Eric's Grave

We approached Sutton Courtenay from the South, partly by mistake. It is not the best approach. The place is one of those Oxfordshire villages that are clearly divided into the haves and have nots, the old and the new, the stylish and the utilitarian. At first we could not find the church. We did find a church but not the church. This one was the catholic church which is in the "other" part of Sutton Courtenay. It is a newish building and fairly utilitarian. It was clearly not the correct one since it did not have a churchyard.

Finding ourselves at an intersection we thought that the village had ended. We took the left turning towards Drayton and were soon out into the flat Oxfordshire countryside. This did not feel right so I reversed and retraced our path back to the intersection. This time we went straight on and we found Sutton Courtenay proper. This was a place that lived up to its name. The average price of the cars parked at this end of the village were, we guessed, roughly double those in the other part and house prices roughly treble. And there was the church - nestling between two attractive pubs and overlooking an extensive and well-kept village green bordered with expensive, low-level chain and post fencing.

The church was rather nice, though unfortunately locked so that we could not view the interior which was a pity. It is remarkably close to the second pub, a Morland's house with some ivy covering and painted in a dark yellow colour. The church is built of stone but has an unusual red brick porch. The porch looks very old, perhaps considerably older than the grey stone church itself. Above the doors was a sandstone plaque and within it the eroded spine of some creature or perhaps a sandstone replica of a snake's skeleton. I have no idea what that was all about.

The weather was good, though the week had been one of those typically fractious ones when you are never sure whether to carry sunglasses or an umbrella. The tennis at Wimbledon had been interrupted many times by rain and Tim Henman, England's great hope and a native of these parts had just been knocked out of the finals. People who take an interest in such things were feigning disinterest now that they had no countryman to support.

The graveyard was extensive and I did think that we might search it systematically. But my wife had already begun an independent search using some technique which looked quite random to me but I am sure was following some logic of her own invention. I identified a likely section and began to walk from grave to grave following the, roughly, straight lines. I could miss out some of the graves since they were clearly modern, many of sported fresh flowers so people were still being buried here. Some of the names on the older graves were indecipherable, which was worrying. Some of the graves had a complete surround but most consisted of a simple headstone. As always some of them make sad reading, especially the painfully early demise of children.

My wife's random trail was heading towards my own linear sweep and I noticed out of the corner of my eye that she was stationary. I looked up and she pointed to a particular stone.

"Here it is," she called, with the very slightest tinge of triumph in her voice.

"I wanted to find it," I said grumpily as I approached.

"I know, I'm sorry," she lied, and we smiled. I knew that she would find it first somehow. But he is my hero not hers.

The headstone was fairly plain, half rounded. The grave did not have a surround. The carved letters were quite clear - Here lies Eric Arthur Blair, Born June 25th 1903, Died January 21st 1950. Many people visit this churchyard looking for the grave of George Orwell and go away disappointed. There is no mention of his pen name on the stone.

The grave itself has two slender rose bushes growing from it, The one nearest the headstone is a deep red, the other is white with some interesting pink striping. The striping, my wife informed me, is probably caused by a virus - how romantic. Beneath the rose bushes the ground was cultivated but sprouting with weeds.

"Someone must look after the grave," I said to my wife.

"The weeds are perennials and need digging out," she said practically. She was right, they were mostly dandelion and buttercup.

"All the same I think I would like to clear it," I said kneeling down and commencing to pull up what I could of the weeds before they overgrew the grave of the man who I regard as the greatest English writer of the twentieth century. Silly as it was, it seemed the least I could do for all of the pleasure he had given me. I began to list the titles of his books as I worked.

" Burmese Days, Down and Out in London and Paris, The Clergyman's Daughter, Coming up for Air,………"

"I'll dead head the roses," said my wife. Later she also did a little weeding.

We hadn't realised that he had died so young. I am already eight years his senior and hope to see a lot more years yet. I have read almost everything that he wrote, including the collections of newspaper articles. I was introduced to him by George Woodcock's book, "Crystal Spirit" and my subsequent reading led to me to agree wholeheartedly with George's title. I have read Animal Farm aloud to each of my four children, at least once. And I never tired of the story and the writing. Snowball in particular became a family icon. I am sure that Orwell's writings on the English language have improved my own writing, and I am grateful.

I could not recall why he had ended up in Sutton Courtenay rather than the Isle of Jura where he spent his latter days, or in the counties of East Anglia with which I associate his pen name and a good stretch of his life. He made many audio recordings of the people of that region in order to preserve the way of agricultural life style before it gave way to mechanisation. We presumed that he was too ill to stay on the island that he lived. Then my wife found the much more impressive tomb of Herbert Asquith and we recalled that there was some link here.

Later I found that Eric Blair had died in London. The choice of Sutton Courtenay as burial place was somewhat arbitrary. He wanted to be buried in a country churchyard though he was certainly not a religious man in the conventional sense. He had a friend in Violet Asquith, who had been director of the BBC and this influenced the choice of All Saints Church in Sutton Courtenay as the place of burial. A story as interesting as it is vague - there are other versions.

It is fifty-two years since Eric died, I suspect that he is much better known than his friend's father, Herbert Henry Asquith, even though that man became the leader of this nation for a while. I also suspect that Eric's grave receives many more visitors and will continue to do so as long as the books of George Orwell are enjoyed. As far as I am concerned that will be forever.

In an essay entitled "Why I Write" he compiled a list of reasons, presumably in order of importance. The first reason is: "Sheer egotism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc. etc." Well, he certainly achieved his aim.

July 6th 2002

PS Afterwards we went to Little Wittenham by car and then by foot across the Thames to Dorchester to visit the Abbey. For some reason it was not so impressive as the little church in Sutton Courtenay. We then walked to Burcot and onwards to re-cross the Thames at Clifton Hampden. We enjoyed a pub meal and a few pints of Ruddles in Long Wittenham then walked back to the car. But, the high point of the day was definitely Eric's grave. And now I want to go to Jura.

Click here to see more of Rob Walters' writing