Though I won’t be revisiting George Orwell anymore in this project, I thought this piece of information was worth sharing.
Orwell’s 1984 nearly didn’t happen.
While on a camping trip in Scotland, Orwell took a small motor boat out with his son, niece and nephew. The boat got caught up in the tide and flipped. The group didn’t have on life jackets and were taken in by a whirlpool.
Orwell’s son, Richard, described the incident:
“My father and I ended up upside down underneath the boat,” he remembered. “He pulled me out and dragged me ashore. It was a pretty stupid thing to happen. In the twinkling of an eye that could have gone totally wrong and we could have been swept away and drowned. And of course that would have been the end of my father because he was still really in the middle of writing Nineteen Eighty-Four – so that wouldn’t have happened.”
C’mon on, George. No life jackets?
Thankfully, everyone was okay. But can you imagine if 1984 didn’t exist because George Orwell drowned in a whirlpool in Scotland?
We still would have had Animal Farm. But let’s be honest: Animal Farm is no 1984.
The moral of the story? Wear freakin’ life jackets–especially if you’re in a small motor boat off the coast of Scotland.
More at The National Post.
