posted on 20 Jan 2025

 25th January 2025 marks the 75th anniversary of the death of George Orwell. To mark this date we are delighted to have the chance to give a first publication to the following piece written by Jeremy Malies and, to illustrate it, original photographs by Rob Marshall.

 

 

George Orwell writing "Nineteen Eighty-Four" on the island of Jura

 

“My new book is a Utopia in the form of a novel. I ballsed it up rather, partly owing to being so ill while I was writing it, but I think some of the ideas in it might interest you.”

George Orwell to Julian Symons, 4 February 1949

There is something unpalatable and Citizen-Kane-ish about the first major building you see after landing by ferry on Jura in the Inner Hebrides. Black wrought-iron gates, the height and width of those at Versailles, stand in front of Jura House. A media-shy child retiree hedge fund manager has bought up the most traditional estate here and turned it into a golf course with hotel. 

Money has always abounded on an island still owned in part by the Astors. Thirty years ago rave music pioneers KLF burnt a million pounds at a boathouse on the shoreline just beyond these gates. The money, in the form of £50 notes, was dropped into the flames from a suitcase under scrutiny that included video recording. All indications are that every one of the notes was indeed cash. Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty had musical pedigree but also a performative artist streak, having fired blanks from a machinegun during the Brit Awards. A wicker man had been set alight earlier in the evening here while party-goers cavorted in druid outfits on ground that has been home to real druids. Anything elsewhere on Jura has surely been tame? Well maybe not? George Orwell had already written the novel of the century at the head of the island.

This is a stretch of featherbed bog shaped like a teardrop sitting between the Sound of Jura and the Atlantic. It’s 26 miles in length and home to 200 people who coexist with 6,000 deer. Unsurprisingly, the best way to move around is by boat, a fact soon absorbed by our man. Orwell had a hard-to-control RAF dinghy and from the summer of 1947, a wooden dinghy. He had an outboard motor (I think used on both vessels) that gave him problems with magneto and starting plug. In 1947 he nearly drowned himself and three others in Scotland’s maelstrom, the Corryvreckan Whirlpool, when he misread his own tide timetable.

So why was he here? 

To continue reading the full article click on the link : Orwell_on_Jura_v2.pdf