A Doubleplusgood Evening In The Company Of George Orwell's Biographer.

"We shall meet in a place where there is no darkness" - George Orwell (1984)

 

According to those who know these things, there are only seven people left alive in the whole world who have a coherent memory of having met George Orwell. None of them were present yesterday evening when I attended The Sohemian Society's The Life And Work Of George Orwell in their new home, The Fitzroy Tavern. A nice room but one they would have done well to not allow non-attendees into as some of them were chatting so loud it was, at times, hard to hear interviewer Travis Elborough and guest D.J. Taylor talk.

Which was a shame because the talk was absolutely fascinating. Even some feedback issues (which made me think of The Jesus And Mary Chain but saw Taylor quipping about Tangerine Dream instead) couldn't ruin it. If you're going to attend a talk about Orwell then D.J. Taylor is the man you want giving it. In 2003, he wrote the esteemed biography Orwell:The Life (which I had intended to read at the time but never did) and two years back he returned to his favourite author for Orwell:The New Life.

He certainly doesn't appear remotely bored of talking about the man born Eric Arthur Blair (born 1903, died, aged just forty-six, in 1950). He began by telling us how he first became aware of Orwell. Neither of his parents were particularly bookish but his mother's small literary collection contained a copy of Orwell's not particularly celebrated 1935 novel A Clergyman's Daughter and when he was about twelve years old Taylor found himself reading it.

 

He didn't find the story (about a clergyman's daughter - no shit - who has an attack of amnesia and joins a group of vagrants on a hop picking expedition in Kent) remotely relatable but the writing spoke to him like no writing had ever before. When Orwell read Henry Miller's 1934 Tropic Of Cancer he was blown away and had said "he wrote this for me". Taylor felt the same about Orwell and A Clergyman's Daughter.

The style, the humour, and the bitterness pulled him in and soon he moved on to the uncomfortable Keep The Aspidistra Flying (1936) which Taylor loved even more. He loved Orwell's way with words and he particularly singled out a scene where the grouchy protagonist Gordon Comstock talks about rejection letters coming through his door like "a pelican regurgitating flatfish". Although I've just read the book and can't recall that quote. The Internet doesn't seem to have much on it either.

Never mind. George Orwell had, in his younger life, been a brilliant scholar and had won a place at Eton but eventually he sacked it off and he never went to university. He considered himself, even at the age of thirteen, to be a failure except in practical matters. The irony being that when it came to these practical matters, DIY or map reading for example, he wasn't very good. Unlike the writing at which he was brilliant.

His writing, the likes of The Lion And The Unicorn, saw him become a kind of talisman of Englishness and, despite being a lifelong socialist, he was often quoted by Tory ministers. Yet, Orwell's family background wasn't very English at all. He was more French, more Scottish, and more Burmese. Like Gordon Comstock, his family had once been incredibly wealthy and though he was by no means poor he had a very real sense of being a member of a family in decline.

Also, like Gordon Comstock, he wasn't always the best (by our modern standards) when it came to how he treated women. It is believed he once sexually assaulted Jacintha Buddicom (something that was passed off as a "botched seduction"), Orwell's childhood sweetheart, yet she stayed in touch with him until he left for Burma to work as a member of the Indian Imperial Police. He had family there so he was not alone but he hated it and when he became ill with dengue fever he returned to Britain. It was 1927. He was still in his early twenties.

He returned with an engagement ring he'd purchased in Rangoon with the intention of proposing to Jacintha Buddicom (that name demands typing out in full I think) but she refused to meet with him. She'd recently given birth to an illegitimate child which, in the 1920s, carried quite a lot of shame and stigma.

Unable to settle down with his beloved, he instead focused his attentions on his writing and his parents went spare. As many parents have done over the years when their children announce their plans to become writers, pop stars, actors, or artists. Most, of course, don't succeed in making their dreams come true. But some do and that gives us all hope.

 

It was a time when the likes of W.H. Auden, Evelyn Waugh, and Christopher Isherwood were having their first works published but Orwell did not move in the same, elevated, circles that those men did and it took him a full five years before had a book published, 1933's poverty and destitution memoir Down And Out In Paris And London. Orwell had seen how the labouring classes had been exploited in the East and he wanted to investigate, and write about, how they were exploited closer to home. Of course, the homeless people he met when writing the book identified Orwell as a toff immediately but they rather respected him for his work all the same.

