Eric & Us

This slender memoir (195 pages), out of print for 25 years and therefore virtually unknown except to those who write Orwellian biographies, is and always will be the only real source of detail concerning, in his school holidays, Eric Blair’s day-by-day occupations and preferences. The addition of the Postscript, written by Jacintha's cousin, writer Dione Venables, explains what Jacintha’s words in Eric & Us skip over – and reveals the pathos in the reality of their relationship.

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Eric & Us was first published in 1974 and the new edition which now includes an index and postscript, is the only existing root source of first-hand information concerning Orwell's formative years, written by his closest friend of the period 1914 – 1922. The Buddicom family lived at Shiplake-on-Thames, Oxfordshire from 1903 – 1952. The Blair family's garden adjoined the Buddicoms' when they, too, live at Shiplake for two years before returning to Henley-on-Thames, near their previous home. The 11 year-old Eric and Jacintha (13) became inseparable friends for the next eight years. Eric, always hating his christian name, later took the name of George Orwell, once he had begun to make a success of his writing.

In the 1970s Jacintha was asked to contribute an article covering the years of Orwell's literary growth, to which she and her family had made such a positive contribution. Following this piece in The World of George Orwell, which had been heavily edited, thereby losing vital details, Eric & Us was eventually written with constant reference to Avril Dunn, Orwell's younger sister, and finally published by Leslie Frewin in 1974.

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