George Orwell

This article has been written by Richard Blair, George Orwell's son. It draws from the experience of Richard at Barnhill with his father.

George Orwell on Jura
Although my father had been to Jura before at the invitation of David Astor (the Astor family had an estate in the middle of the island), who, as proprietor of the Observer newspaper, had been using articles written by my father. He was to finally to arrive in the third week of May 1946 to take up residence at Barnhill, a farm house at the North end of Jura and where he had decided that this was the place where he could settle down and get on with writing what turned out to be his last and world famous novel, 1984. This house was about as remote as it could get, with only a few neighbours to the North. He describes it as a totally "ungetatable" place. Access to a shop was down 8 miles of rough track to Ardlussa, followed by 20 miles of single track road. There was no electricity or telephone at Barnhill and water was from a well. However he was able to make the place habitable and there were supplies that came by road, such as coal, paraffin for light and groceries, although still rationed as was the case for the rest of the country. However, he was able to supplement this with fish and by shooting rabbits. Venison would appear occasionally from the estate.



So this is the scene that I was to find myself when I arrived later on that year when my father came down to London to fetch me and my nanny, Susan Watson. Meanwhile, he had also made arrangements with his younger sister, Avril, to come and look after the house and be his housekeeper/ companion. It was however an unfortunate arrangement, because Avril (otherwise always know as Av) and Susan did not get on well. Two main reasons, a) because Susan insisted the she call my father “George”, when Av called him “Eric”, and b) Susan had mobility problems and Av’s opinion was that she was unsuited to the rigors of life on Jura. The result was that Susan and her then boyfriend left, never to return. During his time there were many friends and relations who came and visited. He was also doing his best to cultivate a garden from a field in front of the house that had not been worked on for a long time, but he gradually managed to plant vegetables and fruit trees. The biggest problem were rabbits and red deer, since he had no proper deer proof fencing to protect what he was trying to grow. Rabbits he would shoot and that provided food for the table as did fish and lobsters.

I don’t remember a great deal of the first year (1946), but there were times when my father returned to London, during the late autumn and early winter. 1947, was a time when I became aware of my surroundings and was able to identify episodes, albeit briefly of my living at Barnhill. It was that summer that Bill Dunn first appeared. Having lost his leg during the war, he had come to the island to learn about farming and moved into Barnhill after about five months of living at the farm at the North end of Jura sometime in May of that year. My father was happy for him to do the farming part of Barnhill as he was quite unable to do so himself and became an unofficial partner. It was about April that whilst watching my father making a wooden toy for me, I fell and cut my head very badly. It took a couple of days to get me down to Ardlussa to get stitched by the island doctor, Dr Sandeman, who lived at Craighouse at the other end of the island. About this time I think I also developed whooping cough. That summer was quite eventful as later on in the year, we as a family. I had older cousins staying at the time, decided to go round to the back of Jura to Glengarrisdale Bay and stay in an old bothy. A week end of rest and recreation, however on our return, with myself, my father and two cousins, Lucy and Henry Dakin (they were, with Jane, the three children of my father’s older sister, Marjorie Dakin). Apart from the four of us, the others had walked back to Barnhill to continue hay making. The four of us are now in a small dinghy and making our way back through the Gulf of Corryvreckan, a notorious stretch of water between the top end of Jura and the island of Scarba. It was here that we got into trouble, first of all the outboard was pulled off the stern of the dinghy, so Henry had to take to the oars and row to a little island, where he jumped ashore with the mooting rope. Unfortunately the dinghy rode up the rocks with the swell and as it receded the dinghy slipped down and turned upside down throwing my father and myself out of the boat, also underneath. However we were pulled out unharmed and we now had to wait on this rather rocky island and wait to be rescued, which happened sooner than later by two lobster fishermen, who happened to be passing through. They took us back and landed us so that we could now walk back on the road, whereupon there were remarks about being late! Although this was quite a serious event, it turned out safely. However it could so easily have had a tragic ending; no Orwell, no 1984!



During all this time my father was struggling with his new novel, not helped by ill health. There several times when he had to retire to bed to get over bronchitis. Being thrown into the water certainly didn’t help, however he continued to keep writing. His fame as a writer was gaining ground. After the success of Animal Farm, readers were beginning to look at other books he had written, plus all the articles and essays that had been published.

