The Orwell statue – do we care, and if so where should it go?
Orwell belongs to the people – not the BBC.
Phew. I think it’s probably safe to declare that the “silly season” is finally coming to an end. Chief among recent news items that suggested journalists have been getting as desperate for the merest whiff of Something Serious as parents habitually get for the start of the school-term has been the “Orwell statue” hoo-ha.
On the one hand, the relish with which commentators on all sides have seized on Joan Bakewell’s revelation that the BBC’s DG Mark Thompson turned down the idea of siting a proposed statue to the great man at the Beeb’s new Broadcasting House because GO “would be perceived as too left-wing a figure for the BBC to honour” is testament to the veneration in which he is held. On the other, the surge of Beeb-bashing that has been conducted on the back of this snippet of information and the hasty, tail-chasing attempts to encapsulate Orwell’s “Left-wingness” place the whole episode on a par with the Essex “Lion” as an incident blown out of proportion in order to help pass the summer lull.
Even in the initial reports in the Daily Telegraph about the “rejection” of the idea of Orwell being commemorated at this landmark BBC address by sculptor Martin Jennings’s mooted statue – for which over £60,000 has nobly been raised by the George Orwell Memorial Trust – there were indications that the Corporation wasn’t averse to the idea of such a tribute in the vicinity. As the article noted: “A BBC spokesperson said: “We cannot put the statue immediately outside New Broadcasting House as the BBC piazza already has artwork by Mark Pimlott built into the pavement which would be obscured. We are however working with Westminster city council and those involved with the statue to find an appropriate location nearby.”” Jennings himself was quoted as saying: “It would have been nice to have on the premises, but having it close by would be a very good second. Orwell was always rather detached from any institutions, anyway.”
So in other words, the Orwell statue can’t go where it was gently proposed it might go because of logistical and at a stretch aesthetic reasons not ideological ones – unless the BBC spokesperson was being economical with the truth. But those of us who don’t like prosaic explanations and would prefer more complex, nay nefarious processes to be at work can seize on Thompson’s – throwaway, flippant, unconfirmed? – remark as evidence that Orwell remains too much of a trouble-maker, by dint of his journalistic integrity (if you’re a Beeb-hater) or his socialist views (if you’re persuaded of the BBC’s impartiality) or some other cause in his life and work, to be allowed within the hallowed portals of Portland Place.
A number of interesting points have been raised during the ding-dong, all the same. One of the strangest remarks must be Peter Wilby’s in the current edition of the New Statesman. He reveals that while he edited the magazine, he once tried to ban citations of Orwell, “pointing out to our contributors that he was a mere journalist – who, like most journalists, engaged his brain only spasmodically – and that an argument was not made stronger just because he seemed to agree with it.” One is relieved to hear that Wilby abandoned the ban, because he was unable to adhere to it himself – but what an odd thought, that one should give less credence to Orwell’s viewpoints because they were often put to paper within the tough stop-start time-constraints of the journalistic machine; isn’t it one of the marvels of the man that he could turn his mind, in such a “spasmodic” fashion, to different topics and almost always have something valuable to say?
A saner observation comes from the Telegraph’s Gillian Reynolds, who pooh-poohed the idea of a statue, and demanded instead that the BBC offer the world a better memorial to the material he produced, or helped produce, during his stint there, and also to his wider body of work: “I suggest, instead of putting up some dumb hunk of stone, celebrate his work,” she writes. “Search the BBC archive for any programmes on which he worked (likely to be very few) and all the programmes made from his work (there are definitely many) and make them freely available, worldwide, in perpetuity, on the BBC website. Don’t tell me that would cost more than a statue. It would be money better spent.”
It may seem late in the day, but now that the dust has settled, and recognising that this discussion isn’t nearly so urgent or fraught as it has been painted, what do Orwell Society members, and visitors to the site, think? My own view is that the BBC could make amends for this perceived snub to one of its finest former employees by offering its services to mount a public poll about the siting of the statue – which we must assume, whatever Gillian Reynolds wishes, will come into being, and still needs a worthy resting-place.
My own view is that there could be no better place for an Orwell statue than in Trafalgar Square, immortally rendered as Victory Square in Nineteen Eighty-Four; you could argue that Orwell did as much for the freedom of our nation as Nelson did at Trafalgar. A column would be pushing it, of course, but a statue in this most pertinent of places isn’t OTT, in my book. As for how an Orwell statue would be guarded against inevitable visits from London’s pigeons, that’s for another discussion, some other silly season.
Dominic Cavendish
Nice, one, Dom.
Two Octobers ago Carl, Chris, Assaji and I drove to Southwold for the weekend to film a documentary about the great man who once lived just up from the chip shop. The idea came up while we were working on our cabaret ‘One Georgie Orwell’.
I had been lucky enough to make a great contact in Southwold, ex-Moscow correspondent John Miller, who wrote the entertaining ‘All Them Cornfields and Ballet in the Evening’ (yes, a light-hearted take on Leninism). John kindly set up interviews with various fascinating characters in Southwold, including two old seadogs who were both going strong at about 106 (the air up there is amazing). One of them remembered seeing “young Eric” and a friend burying something out among the dunes.
