Page "George Orwell" Paragraph 75

In the year following Eileen's death he published around 130 articles and was active in various political lobbying campaigns.

He employed a housekeeper, Susan Watson, to look after his adopted son at the Islington flat, which visitors now described as " bleak ".

In September he spent a fortnight on the island of Jura in the Inner Hebrides and saw it as a place to escape from the hassle of London literary life.

David Astor was instrumental in arranging a place for Orwell on Jura.

Astor's family owned Scottish estates in the area and a fellow Old Etonian Robert Fletcher had a property on the island.

During the winter of 1945 to 1946 Orwell made several hopeless and unwelcome marriage proposals to younger women, including Celia Kirwan ( who was later to become Arthur Koestler's sister-in-law ), Ann Popham who happened to live in the same block of flats and Sonia Brownell, one of Connolly's coterie at the Horizon office.

Orwell suffered a tubercular haemorrhage in February 1946 but disguised his illness.

In 1945 or early 1946, while still living at Canonbury Square, Orwell wrote an article on " British Cookery ", complete with recipes, commissioned by the British Council.

Given the post-war shortages, both parties agreed not to publish it.

His sister Marjorie died of kidney disease in May and shortly after, on 22 May 1946, Orwell set off to live on the Isle of Jura.