I suppose it doesn’t cost too much – I shouldn’t like to disappoint the Spanish machine-gunners etc. Of course some of the photos were a mess. The one which has Buttonshaw looking very blurred in the foreground is a photo of a shell-burst, which you can see rather faintly on the left, just beyond the house.

I shall have to stop in a moment, as I am not certain when McNair is going back & I want to have this letter ready for him. Thanks ever so much for sending the things, dear, & do keep well & happy. I told McNair I would have a talk with him about the situation when I came on leave, & you might at some opportune moment say something to him about my wanting to go to Madrid etc. Goodbye, love. I’ll write again soon.

With all my love
Eric

1. Bob (Robert) Edwards.

2. See Homage to Catalonia, p. 68 [VI/52–3].

3. Harry Pollitt (1890–1960), a Lancashire boiler-maker and founder-member of the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1920, became its general secretary in 1929. With Rajani Palme Dutt, he led the party until his death. He was, however, removed from leadership in the autumn of 1939 until Germany’s invasion of Russia in July 1941, for his temporary advocacy of a war of democracy against Fascism. His review of The Road to Wigan Pier appeared in the Daily Worker, 17 March 1937.

4. The Road to Wigan Pier was reviewed by Edward Shanks in the Sunday Times and by Hugh Massingham in the Observer, 14 March 1937.

5. Victor Gollancz.

6. Michael Wilton (English), also given as Milton, Buck Parker (South African) and Buttonshaw (American) were members of Orwell’s unit. Douglas Moyle, another member, told Ian Angus, 18 February 1970, that Buttonshaw was very sympathetic to the European left and regarded Orwell as ‘the typical Englishman – tall, carried himself well, well educated and well spoken’.

[365]

Extract from letter from Eileen Blair to Leonard Moore

12 April 1937

I saw my husband a month ago at the front, where, as this is a revolutionary war, I was allowed to stay in the front line dug-outs all day. The Fascists threw in a small bombardment and quite a lot of machine-gun fire, which was then comparatively rare on the Huesca front, so it was quite an interesting visit – indeed I never enjoyed anything more. Eric was then fairly well, though very tired; since then he has had a rest two miles behind the line as he got a poisoned arm, but I think he is now back in the line and the front has been active for the last week. He is keeping quite a good diary1 and I have great hopes for the book. Unfortunately the activity on his part of the front has interfered with his leave, which is now long overdue, but I hope he will be down here in a week or two.

1. Orwell’s diary was taken from Eileen’s hotel room in Barcelona by the police (see p. 151 [VI/164]). It is possibly now in the NKVD Archive in Moscow with the dossier on Orwell compiled by the NKVD. Miklos Kun, grandson of the Hungarian Communist leader, Bela Kun (purged on Stalin’s orders about 1939), told the editor that he had seen the dossier but he could not confirm that the diary was with it.

[367]

Eileen Blair to Dr Laurence (‘Eric’) O’Shaughnessy

1 May 1937     Handwritten

10 Rambla de los Estudios, Barcelona

Dear Eric,

You have a hard life. I mean to write to Mother with the news, but there are some business matters. Now I think of these, they’re inextricably connected with the news so Mother must share this letter.

George is here on leave. He arrived completely ragged, almost barefoot, a little lousy, dark brown, & looking really very well. For the previous 12 hours he had been in trains consuming anis, muscatel out of anis bottles, sardines & chocolate.