Even though there was a craze for this kind of investigative journalism that looked to shine a light on the treatment of the working class at the time. When Orwell wrote The Road To Wigan Pier in 1937, a contemporary joke had it that if you threw a rock down a mine it'd be more likely to hit a journalist than an actual miner. Nevertheless, Orwell's writing was so precise, so specific, and so powerful that his works, more than others, gained traction and, after his death, he became one of the chief inspirations for the next generation of writers and poets. People like Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin.

They admired the sparseness of Orwell's prose, the honesty of his writing, and its prophetic qualities. The latter of which we are, of course, still untangling. Orwell, following his premature death, was the totem pole in which the next generation danced around in search of some kind of divine inspiration. During his early life he could be, as we've learned, misogynistic and antisemitic but as he grew this changed. He made a point of writing very serious articles for Jewish magazines and when he married his first wife, the poet and psychologist Eileen O'Shaughnessy - who died at the tragically young age of thirty-nine, they adopted a son - Richard.

Richard Blair, now eighty years old, is still with us. His father, George Orwell/Eric Blair, died when he was five years old but Richard's life, of course, has often been defined by the old man, the old man who never got old. D.J. Taylor told an amusing story of dining with Richard Blair some years ago in a Spanish restaurant in New York. Richard went to talk to the staff at the restaurant about his father's time fighting in the Spanish Civil War (an episode that inspired 1938's Homage To Catalonia) for the republican and anti-fascist side. The staff at the restaurant however turned out to have been fascist Franco supporters. Awkward!

 

Orwell didn't like fascists (one example of his writing contains the quite bizarre line "all tobacconists are fascists") but he also had issues with communists who supported Stalin and during his time in Spain he became disillusioned with how the socialists spent more time tearing themselves apart than fighting against the right. An eternal, and recurrent, problem for those who align themselves with progressive causes and progressive politics.

He could also be pretty brutal in his book reviews too but he never seemed to take it personally and would remain on good terms with people whose books he had absolutely torn into. Even, sometimes, celebrating Christmas with them. He was a complicated man who demanded the end of the House of Lords and private schools at the very same time he was putting his son down for Eton.

Of course, his fame rests mostly on his last two novels. 1945's Animal Farm which the talk didn't really get into and 1949's Nineteen Eighty-Four (which I am currently reading, maybe I should have got D.J. Taylor to sign it) which the talk wrapped up on. Orwell had worked in Room 101 when he worked at the BBC so that bit was easy but the book had a much longer gestation than most of his work.

 

There's two reasons for that. Firstly, Orwell was ill, he was dying, and writing was becoming difficult for him (though reading the book that's hard to believe) but, also, the research, if you like, for the book was happening in real time. As he wrote his book about a dystopian future, elements of that dystopian future were developing in front if his very eyes - and they still are seventy-five years after his death.

George Orwell saw a future world that would no longer be run by generals with great armies but one that would bow down to the power of managers and technocrats. That was a scary thought when he died three quarters of a century ago. It's still a scary one now and it seemed like a very apposite note to end the talk on. 

The Q&A touched on GK Chesteron, JB Priestley, Lucian Freud, Gracie Fields, Charles Dickens (who Orwell believed as a man, and writer, "behaved decently" - and there could be no better accolade as far as Orwell was concerned, patriotism, liberalism, Englishness, and superstition (Orwell was very superstitious and, like my dad, would often throw a pinch of salt over his shoulder in public) and the talk also touched on such people, and subjects, as Somerset Maugham, Kafka, Soviet spies, Anthony Powell, Nigel Farage, ChatGPT, Alan Rickman, Alan Yentob, Tolstoy, Michael Foot, EM Forster, TS Eliot, Malcolm Muggeridge, Stalin, Alan Bates vs The Post Office, and the plucking of a goose with Orwell's sister Avril on the remote Scotttish island of Jura.

All of it was, like Orwell's writing, rather great. Thanks to the Sohemian Society (nice to meet with Mark, David, and Clive), thanks to The Fitzroy Tavern (though less background noise next time please), thanks to Travis Elborough, and thanks most of all to D.J. Taylor and, of course, George Orwell. The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection. Instead one seeks out events, and people, like this because getting together, sharing stories, thoughts, and ideas is what makes life worth living. A doubleplusgood evening out.

 

TADS #69:Guildford to Horsley (or Walking With Ghosts).

