Yes, I know that this isn't a blue plaque, but I don't intend to be strict about these things. This blog is simply a place to record all those wonderful plaques and inscriptions which I come across every day on my wanderings. This one was placed by the Heath and Hampstead Society to honour George Orwell, to my mind one of the finest essayists and authors of this or any other age.
Orwell lived here in 1935, whilst writing the acerbic 'Keep The Aspidistra Flying', and shortly before he married and left for Spain and the Civil War.
When he writes, at the end of 'Homage To Catalonia' of quiet suburbs "sleeping the deep, deep sleep of England, from which I sometimes fear we shall never wake till we are jerked out of it by the roar of bombs", I fancy perhaps he had the leafy idyll of Parliament Hill Fields in mind.
As a point of interest, Alfred Perles, the Austrian-born friend and biographer of Henry Miller, lived at number 69 Parliament Hill during the 1950s.
ReplyDeleteWhen Orwell visited Miller in Paris, on his way to participate in the Spanish civil war, in the mid-30s, he very likely would have met Perles, as he and Miller often shared lodgings during this period.