My father spent the first half of 1948 in hospital at Hairmyers, East Kilbride, for the treatment of what had now been diagnosed as tuberculosis. Treatment in the form of the newly discovered antibiotic, streptomycin, imported from America was administered as per the instructions, but was found that he was allergic to this treatment and after several weeks had to be discontinued. There is no doubt that it did have some effect, but it did no cure the disease. He arrived back at Barnhill to continue writing and towards the end of 1948 finally finished what was to be his last work. There was some debate as to what he would call his novel, but the upshot was that it would have the title of 1984. I continued to flourish on Jura. My father was caught in the dilemma of not wanting to infect me with TB, but also not to alienate himself from me. The general consensus was that I was pretty robust and showed no signs of infection. We had bought a milking cow that had been tested and passed as TB free, so there was little chance of me or anybody else coming into contact with this highly infectious disease. Life on Jura continued within the family round the cycle of farming and being able to fish most evenings during the summer. It was a simple way of life, crafting in the Western Isles was never easy and making money was hard work. No doubt the income from my fathers writing helped to ease the pain. I loved to “help” on the farm and I suppose that like most small boys I was more of a hindrance than help. As for company of other children I had the visits of cousins and the children of friends, something I enjoyed very much. Occasionally we would go down to Ardlussa for the purpose of some sort of gathering or meet relations and I would have the chance to play with the Fletchers children, one of whom was about my age. The Fletchers were our landlords and owned the Ardlussa Estate. I think being torn away from other children’s toys would have prompted howls of protest, but to no avail!

However, at the end of 1948 my father suffered a serious setback, the effort in having to rewrite the manuscript, which he considered to be delegable and therefore would need to be done again was the final act that sent him back to his specialist, who immediately said he needed to go into a sanatorium and one much closer to London, where he could be monitored more easily. His publisher couldn’t find anybody to come to Jura to retype what was now to become 1984. I recall being with him in the car in January 1949 when he was being taken down to Craighouse to catch the ferry that would finally take him to the sanatorium at Cranham, near Stroud in Gloustershire. During that journey, the car had a puncture and Ava and Bill had to go back to Barnhill to get the spare wheel. My father and I spent the last together on Jura as he read me stories to while away the time. In the event this turned out to be his final journey as he spent the rest of the spring and summer at Cranham and finally the decision was taken by his specialist, Dr Morland, that he should be transferred to University College Hospital London, where they could monitor him more closely. However, during his period at the sanatorium I came down to see him and I was fostered out to a family, I think by the name of Wolf. I also recall that I went to school for the first time in the locality. 1984 had now come out to great acclaim and wonderful reviews and in October of that year he remarried to Sonia Brownell, who had been a secretary to Cyril Connelly at the Tribune office that Orwell contributed so much of his output in the way of articles. Plans were made for him and Sonia to go to Switzerland in January of 1950, but sadly on the eve of them going his bronchial artery ruptured and he drowned in his own blood. I was still on Jura and Av and Bill heard the news on the radio, so Av had to hurry off to London and his funeral. As he wanted to be buried with rights of the English church, David Astor, who had invited my father in the first place to come to Jura, persuaded his local vicar in Sutton Courtney in Oxfordshire that he could do worse than have a famous author in his church yard. It was agreed and many people make the pilgrimage to this day to see where he is buried.

After his death I remained on Jura with Av and Bill whilst they decided what the next would be, so in the interim I was sent down to the local village school at Inverlussa, where I boarded with the local postmistress during the week. My journey would be by boat on a Monday morning, returning to Barnhill on Friday afternoon. Our life sadly came to an end in early autumn, when we left Barnhill and the Isle of Jura for the last time. Av and I went south to Nottingham where we stayed with her brother-in-law, Humphrey Dakin at a house by Rufford Abbey. Meanwhile Bill went looking for a farm in which he and Av could set up home after they got married, I would live with them as Av had now become my legal guardian. So in March 1950 the three of us moved into a farm that was on the mainland in the parish of Craignish.

As a foot note I have been back many times to Jura and several times to Barnhill. I regard that part of the world as my spiritual home and plan to have my ashes scattered in the Gulf of Corryvreckan. The waters will finally get their due!