(12.) In his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933),
Orwell describes his lodging in terms that are similar to those used in the first half of The Road to Wigan Pier.
However, the persistent sex in
Orwell's novels refuses to be quieted by these arguments.
We meet Jean Searle, widow of Gil, the little boy who gave up his bed for
Orwell. His child's bed was too small for the 6ft 2in writer and the Searles had to put a chair across the foot to make it longer.
A quick flip through the (thorough) index reveals references to
Orwell's anti-Semitism and Churchill's drinking.
Orwell's voice was also a whisper in a whirlwind at times.
Orwell's all-controlling state would almost certainly have been more interested in Blyton's "Famous Five" with their tales of secret seaside adventures and lashings of ginger beer.
Orwell later claimed to have regretted the violence, but the narration of Ellis's encounter gives a resolutely different impression.
Singhvi, wanted to develop
Orwell's birthplace on the lines of Stratford- upon- Avon and Yasnaya Polyana, birthplaces of William Shakespeare and Leo Tolstoy in England and Russia, respectively, which attract lakhs of tourists every year.
The 'Pier' itself - an area around the Leeds-Liverpool canal where coal was dumped on to barges - is marked only by a gloomy pub called the
Orwell. Even the once popular Wigan Pier nightclub is closed.
Linskey denies that Nineteen EightyFour was influenced by
Orwell's serious illness.
At the time,
Orwell - whose real name was Eric Blair - was recuperating from tuberculosis and completing the dystopian classic 1984.
Author Norman Bissell reveals in his new book, Barnhill, that David Holbrook, the boyfriend of
Orwell's housekeeper Susan Watson, was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain - and
Orwell suspected him to be a spy.