Seven years and two months ago the TADS walked the Wey from Godalming to Guidlford (in a walk, of course, called Walk This Wey). That was the eighteenth blogged TADS walk. This Saturday we walked the Wey again (or at least some of it) but this time it was the sixty-ninth blogged TADS walk (69 you say, hmmm, how to celebrate) and though it wasn't the exact same cast of walkers it was an equally wonderful day.

 

A very typical TADS day in fact. There were footpaths, fields, trees, waterfowl, beers, curry, laughter, ponderous map reading, minor run-ins with officialdom, and a rush to get to the Indian restaurant on time. That's how we roll in TADS. I try to organise as much possible beforehand but it seems inevitable that there will be unforeseen events that crop up on the day. Sometimes I get stressed by them but, after over seven years, I'm finally learning to roll with the punches.

I was up not long after 5am and out of the house not longer after 8. Picking up a Guardian at Sainsbury's (printed newspapers must surely be on death row) and taking a train to Crystal Palace and then another to Clapham Junction where I met with Pam at platform nine (as I have done so so many times) before we hopped on the speedy train to Guildford and made our way to Paul's Cafe in the bus station. I choose very glamorous venues for our brunchingtons.

Paul's Cafe, however, was too grim for some. Teresa left me a message to say her, Adam, and Shep had instead opted for a Wetherspoons breakfast. Shep had even risked a very early pint of Corona. I had no problem with Paul's. The chip butty, washed down with a cup of tea, was bloody delicious and once done Pam and I headed to The Rodboro Buildings (Guildford's Spoons - a surprisingly nice one and one some of us had ended up in back on that previous Guildford walk) where Pam ordered a gin'n'tonic and Shep, who'd already eaten, ordered a solitary sausage. A spicy vegan sausage that was hand delivered and Shep garnished with a circular blob of ketchup. Gourmet dining has reached Guildford.

At the station we met with Clive, Roxanne, Sharon, and Jason (who, it seems, weren't up for either Paul's Cafe or solitary Spoons sausages) and from there all nine of us (we had what Shep likes to call 'a decent crew') headed down to the banks of the Wey to get this walk started.

It was a gorgeous day. Bright blue skies, the big yellow guy had his hat one, there was a gentle breeze, people were cycling the footpath, rowing in the river, taking leisure boat rides, or simply soaking up some rays. We followed a pictruresque stretch of the Wey past some unusual statues (although I missed the dragonfly, giant, and otter promised on the mapometer website) and a branch of B&Q where we crossed the river and the A25 and continued along the opposite bank as it curled westerly.

Some of the scenery was as spectacular as the weather and it was a jolly, chatty bunch of walkers who passed through it. Not the slightly bedraggled strand of humans who reached the Indian restaurant about six hours later! The Wey split into two (the Wey and the Wey Navigation) for a while before rejoining. Glorious countryside on all sides of us until we passed over the bustling and busy A3 via a bridge on Clay Lane. 

Into Burpham. My phone had said Burpham was thirty-eight miles away but it turns out there's two Burphams and my phone thought I wanted the one near Arundel. Maybe one day I will. Disappointingly, we learned that local's pronounce it Birtham but that didn't stop Shep glugging on his fizzy water to produce a celebratory burp on arriving in Burpham.

Burpham seems like a quiet, pleasant, reasonably posh, and not particularly spectacular place. It's older than it looks though. It gets a mention (under its old name of Borham) in 1086's Domesday Book. We took very tasty ice creams (I had a 99) from an ice cream van parked near the Sutherland Memorial Park (named because the land was donated by the Duke of Sutherland) which hosts a war memorial, football pitches, petanque courts, and a children's playground.

We negotiated a couple of roundabouts and passed large branches of Aldi and Sainsbury's before passing under the railway lines and on to Merrow Common Road which took us, of course, to Merrow Common itself and down some lovely gentle lanes. Easy on the foot although that may not have been the case for the person who left their shoes there. Of course we imagined the worse. Dead men's shoes aside however, it was another lovely stretch. Through Clandon Park and, ultimately, out into West Clandon (some very fine houses there) and down to The Bull's Head pub.

Near some very impressive wisteria, Peter the Peacock (that's his name, a friendly member of bar staff told us) was preening himself in his own personal mirror (our first TADS peacock since Krug in The Trout Inn in Wolvercote in 2018) and, occasionally, letting out some horrible yelping noises. As I was introducing myself to the resplendent galliforme, Darren and Cheryl parked up nearby. Darren's hand and arm (on the left side, not his wanking hand) in a brace after an unfortunate incident in a LIDL car park. The most surprising thing about that story is that they were shopping in LIDL. Always had them down for Waitrose.

