Authors
Peter Davison OBE, PhD, D.Litt, Hon. D. Arts
PROFESSOR Peter Davison, having spent nearly 25 years compiling The Complete Works of George Orwell in 20 volumes, has also written another six books with Orwell as subject. He must be regarded, therefore, as one of the prime sources of knowledge concerning this great socio-political literary genius of the 20th century.
Professor Davison, having been appointed a Fellowship at the Shakespeare Institute, worked at the University of Birmingham and lectured at universities worldwide, including Australia and the United States. In 1991 he joined the newly-created De Montfort University in Leicester as a Research Professor. He was awarded the OBE in 1999 and also in the same year D.Litt. and Hons.D. Arts degrees. In 2003 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Bibliographical Society. His latest book The Lost Orwell was published in 2006.
Professor Sir Bernard Crick
PROFESSOR SIR BERNARD CRICK, political theorist and democratic socialist whose biography George Orwell: A Life (1982) was the first authorised biography, written at the behest of Orwell’s widow Sonia Brownell. Among his many important works he is perhaps also known for his classic book In Defence of Politics (1962) and for his inspirational link with both the George Orwell Memorial Trust and the Orwell Prize from their inceptions. Who better fitted to launch The Blair/Orwell Essay and Forum than this dedicated guardian of the Orwell ethos.
Jacintha Buddicom
ERIC & US was written after Jacintha, always acknowledged to have been the childhood muse of George Orwell, was asked, in 1970, to write the opening article for an anthology of The Great Man's life (The World of George Orwell). She quickly realised that there was so much more to their shared lives than there had been room to illustrate that, when publisher Leslie Frewin suggested she might like to write her own book on the subject, she was delighted to agree.
Jacintha Buddicom was essentially a poet. As a result, this little memoir is filled with the music of language as well as the fascination of watching a brilliant 11 year-old boy evolving into adulthood bearing the bruises of romantic rejection as well as the scars of parental mishandling.
Jacintha was the eldest of three, born in 1901 as the Edwardian era moved on from Victorian ethics towards the horrors of the First World War. So secure was the sheltered world of their upbringing that that most terrible of world wars scarcely seemed to touch their lives. The three Buddicoms and two younger Blairs developed together, Jacintha and Eric almost inseparable as they explored the occult – Fabian writers – and became teenagers. Their poetry was their intimacy, and Jacintha's fascination with words and what could be done with them met a momentous champion in Eric's brilliant understanding and constant challenge.
Jacintha, two years older than Eric but a tiny elegant figure beside his fast-growing person, rejected his romantic overtures and when, after school, his father sent him to join the Imperial Police in Burma, they lost touch when she stopped writing to him. He saw something of her brother and sister on his return 5 years later – but Jacintha was busy elsewhere and the idyllic relationship was lost.
It was not until 1949, twenty seven years later, and only a few months before his death in 1950 that Jacintha suddenly discovered that Eric was, in fact, George Orwell, the author of Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty Four and many other notable books. She wrote to him immediately and for a very few poignant months they returned to those magical days of their youth, addressing each other in their secret way, with even a rueful complaint from Orwell that she had ‘abandoned him to Burma'.
This small but gifted Edwardian spent her life as a poet. She did not marry and came to regard cats as being more faithful friends than human beings, writing a book of cat poems which is still valued today by those who think the same way. Jacintha died in 1993, leaving behind her this delicate portrayal of the childhood and youth of two exceptional young people.
Dione Venables
The three Buddicoms in Eric & Us were the children of Dione Venables's aunt Laura Finlay. Dione, who lives near Chichester, West Sussex, the author of seven historical novels, sometime BBC broadcaster and miniaturist, had been in the habit of writing a daily diary for very many years, and recording all interesting conversations with senior members of her family. She has a keen interest in genealogy and realized how important it is to listen to everything that elderly relations have to say about their past - because therein lie the details of family history.
It is for this reason that she has been able, with the blessing of involved members of her family, to contribute the Postscript, which is the key to the hidden agenda of Eric & Us, using her diary notes and researching where possible for verification.
Jacintha was headlined in the Press in 1972 as “The Girl Who Jilted Orwell”. The Postscript relates the poignant events that actually occurred, causing George Orwell to erase his closest childhood friends from his personal history, though the echo of them lives on in many of his characters.