George Orwell: A Life in Letters by Peter Davison Read Free Book Online Page B

and was Director of Public Relations for the Allied Control Commission in Italy, 1944–45. Orwell contributed a long review article to Horizon , September 1 943 (XV, 2257, pp. 209–16), on Fielden’s ‘ironical attack on British imperialism in India’, Beggar My Neighbour . Fielden responded with ‘Toothpaste in Bloomsbury’ (XV, 2258, pp. 216–21).
    5 . Orwell was as good as his word and Forster discussed New Road on 7 August 1943.
    6 . Ahmed Ali (1908– ), author and academic, was at this time the BBC’s Listener and Research Director in India.
    7 . William Empson (1906–84; Kt., 1979), poet and critic. He had been Professor of English Literature in Tokyo and Peking before the war and after at Sheffield University (1 953–71). He achieved scholarly recognition with Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930). His Times obituary described him as ‘the most famously over-sophisticated man of his time’ who ‘revolutionized our ways of reading a poem’.
    On 28 August, Ivor Brown, on behalf of the Observer , wrote to Orwell saying he had heard he was leaving the BBC and he wondered whether he would like to go to Algiers and Sicily, ‘accredited’ by the War Office, though not as ‘a regular war correspondent’. It might mean writing for other newspapers as well as the Observer , in order to share costs, ‘but primarily you would be The Observer man’.
    To Ivor Brown*
    31 August 1943
    10a Mortimer Crescent NW 6
    Dear Mr Brown,
    Many thanks for your letter. I would, of course, like very greatly to go to North Africa for you if it can be arranged. If it can , however, I wonder if it would be possible to have some idea of the date. I have not put in my formal resignation to the BBC but have informed my immediate chiefs that I intend to leave them, and when resigning formally I am supposed to give 2 months’ notice. This however would not be insisted on so long as I could give at any rate a few weeks’ notice. Meanwhile I have arranged to go on my annual holiday (for a fortnight) at the end of this week. Of course I would throw this up if the opportunity of going to North Africa occurred immediately, but otherwise I am not anxious to miss my holiday as I have not had one for 14 months and am rather in need of one. So I should be greatly obliged if you could give me some idea of when this scheme is likely to materialise, supposing that it does so.
    Yours sincerely
    Geo. Orwell
    [XV, 2255, p. 208; typewritten]
    To L. F. Rushbrook Williams*
    24 September 1943
    B.B.C.
    Dear Mr Rushbrooke-Williams, 1
    In confirmation of what I said to you earlier in private, I want to tender my resignation from the BBC , and should be much obliged if you would forward this to the proper quarter.
    I believe that in speaking to you I made my reasons clear, but I should like to put them on paper lest there should be any mistake. I am not leaving because of any disagreement with BBC policy and still less on account of any kind of grievance. On the contrary I feel that throughout my association with the BBC I have been treated with the greatest generosity and allowed very great latitude. On no occasion have I been compelled to say on the air anything that I would not have said as a private individual. And I should like to take this opportunity of thanking you personally for the very understanding and generous attitude you have always shown towards my work.
    I am tendering my resignation because for some time past I have been conscious that I was wasting my own time and the public money on doing work that produces no result. I believe that in the present political situation the broadcasting of British propaganda to India is an almost hopeless task. Whether these broadcasts should be continued at all is for others to judge, but I myself prefer not to spend my time on them when I could be occupying myself with journalism which does produce some measurable effect. I feel that by going back to my normal work of writing and journalism I could be more