Pam and I drowned a brace of Shere Drop's (a local Surrey ale) and we found a big table (big enough for eleven of us) in the garden but in the shade. Talk turned to old sitcoms (Are You Being Served, Dad's Army, Hi-De-Hi), one hit wonders (I'm a real purist when it comes to what can be termed a one hit wonder and Strawberry Switchblade don't count, and Sharon's chance encounter with Chrissie Hynde.

I even told the story of Clandon's folkloric dragon who was killed by a soldier (helped by his dog) who was rewarded by being pardoned for desertion. It's not clear what the dog was given as a reward but I expect it was a bone. It was a lovely pit stop but it meant we'd have to up the pace if we wanted to reach our destination, and stop at another pub, in time. It didn't help that we missed (by about 400 metres) a turning which added nearly a whole extra kilometre on the walk. Nobody complained. In the past that might not have been the case.

We didn't get to West Clandon's largely destroyed (by a fire ten years ago) Palladian mansion (built by the Venetian architect Giacomo Leoni) or pay much attention to the 12c St Peter and St Paul church but we did, eventually, find ourselves on The Foxway (no sign of any foxes). There were beautiful green expanses, narrower forested tracks, and, of course - it's TADS, a golf course. A very posh looking golf course too. Clandon Regis. That's a royal stamp of approval.

Soon we reached East Clandon. I walked ahead in the hope of relieving my very full bladder but couldn't find anywhere suitable so went behind a tree. Open air urination is one of the great joys of countryside walking (though not for all of us). East Clandon's got a Grade I listed church (dedicated to St Thomas of Canterbury) and in 1544 it (the village, not the church) was granted to Sir Anthony Browne by Henry VIII. Browne was the ol' wife killer's Master of the Horse.

Airline entrepreneur Freddie Laker (1922-2006) used to live in East Clandon and the television series Catweazle (1970-1971) was filmed in the village. Geoffrey Bayldon who played Catweazle later appeared as The Crowman in Worzel Gummidge. Which seemed appropriate as we still had our happy heads on.

The Street (that's its name) led us into Hatchlands Park and the grounds of Clandon House. Landscaped by Admiral Edward Boscowen who purchased the park in 1750 with the help of the fantastically named Stiff Leadbetter who also worked on Fulham Palace and Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford. Boscowen had a fairly distinguished military career. He'd won the Siege of Louisburg (part of the French and Indian War) in 1758, and the Battle of Lagos a year later in the Seven Years War, a war in which the powerful European nations used much of the rest of the world to sort out their differences and resulted in nearly a million deaths. Boscowen earned himself two rather amusing nicknames. Old Dreadnought and Wry-necked Dick.

As our group spread out I was informed there was a car behind us. I moved out of the way to let it pass but the lady inside stopped and began to talk. I assumed she was asking directions but instead she was a member of National Trust staff telling us we had not paid to come in to the park. An easy mistake when there is no kiosk or visible way of paying and no signs informing us we were supposed to pay.

She asked where we were trying to get to so I told her and she switched from bad cop to good cop and said we could pass through for free but not to hang around too long. Research today tells me that it would have cost us £14.30 each to pass through Hatchlands Park - though National Trust members can visit for free so Pam would have some money left over for gin and Mogwai tickets.

We wouldn't be sent to nearby HMP Send after all. But I was quite stressed about not spending too long in Hatchlands Park and wasn't sure if the route we had taken would lead us to a dead end or out of the park. It led us to a gate which we had to clamber over and which had a sign on reading 'PRIVATE - No public right of way'. A sign that perhaps would have served Hatchlands Park better if it was placed near the wide open entrance and not on a gate that you'd have to climb over to get in anyway.

We followed a footpath alongside the A246 into West Horsley where Bill Pertwee (from Dad's Army, some got him mixed up with third Dr Who Jon Pertwee but we had been talking earlier about Worzel Gummidge so that's fair enough) used to live. Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) used to stay in West Horsely so it's far from inconceivable that her walks in the countryside we were in inspired the creation of such absolute fucking legends as Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin, Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, Pigling Bland, The Tailor Of Gloucester, The Flopsy Bunnies, and Jemima Puddle-Duck.

The group were beginning to stretch out. The fitter (and thirstier) walkers leaving some others behind. I tried to make sure that nobody was out of sight either at the front or the back of the group but I did want to make sure everybody, if they wished, stopped to have a look at West Horsley Place. Not least because it was the inspiration for the walk.

