How Eileen saved Orwell’s life during 1938 flu epidemic

Flu epidemics have been a constant feature of British history – and the one in 1937-1938 impacted massively on George Orwell and his newly-married wife, Eileen. At the time, the Blairs were living in a ramshackle cottage in Wallington, deep in rural Hertfordshire. Orwell caught a cold, then started haemorrhaging from his mouth and nearly died. During the following July, Eileen had to go to bed with a serious cold – just before the country was hit by an even more serious flu epidemic.

Yet looking at the various biographies of Orwell, the crucial role Eileen played in saving Orwell’s life is really only highlighted in Sylvia Topp’s superb, recently published biography of Orwell’s first wife (2020). Indeed, focusing on the handling of this one event by the biographers provides a fascinating case study in the ways in which the vital role played by women tends to be either ignored or marginalised in the conventional histories – and highlights the importance of Topp’s biography in finally setting the record straight for Eileen.

She plays no active role in Michael Shelden’s account in the authorised biography: ‘In early March [Orwell] had been afflicted with a bad cough and in a few days his condition had worsened to the point where he was coughing up an alarming amount of blood. “The bleeding seemed prepared to go on for ever,” Eileen later remarked. Her brother examined him and arranged for an ambulance to take him to Preston Hall Sanatorium in Kent’ (1991: 316).

Jeffrey Meyers similarly downplays Eileen’s role: ‘On March 8, [Orwell’s] three bouts of pneumonia and wounds in Spain finally caught up with him, when he began to hemorrhage [sic] and blood from an old lesion in his lung poured out of his mouth. Eileen was horrified, for the “bleeding seemed prepared to go on forever”.’ Next, Eileen’s brother, Laurence O’Shaughnessy, is said to examine Orwell and decide to send him by ambulance to Preston Hall Sanatorium in Aylesford, Kent, where he was a consulting and thoracic surgeon (2000: 179-180).

D. J. Taylor, in his award-winning biography, similarly shows Eileen as having little influence on the events: ‘Orwell’s condition worsened to the extent that his life was in danger. A letter of 15 March from Eileen to Jack Common talks about “the drama of yesterday” – Common had apparently been summoned to help from his neighbouring village – and bleeding that seemed to go on for ever. Orwell was admitted to Preston Hall on 15 March which, given the distance involved, suggests an emergency trip by ambulance late on the previous day’ (2003: 251). No indication is given as to who actually ‘summoned’ help.

Bernard Crick’s handling of the event is interesting. He reports: ‘On 8 March, a tuberculous lesion on Orwell’s left lung suddenly began to bleed badly. Eileen got her brother, Laurence O’Shaughnessy, to see him. O’Shaughnessy was friendly with the director of a sanatorium in Kent where he was himself a consultant surgeon. After some debate about the risk of moving him, the director, Dr J. B. McDougal, took him into Preston Hall, Aylseford, Kent’ (1980: 359). Crick next goes on to carry, in full, Eileen’s letter to Jack Common, written shortly afterwards, describing the event in detail. This leads Crick to reflect on how similar the Blairs were: ‘They shared a deep reluctance to accept help even from families, certainly felt ashamed to admit it, especially to someone like Jack Common in case he regard it as middle class nepotism’ (ibid). So no reflection about Eileen’s crucial support for Orwell – in this case even helping save his life in a highly stressful situation – and how terrifying the event must have been for her in a remote cottage in the dead of night.

Robert Colls ignores the event entirely and simply reports: ‘Orwell was diagnosed with TB in 1938. In September 1938, the Blairs went to Marrakech, so that he might recover his health’ (2013: 109). In fact, Eileen receives only one entry in the book’s index – under George Orwell: ‘wedding to Eileen’ (ibid: 324).

Gordon Bowker stresses how the event was ‘extremely frightening’ for Eileen but in no way indicates her crucial, active role in saving Orwell, reporting simply: ‘Laurence O’Shaughnessy saw him and had him transferred immediately to Preston Hall Village…’ (2003: 238).

Compare all that with Sylvia Topp’s account. She rightly draws attention to Eileen’s prompt handling of the ‘disaster’ all alone, in the middle of the night, in an isolated cottage – without any neighbours to rush to. She quickly phones Jack Common to come and help her. Topp adds insightfully and compassionately: ‘It’s not hard to imagine her utter panic’ (op cit: 208). Eileen next calls her brother who agrees ‘that Eric must be taken somewhere where really active steps could be taken if necessary – artificial pneumothorax to stop the blood or transfusion to replace it’. And Topp concludes: ‘Then somehow, terrified but with her brother’s instructions and perhaps helped by Orwell’s constant belief that “I’ve no doubt they’ll find as before that I’m OK,” Eileen managed to meet the right people who could help save his life. But without her being there and without her brother’s connections, it’s entirely possible that Orwell would have died that night’ (ibid).

In other words, without Eileen, Orwell would now be remembered as no more than a minor left-wing novelist and journalist who died of TB during a flu epidemic at a tragically young age.

Then, the following June, just before an even worse flu epidemic hit the country, Eileen herself had to retire to bed with a cold (Topp op cit: 220). Indeed, while the other biographies highlight the importance of the trip to Morocco (between September 1938 and March 1939) to helping Orwell recuperate after his health crisis, they omit to say how Eileen so desperately needed a break – since her health was deteriorating seriously too.

Topp’s treatment of the March 1938 ‘disaster’ is just one among many others in her biography of Eileen that highlight the ways in which women’s roles are constantly marginalised or erased from the historical record. So Eileen: The Making of George Orwell is not only opening up new areas in Orwellian scholarship – it is also likely to occupy an important place in the development of gender studies more generally.

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References

Bowker, Gordon (2003) George Orwell, London: Little, Brown

Colls, Robert (2013) George Orwell: English Rebel, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Crick, Bernard (1980) George Orwell: A Life, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin

Meyers, Jeffrey (2000) Orwell: Wintry Conscience of a Generation, New York: W. W. Norton

Shelden, Michael (1991) Orwell: The Authorised Biography, London: William Heinemann

Taylor, D. J. (2003) Orwell: The Life, London: Chatto and Windus

Topp, Sylvia (2020) Eileen: The Making of George Orwell, London: Unbound

Richard Lance Keeble is the out-going chair of The Orwell Society.

Uploaded 28 March 2020