George Orwell at Southwold
The Artist – Charlie Uzzel-Edwards
Who? Yes, until five minutes ago I would have said the same. I was searching “autodidact” on Google when I came upon a list of famous autodidacts. This included William Blake, John Clare and George Orwell. George Orwell, didn’t he go to Public School? (Note to overseas readers – a Public School is one that the public is most definitely excluded from by means of high fees and snobbery. A Minor Public School is much the same, but they are looked down on by the Public Schools, despite still being exclusive. There’s a layer of private schooling below that, and then you come down to the schools that most of the public go to. Confused? Me too.)
Anyway, back to George Orwell. He went to Eton. Current Fees at Eton are £21,099.60 including VAT. That is for a “Half”. There are three halves in a year at Eton. I’m suspecting that they don’t teach a lot of maths in Public Schools. Then there are music lessons and “extras”, registration fees and uniforms. It soon mounts up. However, they do say that bursaries are available and no parent should feel that the cannot send their kid to Eton on account of the cost. This may be true, but I can’t help feeling that class and snobbery may make life difficult if you come from a working class home. Twenty Prime Ministers have gone to Eton, about a third. It’s not a place for the poor, the modest or the lower class.
So there you go – George Orwell, the man who is reputed to have educated himself, went to a school where it would currently cost you the thick end of £70,000 to send one of your children. Now, I know I can come across as having a bit of a chip on my shoulder regarding private education, but if I was paying £70,000 a year I’d not expect my kids to have to educate themselves.
But back to Ruth Pitter. She helped Orwell in his writing by advising him to give up writing poetry. I’ve only seen one of his poems. Believe me, she did us all a favour. She also helped C S Lewis. I am, as you know, a fan of the Narnia books. Having dipped into his other work I prefer to think of Lewis as the author of the Narnia books. Well, the first six, I find The Last Battle eternally dispiriting and tend to avoid it when rereading the series.
She was also the first woman to win the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and a very interesting person. It’s amazing that after 66 years I am still finding such gaps in my knowledge. I could write more but it would only be regurgitating what is behind the link, so I will leave you to study privately.
Beach Huts – Southwold
She is definitely a gap in my knowledge.
She seems so interesting too . . .
I agree, I always learn something new here!
Me too! It’s not always useful but it is always interesting to learn new stuff. 🙂
I had never heard of Ruth Pitter. Thanks for teaching me something new today.
It’s amazing what we don’t know, isn’t it?
Oh, the list is so long.
And the older I get, the more the list grows. And when I was 16 I was so sure I knew everything!:-)
Thank you for this pointed and amusing article. You may remember that I taught myself to swim so that I would be able to pass the 11+ scholar ship
Yes, I recall that now. I passed my 11+ (it seemed so important at the time) and the very next year our school was made comprehensive. In Peterborough (just 3 miles away) they retained some Grammar Schools and in Lincolnshire (about 15 miles away) they still have Grammar Schools today. That was the start of the chip on my shoulder. 🙂
When I looked up autodidact I got Elon Musk and Bill Gates which just goes to show that Google thinks Australians are only interested in America.
As I recall, Gates went to an exclusive private school and Musk seems to have learned nothing. They just use money to buy other people’s brains. I always thought an autodidact was someone who educated themselves.
As for the American thing, I once looked up “Newark”. It seems it’s a place in somewhere called “New Jersey”. Google has at least corrected that bias and it now shows me “Newark on Trent”, the market town where King John dies and three sieges took place in the Civil War. Of course, if you look up “Civil War” you will find it is a film rather than a series of constitutional upheavals in the 17th Century. 🙂
And then there are those towns that seem uniquely American, like the one we saw on the highway sign on our way to Oregon when we moved here. We dipped south and back up instead of going straight across country due to snow and ice storms that year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucksnort,_Tennessee
That’s the way to name places – plenty of local history and no need to re-use tired old names.