Orwell Society Trip to Jura 2025

Our June 2025 Visit

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by Simone Dixon

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Before our boat landed, we saw sea eagles soaring in the skies, grey seals lazing on boulders and horned goats navigating jagged rocks near the Atlantic Ocean, munching on seaweed. I immediately feel Orwell came here to live, not to die. It is unrivalled in its splendour.

Walking up the craggy path from the small jetty, the house is not yet visible. It is tough going and small crystalline rocks catch the light along the path to the un-get-able-to place called Barnhill. A sea of foxgloves welcomes us: six-feet-tall, swaying and blazing with pops of purple against the green ferns – so elegant and yet so toxic. I heed their warning – the splendour of Jura is enchanting but demands respect.The pilgrimage moves forward and, in the distance, someone from our group waves to indicate that, from the top of the hill, they can see Barnhill.

We descend to the remote, white house, with its breathtaking views to the Sound of Jura. The Fletcher family, who own the house, are there to host and feed us homemade cakes and tea before we split into groups to view the rooms with Richard Blair. Of course, the tea is served in proper tea pots. I appreciate the detail.

The house appears pretty much untouched since Orwell’s time, and one immediately steps back through time. In the room where he wrote possibly the most universally powerful book of the 20th century, I am looking at the view from his bedroom window. A great sadness envelops me. He did not live to hear how language changed all over the world because of him and how monumentally influential he was. He introduced several unforgettable terms that have become part of the English lexicon and argued that imprecise, manipulative language could obscure truth.

I suspect Orwell, grieving for his wife Eileen, may have felt lonely here. Yet Richard cheers us with tales of his childhood – funny, comical adventures that must have been joyous to behold and speaks of an enormous light in Orwell’s life. It was a symbiotic relationship and must have brought great meaning and joy to Orwell. As a father, he gifted Richard the experience to run free in this spectacular scenery, to fish for mackerel and to hunt rabbits. Experiencing the wildlife, the mountainous terrain, the warmth of a Rayburn appears to have galvanized to form Richard’s world view and his enduring links with the west coast of Scotland, which he describes as his spiritual home.

At Barnhill. Richard Blair centre, in green gilet

The 2025 Orwell Society trip to the Inner Hebrides was the trip of a lifetime with many highlights. We stayed at a wonderful hotel with excellent locally sourced food in Crinan, made special by its display of artworks by Scottish painters – one of whom, Bellany, is a particular favourite of mine. There was nothing to fault about the crisp white bedsheets, the feather pillows or the resplendent view to the Sound of Jura.

All the high points of the trip justle for first place in my memory. It could be the amazing people in the group – professors from other continents, history buffs, politicians, journalists, diplomats, people related to republican fighters in the Spanish Civil War – each as interesting as the last and all immersed in conversations about Orwell. It could be the sea eagles, the spectacular mountains, the feral goats or the gnarled ancient yew trees. It could be the sight of Eilean Mor Island where Richard and his father were rescued and the excitement and horror of the perilous Corryvreckan whirlpool. It could be arriving by sea aboard a rib to this remote landscape. It could be seeing Orwell’s 1946 autograph in Ardlussa House guestbook.

Ardlussa House

It could be any of these, but it is not. It is the walk of anticipation from the jetty at Jura, the rugged path and the greeting from the army of poisonous foxgloves and their twinkling eyes. It is the room in which he wrote and the imagined tap, tap, tap of a typewriter that haunts me. This is the room where words formed on a page, that joined another page, that became the book changed the world forever. Once seen never forgotten.

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