Near the now-vanished Cranham Lodge

Image: © Brian Robert Marshall Taken: 20 Jan 2011

For the moment this image will have to suffice to record the fact that, not far from the building just about visible through the midday mist, the acclaimed author George Orwell (nom de plume of Eric Arthur Blair) stayed at a sanatorium for several months in 1949. He had always had 'weak lungs' attributed to genetic factors and exacerbated by exposure to tuberculosis, heavy smoking and living in London in the days before the Clean Air Acts. Fighting in Catalonia in the Spanish Civil War didn't help as he was shot in the throat in that conflict fighting against the Nationalists. George Orwell died aged 46 on 21 January 1950. He achieved immortality largely through two works, 'Animal Farm' and 'Nineteen Eighty-Four', both published not long before his death. Although unmistakably a socialist, he was opposed to the manifestation of it presented by the USSR under Stalin as is clear from a reading of those works. His gravestone can be seen here Image and one of the places he worked at before he became famous is here Image Fortuitously the sixty-first anniversary of Orwell's death takes place the day after this image was obtained. There is a wealth of information about George Orwell and his fleeting connection with this hidden corner of the Cotswolds obtained simply by inserting 'Cranford Sanatorium' into Google. Most, if not all, of Orwell's writings are available online.

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