George Orwell: A Life in Letters by Peter Davison Page B

undertaker ] A smartish undertaker
    262/18: Have a Camel ] deleted after Flick, flick
    263/1: the following paragraph appears after Flick, flick. Guinness is good for you!
    Night-starvation – let Horlick’s be your guardian. She said ‘ Thanks awfully for the lift’ but she thought ‘ Poor boy, why doesn’t somebody tell him?’ How a woman of thirty-two stole her young man from a girl of twenty. Silkyseam – the smooth sliding bathroom tissue. Halitosis is ruining his career. Now I’m schoolgirl complextion all over. Kiddies clamour for their Breakfast Crisps. Pyorrhea? Not me! Are you a Highbrow? Dandruff is the reason.
    This proof version contains the Horlick’s night-starvation line and the other ads are in a different order to the CW text. I guess that the order given here is the original reading.

Chronology
    7 January 1857 : Orwell’s father, Richard Walmesley Blair born at Milborne St Andrew, Dorset. His father, Thomas Arthur Blair, was Vicar of Milborne St Andrew.
    19 May 1875 : Orwell’s mother, Ida Mabel Limouzin, born at Penge, Surrey.
    15 June 1897 : Richard Blair, an officer in the Opium Department of the Indian Civil Service and Ida Limouzin married at St John in the Wilderness, Naini Tal, India (Bowker, p. 8).
    21 April 1898 : Marjorie Francis Blair born, Gaya, Bengal.
    25 June 1903 : Eric Arthur Blair born, Motihari, Bengal.
    1904 : Ida Blair returns to live in England with Marjorie and Eric at Henley-on-Thames.
    Summer 1907 : Richard Blair spends three months’ leave at Henley.
    6 April 1908 : Avril Nora Blair born.
    1908–1 911 : Attends a Roman Catholic day-school run by Ursuline nuns, as did his sisters (Bowker, pp. 21–2).
    September 1 911–December 1916 : Boards at St Cyprian’s private preparatory school, Eastbourne.
    1912 : Richard Blair retires as sub-deputy agent in the Opium Department and returns to England. The family moves to Shiplake, Oxfordshire, probably early in December.
    Summer 1914 : Makes friends with the Buddicom family, especially Jacintha.
    2 October 1914 : Poem: ‘Awake! Young Men of England’ published in Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard – Orwell’s first appearance in print (as Eric Blair).
    1915–autumn 1917 : The Blairs move back to Henley-on-Thames.
    1 July 1916 : The Battle of the Somme was launched at 7.30 a.m. On that day 19,2 40 men were killed or died of wounds; 35,493 wounded; 2,152 missing; and 585 taken prisoner; Total: 57,470 for virtually no advance [Martin Middlebrook, The First Day of the Somme (1971; 2001), p. 263].
    21 July 1916 : Poem: ‘Kitchener’ (which Orwell himself submitted) published in Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard.
    Lent Term 1917 : At Wellington College as a scholar.
    May 1917–December 1921 : At Eton as a King’s Scholar. Contributes to The Election Times and College Days .
    13 September 1917 : Orwell’s father commissioned as 2 nd Lieutenant; posted to 51 st (Ranchi) Indian Pioneer Company, Marseilles. He soon became the youngest 2 nd Lieutenant in the British Army. Orwell’s mother starts work for the Ministry of Pensions in London.
    October–November 19 17 : Battle of Passchendaele (Third Battle of Ypres) in which Fredric Warburg, Orwell’s later publisher and member of his HG platoon, fought.
    9 December 1919 : Orwell’s father relinquishes his commission and returns to London.
    December 1921 : The Blairs move to Southwold on the Suffolk coast.
    October 1922–December 1927 : Orwell serves in the Indian Imperial Police, Burma.
    Autumn 1927 : First expeditions into the East End of London whilst on leave from Burma.
    Spring 1928 : About this time lives for a while as a tramp.
    Spring 1928 to late 1929 : Lives in working-class district of Paris; five articles published in French journals; writes one or two novels (he gives both figures); he destroys both.
    March 1929 : Admitted to Hôpital Cochin, Paris with ‘une grippe’. (See ‘How the Poor Die’, Now, 1946.)
    Autumn 1929 : Works as kitchen porter and