, but I don’t feel sick & giddy all the time as I did at first, & have got some appetite back. I imagine I shall be under treatment for a long time, as it is a slow cure which involves disabling the defective lung so as to let it heal without having to work. However they seem quite confident of being able to patch me up, & they say this disease is not so dangerous at my age as if I was younger. Of course I’ve done not a stroke of work for months past, but I am going to start doing a little book-reviewing soon.

In your letter you were inclined to think the
BMB
was the best light tractor. However, after getting all the specifications from a firm which deals in these tractors, I finally decided on the one you told me of first, the Iron Horse. From the photographs I thought it was a bit more solidly constructed than the other, which would be an advantage in a place like Jura, & also you can hitch horse-drawn implements on to it, which would be a great help because one could then use it for cutting the hay & even the oats. It also has a 5-cwt trailer which would be useful for potatoes, manure & so on. I am getting a circular saw, but I believe at present it’s almost impossible to get blades. I will take your advice & not try to run a dynamo off the tractor. Actually we find we can light the house quite satisfactorily with paraffin lamps. We use the Tilly incandescent lamps which are very powerful & don’t use much oil.

Karl
²
& David Astor * came & visited me here yesterday, bringing loads of food with them. It was very kind of them to make the long uncomfortable journey. The weather has turned absolutely filthy, snow & fog alternating, making me quite glad to be in bed. There was marvellous weather in Jura all the time before I came away, brilliant sunshine on the snow & the sea as blue & smooth as the Mediterranean. The average winter temperature there is very mild & the grass seems to be quite nourishing up till about Christmas. The blackfaced sheep remain out all the winter without being fed, & the highland cattle can get through the winter without feeding, though of course it’s better to feed them.

My little boy, now 3½, is getting enormous. We are trying to get hold of an attested cow so as to make sure that he doesn’t get this disease of mine. I hope I shall see you again some time.