As a rapidly-aging hack myself, I knew we needed an extra angle to the film, so the intention towards the end of every interview was to ask Southwoldians if they thought a statue of Orwell might be a good idea and that maybe the sweeping green looking out to sea would be an obvious and magnificent site.
Now John Miller was – and hopefully still is – a wily old bird who soon cottoned on to the trick. I’d been to Southwold once before with my friend Timmo, his less-than-revolutionary parents having taken the family there since the invention of manners, and I recalled a place dead from the big toe up. Yes, there was a certain amount of mischief behind the whole film/statue idea.
John Miller, when asked the statue question towards the end of his interview, which included his own obvious respect for Orwell, made it clear that “it ain’t gonna happen here, mate”. The town simply remains askance at one of its own wandering off in tramp’s clothes.
Having fixed up the interview with the two old seadogs, John joined us for the interview itself and gave me an old-fashioned look (he’d known much cleverer machiavellians than me in Moscow) when I popped the statue question. One of the old seadogs’ chuckle showed that he knew it was a no-no as well, but added” “I can’t see anything wrong with it myself.”
We had arranged to take over a corner of one of the pubs on the Saturday night for Carl to be filmed singing some of the songs from “Georgie”. The gig was enthusiastically received without leading to a surge in membership of the International Socialists. Indeed, I must say that our motley crew from Catford was made most welcome in Southwold, especially by our two landladies, whose views on Orwell were as insightful as any. A statue? Ooh, no.
The place itself would make a great World In Action feature. No trains, no buses, lights out at 10pm. They could have filmed The Prisoner there. After a long day’s filming we were gagging for some fish and chips. No chance. Shut at 10pm. All sorts of “celebrities”, including Michael Palin, have this thing about Southwold so a proper documentary maker would have a field day – as long as the statue question is left until last.
Assaji got some great shots and one day we’ll get the thing produced.
Meanwhile, I’m with you, Dom. Trafalgar Square. And twice the size of Nelson’s column.
Orwell doing as much for our nation as Nelson? That’s certainly not prosaic. It’s pure romantic. Orwell was not a social crusader, like some sort of Suffragette in trousers. . He was, first and last, a writer. You know the sociology. There are the politicians. And behind them are the mysterious men with money and power. Below those are the warriors. Below them are the economists. Below them come the artists, the writers and the rest of us. Orwell’s point is that the politicians want the artists to work for them. That’s how the establishment works. I believe that Orwell was anti-establishment. He wasn’t a politician and I cannot see what he did for our nation. He’d say that ‘nation’ is a meaningless concept anyway. He was hardly a nationalist. But if we are asking not what Orwell can do for our nation, but what our nation can do for him, (at the risk of much spinning in the ground at Arlington Cemetery), what can be done? Statues are for pigeons as sure as Victory Square is not for Orwell. . For his services to writing, we can plant an aspidistra at Kew or rename Heathrow as Airstrip One. As for The Orwell Society, how about an annual memorial service at All Saints, Sutton Courtenay? He wasn’t an atheist. He’s in the churchyard there, at his own request. He’d like that. The BBC is as part of the establishment as any body. The establishment embrace of Orwell is the ultimate irony, surely. Ciao, Peter R Burness-Smith.
Instead of a statue to Orwell, why not use the empty plinth in Trafagar Squre for a monument to Winston Smith?
Surely this would give hope to all the present-day Winston Smiths in various hell-holes and commemorate those who steadfastly maintained that 2+2 = 4 in past centuries?
Nice idea, Denis. By hell-holes do you include the Thick of It-type offices where fear and bullying rule as blatantly as ever?
No.
Actually I was thinking of something a little less navel-gazing than that.
Try Lech Walesa. Try Aung Soo Kyi. Try Galileo.
You seem to be attached to a sort of 1950’s BBC mindset. Believe me. Not everyone -or everyone’s father – works in an office
Orwell wouldn’t have wanted his statue on the BBC premises or on those of any other institution. Southwold is a much better idea – perhaps a little way off the coast.
Having been away for some time, I have just seen the comments re. Orwell’s statue at the Beeb. In fact Ben Whittaker raised £125,000 on his own for the statue. The Trust had no part in this. Where should it go? It would give me a warm feeling if it were to put up outside the BBC in the Piazza that is being constructed. However Westminster Council will no doubt have their say, written in the usual gobbledegook manner. I fear that the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Sq. is a long shot and I wouldn’t care to put too much money on that one. Nice idea though.
I think the best place in the world for Orwell’s statue would would be in the compound outside the house in Motihari ,in India where he was born. It would cost much less and the remaining amount , if the Soceity thinks it proper can be used for for building an Orwell museum there. What coincidece that Gandhi ,another champion of freedom of speech, started an important phase of his independence movement from the same place! It would be interesting to note that although Orwell disaproved of Gandhi’s fads like celibacy and nature cure,he was all for India’s fredom.
Arun Sharma
Mumbai,India
Orwell belonged not just to England but to thousand’s of his fans around the world. I learn that a move is already underway to set up a museum at his birthplace Motihari, here in India and also to install his statue there. I intend to find out about its present position and inform the Society. I think once it is done , the place will become a pilgrimage for Orwell lovers around the world.
Arun Sharma
Mumbai, India