George Orwell’s son revisits Jura
[Daily Record] RICHARD Blair has asked that his ashes be scattered on his boat, set alight and swept into the maelstrom of the Gulf of Corryvreckan.
It is ironic that he will rest there, the whirlpool in which he and his famous father George Orwell almost drowned in 1947.
The notorious waters lie to the northern tip of Jura, the island where Orwell wrote 1984 and where he lived out his last precious years with his adopted son.
This weekend, Richard is on the island again to mark the 65th anniversary of the renowned novel that spouted the maxim “Big Brother is watching you”.
He and 22 members of the Orwell Society will travel to Barnhill, the remote farmhouse where the writer, real name Eric Blair, laboured over 1984 in an upstairs bedroom.
Richard, 70, has been back to the island many times, pulled by the memories of the father he lost to tuberculosis when he was only five.
He said: “Jura will always be a magnetic draw to me. I have visions of being with him there and we had some lovely times. I know that he loved me very much.”
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