It's where the TV series Ghosts was filmed (I liked it so much I wrote five whole blogs devoted to it, one for each series) and though we could only peer through the bushes at West Horsley Place/Button House from the road that was enough to satisfy me for now. West Horsley Place is Grade I listed but there are further eight Grade II listed buildings on the grounds. Including two dog kennels!

It dates back to the 15th century and has fifty rooms and it's been owned by the soldier and statesman John Bourchier, the Earl of Lincoln, the 1st Marquess of Exeter, and Henry VIII (of course) and architecturally, it's an example of what they call 'Artisan Mannerism'. Elizabeth I used to stay there and, perhaps best of all - except for Ghosts of course, it as 'accidentally' inherited by former University Challenge host Bamber Gascoigne in 2014 who got to enjoy for another eight years before he passed away at the age of 87.

Gascoigne's inheritance was a mixed blessing as the place was in a state of disrepair and full of cobwebs. His solution was to auction off sections of the house via Sotheby's and place its running into the hands of the newly created West Horsley Place Trust. Which is how Ghosts came to be filmed there. It's not the only thing filmed there. It's been used to shoot scenes in The Crown too. As well as a film called Enola Holmes and something called Harry Price:Ghost Hunter that went out on ITV.

We continued for about another fifteen minutes until we reached East Horsley and our second pub stop, the Duke of Wellington. The sun was out so we sat in the beer garden and I switched to lager. It was a quick one though as the curry house was a twenty minute walk away and we needed to be there for as close to 7pm as possible.

Opposite The Duke of Wellington sits Horsley Towers, a 19th century country house designed by Charles Barry who is more famous for rebuilding, along with Augustus Pugin, the Houses of Parliament. It was built for the banker William Currie who died before it was finished. Instead William King-Noel, the First Earl of Lovelace moved in and expanded the place.

The Earl's wife is now much more famous than him. Ada Lovelace was a pioneering mathematician and is now seen, along with her friend Charles Babbage, as one of the most influential figures in the history of early computing. In 1919, Thomas Sopwith, the aviation pioneer, bought the gaff and named one of his planes, the Hawker Horsley, after it.

It is currently Grade II listed but its design has had mixed reviews from architectural critics. Nikolaus Pevsner called the Tudor-Revival/Romanesque/Germanic mash up as "one of the most sensational" buildings in all of England though Ian Nairn complained, quite oddly I think, that the building is sober, dull, and lacks enthusiasm, and called one of the lodges on its grounds "particularly violent". Architectural historian Mark Girouard went further. He saw Horsley Towers as "a grotesque Victorian Disneyland which has to be seen to believed - and may not be even then". He said he included the building in his study The Architecture of Southern England as a warning rather than an inducement.

I quite liked its frivolity and rather unusual design. A folly come to life. I don't see why architecture can't be fun. Sadly we didn't have much time to admire or critique it and soon we were spreading out again as we headed north on Ockham Road South to Kirthon which, predictably, was virtually empty and they hadn't given our table to other diners because there were none (and we were only about six minutes late).

Roxanne and Clive passed on the curry yet the seven of us remaining all indulged and I thought it was pretty good. I had paneer tikka, paratha, and shared some pulao rice with Adam and, of course, it was washed down with a couple of highly agreeable Cobras. Trouble is I ate too slowly. Pam left to catch a train before I'd even finished and then everyone else finished way before me too. I need to be put on the slow eater's table sometimes. Either that or I just talk too much. Not wanting to sit in the restaurant alone I left some of my paratha behind but that was fine, I was full enough.

I took the train from Horsley to Guildford, another to Clapham Junction, another to Peckham Rye, and a 63 bus up the hill to home. By the end of the day I'd notched up a reasonably impressive 39,430 steps. Not a record for the year but a podium place so far at least. Far more importantly I'd had a bloody lovely day with lovely food, lovely drink, lovely countryside, lovely sunshine, and, most importantly of all, lovely people.

Thanks to Pam, Shep, Teresa, Adam, Clive, Roxanne, Sharon, Jason, Darren, Cheryl and Peter the Peacock for another tremendous TADS experience and thanks to Adam, Clive, Pam, and Sharon for some of the photos included in this 'ere blog. Next Saturday we're back on the Thames Path (stage thirteen, Abingdon to Oxford) and next month are TADS are wandering from High Wycombe to Beaconsfield in a walk that I've inevitable called Wycombe Wanderers. Looking forward to it already.