Page "George Orwell" Paragraph 76

Barnhill was an abandoned farmhouse with outbuildings near the northern end of the island, situated at the end of a five-mile ( 8 km ), heavily rutted track from Ardlussa, where the owners lived.

Conditions at the farmhouse were primitive but the natural history and the challenge of improving the place appealed to Orwell.

His sister Avril accompanied him there and young novelist Paul Potts made up the party.

In July Susan Watson arrived with Orwell's son Richard.

Tensions developed and Potts departed after one of his manuscripts was used to light the fire.

Orwell meanwhile set to work on Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Later Susan Watson's boyfriend David Holbrook arrived.

A fan of Orwell since school days, he found the reality very different, with Orwell hostile and disagreeable probably because of Holbrook's membership of the Communist Party.

Susan Watson could no longer stand being with Avril and she and her boyfriend left.