Orwell Bday 2026

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HAPPY 123 BIRTHDAY OLD GEORGE

Today, it being June 25th, is George Orwell's 123rd birthday, he being born in 1903.

As a ritual every year I celebrate the day of His birth with a cake and party hats.

This year, in setting the scene in the dining room, I brought framed photos of Orwell from my office and hung them on the wall so guests can see them. They were taken during my HOMAGE TO ORWELL in 2003.

General George Armstrong Custer came to the party this year. Usually he's in the office editing my Civil War and Indian War articles in his capacity as published author whose writings I've excerpted many times from his books, magazine articles and vast correspondence both official and personal.

As depicted on the above cover of the booklet CUSTER BATTLEFIELD -- which I bought at the Museum there -- Custer's visage is scare-crow-like and much the worse for wear -- far from his glory days when he was the personification of gallantry -- the most gifted tactition of warfare -- had won more battles than anyone in the entire war -- was a national hero -- a rock star -- a personality the likes of which no one had ever seen before or will ever see again.

Custer's MY LIFE ON THE PLAINS, published in 1874, is the authoritative book on his earliest experiences commanding troops in the Indian War under orders to protect settlers and workers laying telegraph and railroad tracks as civilization advanced westward across America. Many books full of lies have been written but to separate the wheat from the chaff it's best to hear the truth from the horse's mouth. My copy, a 1966 edition, is in as rough a shape as Custer.

Ten years ago, for the 140th anniversary of the Battle of Little Big Horn (it's now the 150th) I made a PILGRIMAGE TO CUSTER and paid homage to him at Last Stand Hill on June 25th, 2016. See CUSTER MASSACRE AT GATES OF HELL

Now, with Orwell born on the same day Custer died, June 25th is a double-whammy significant date for me, an aficionado of both. So, back to the party, let the festivities begin.

Custer and tiny Orwell, who is standing beside him atop the frame, have arrived and we light the candle and sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY. I slice the cake and hold the piece that says "George" and that's for Custer. The piece that says "Orwell" is for the other George, the other "famous author" who wrote ANIMAL FARM and 1984 and whose name, like Custer's, has gone down in the annals of history and will be remembered through time immemorial.

Early the next morning, the day after the night before, Orwell is perched on his typewriter with a symbolically blank piece of paper. It represents the unwritten books Orwell "still had in him" which gave him hope he'd live long enough to write a happy utopia -- not a terrifying dystopia. But Orwell died, age 46 on January 21, 1950.

I took the bottle of Jura whisky off the shelf, pulled the cork and me and Orwell enjoyed "a wee dram" and clinked glasses. I bought that bottle of whisky on the island of Jura, Scotland during my PILGRIMAGE TO ORWELL in 2004. It was aged 10 years then and now it's 32 years vintage -- and getting mellower with time. Later, with morning coffee -- in my BB mug -- I added "a wee dram" and toasted my two Georges.

I love the Orwell frames on the dining room wall and may leave them there for awhile before returning them to the office where Custer's already skedaddled. Here's what they depict:

frame top left:
*Jackie standing in front of London University Hospital where Orwell died January 21st, 1950
*Jackie standing in front of Ministry of Truth (Ministry of Information where Orwell's wife Eileen worked during WWII); present day Senate House
*Zoe standing in front of Booklover's Corner where Orwell worked while writing Keep The Aspidistra Flying; present day pizza parlour
*77 Parliament Hill; Orwell's House in Hampstead Heath; lived in top-floor flat; met his wife Eileen at landlady's party there
*27B Canonbury Square, Islington; Orwell, Eileen & baby Richard lived on top-floor flat; model for Winston Smith's flat in 1984
*Jackie standing at front of Canonbury Square row houses outside Orwell's door with blue plaques
*Jackie taking photo from top floor window inside Orwell's flat of Canonbury Square down below; see window box flowers
*Jackie standing in Canonbury Square park in front of Orwell's building
*Canonbury Square from distance

frame top right:
*Inside Canonbury Square on top-floor landing in front of Orwell's door
*Inside entrance hall in Orwell's flat
*Jackie standing in front of door of Orwell's workshop at end of hallway
*Zoe standing at other end of hallway
*Orwell's bedroom
*Photographs of Orwell on wall must stay with flat whoever leases
*Orwell's living room with fireplace
*Orwell's living room with desk under window

frame bottom left:
*Jackie in front of All Saints Church in Sutton Courteney where Orwell is buried
*Rose bushes on Orwell's grave
*Orwell's headstone: HERE LIES ERIC ARTHUR BLAIR
*Jackie kneeling behind Orwell's headstone
*Jackie laying on Orwell's grave

frame bottom right:
*Photos of Orwell on wall in Bloomsbury London pub
*Jackie standing in front of the Wheatsheaf pub
*Jackie & Zoe drinking in pub
*Zoe standing in dining room at Elysee restaurant
*Jackie standing at door of Orwell's wife Sonia's flat
*Zoe standing in front of the Marquis pub

I hope readers enjoyed Orwell's 123rd birthday party and will attend again next year for his 124th.

Custer died 150 years ago at Little Big Horn

(battlefield closure kills dying tourism economy)

CUSTER MASSACRE AT GATES OF HELL
June 25, 1876-2026

ORWELL & JACKIE SPAIN GODCIDENCE

1984 published 77 years ago
June 8, 1949-2026

PS - Like a birthday gift to me from Orwell, a few days before the 25th I was googling the web looking for news about both Georges, and godcidently came across an interview with the author of a new book about Custer and the Battle of Little Big Horn. I must admit my mind was almost dreading that it would probably be another rendition of Custer being blamed and the Indians made out to be victimized heroes. So WOW, what a pleasant surprise that it's a total defence of Custer -- a total understanding. I've already ordered the book -- in hardcover -- and can hardly wait for its arrival. What I'm most excited about is that it's full of newly created maps that will give a total birds eye view of the battle. I'll share a review and pics when it arrives.

The Story of an Epic Defeat
by Bill Rini & Phil Guarnieri

The shattering news of the Battle of the Little Big Horn swept into the American consciousness with all the fury of a storm at sea surging ashore. For a still-young nation celebrating the centennial of its birth and anticipating the promise of a boundless future, the news of Custer's death ride hovered over the nation's celebrations like a nuclear winter. Ever since, gnawing questions surrounding this epic defeat have haunted the national imagination. How could the most famous regiment in the United States Army, led by a great war hero and its most renowned Indian fighter, succumb so disastrously and totally to the primitive savagery of the Western frontier? Since no trooper or scout who rode with Custer survived, answers to the debacle have never come easy, even for those determined to know the truth. From the first sighting of the massive Indian village, this new account provides a first-class, gut-wrenching historical reconstruction of events that is a model of prodigious research, as it builds, step-by-step, a case for what happened and why on that sweltering afternoon in June 1876. Drawing upon hundreds of personal accounts from both sides, furnishing exhaustive timelines and exquisitely detailed, uncluttered maps, the authors amplify old evidence while plowing untrodden ground in search of elusive clues. The result is a narrative bristling with the unholy cacophony of war, blending the art of superior storytelling with the historian's factual rigor. Unearthing fresh revelations of the great West's most storied and spellbinding encounter, this climactic slaughter along the banks of the Little Big Horn ultimately drove the Plains Indians and their way of life to an unmarked grave -- even as other forces forged together a Continental nation of mythical proportions.