Jacintha Laura May Buddicom (10 May 1901 – 4 November 1993) was an English

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

and a childhood friend of George Orwell (Eric Blair). She met Blair in 1914 and they developed a shared interest in poetry, but she lost touch with him after he departed for

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

in 1922, and later she disputed Blair's writings about his own childhood. The two were in contact again near the end of Blair's life. She gave an account of the relationship in her memoir '' Eric & Us'', published in 1974.

Biography

Relationship with Eric Blair

Buddicom was born in Plymouth to Robert Arthur Buddicom, of Ticklerton Court, Church Stretton,

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to ...

,"Buddicom of Ticklerton Court", Burke's Landed Gentry, 1952 Buddicom moved with the rest of her family to

Shiplake Shiplake consists of three settlements: Shiplake, Shiplake Cross and Lower Shiplake. Together these villages form a civil parish situated beside the River Thames south of Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England. The river forms the parish bounda ...

, Oxfordshire where she first met Eric Blair in the summer of 1914 when he was standing on his head in a field at the bottom of the Buddicoms' garden. When asked why, he replied, "You are noticed more if you stand on your head than if you are the right way up." From that summer afternoon, Eric and his younger sister Avril became very close friends with Buddicom and her younger brother and sister, Prosper (Robert Prosper Gedye Buddicom, 1904–1968) and Guinever (Guinever Laura Olivia Norsworthy Buddicom; 3 February 1907 - 4 February 2002UK, Select Cemetery Registers, 1873–2014, Ancestry.co.uk). With Prosper and Guiny, Blair enjoyed shooting, fishing and birdwatching, while with Jacintha he preferred to read and write poetry and dream of future intellectual adventures. At this time he told Buddicom that at some point he might write a book in a style similar to that of

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. ''

A Modern Utopia ''A Modern Utopia'' is a 1905 novel by H. G. Wells. Because of the complexity and sophistication of its narrative structure, ''A Modern Utopia'' has been called "not so much a modern as a postmodern utopia."Michael Sherborne, ''H.G. Wells: Anot ...

'', although ''

Nineteen Eighty-Four ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and fina ...

'' turned out to be far different from Buddicom's expectations. Buddicom was educated at Oxford High School, but neither she nor Blair achieved their shared dream of going to

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

. The couple lost touch shortly after Blair went to Burma. She became unsympathetic at the letters he wrote complaining about his life, and stopped writing back. The reason for this is explained in the Postscript edition

006 Alec Trevelyan (006) is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 1995 James Bond film '' GoldenEye'', the first film to feature actor Pierce Brosnan as Bond. Trevelyan is portrayed by actor Sean Bean. The likeness of Bean as Ale ...

of '' Eric & Us'', which suggests that the then eighteen-year-old Blair may have attempted a botched seduction involving Buddicom shortly before his departure to Burma.Kathryn Hughes
"Such were the joys"
''The Guardian'', 17 February 2007 In 1927, Buddicom gave birth to a daughter as a result of an unsuccessful affair, and gave the baby away for a childless aunt to adopt. When Blair, who never knew of Buddicom's daughter, came back from Burma on leave that year, he assumed that she was away from the Buddicom family home because she was angry with him and they did not make contact again. She then began a 30-year affair with a peer of the Realm. It was not until 1949, a few months before Orwell's death, that Buddicom realised that George Orwell, the author of ''

Animal Farm ''Animal Farm'' is a beast fable, in the form of satirical allegorical novella, by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. It tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to c ...

'', was her childhood friend Eric Blair. They exchanged a few letters and phone conversations and he was eager for her to come and see him, "to talk about my little son Richard", but it was too late by then, and a few months later, after her mother's death, she slipped unnoticed into Orwell's funeral service at Christ Church, Albany Street, in 1950. Buddicom was at great pains to dispute the picture of childhood misery described by Orwell in his essay " Such, Such Were the Joys". She claimed that "he was a specially happy child", writing "There was no harping on inferiority and poverty by Eric then.... The picture painted of a wretched little neurotic, snivelling miserably before a swarm of swanking bullies, suspecting that he smelt, just was not Eric at all." And she made a systematic investigation of many of his claims and allegations in order to disprove them. She described him as an aloof and undemonstrative boy, and recalled him as being self-sufficient with no need of a wide circle of friends. After her death, her cousin Dione Venables, who was left the copyrights for the book and a quantity of family papers, did much in-depth research, and in 2006 published an updated version of ''Eric & Us'', including all the previously unknown material about Blair's and Buddicom's relationship in a most revealing postscript.

Poetry and other activities

Buddicom lived with her sister for many years. She designed two Shropshire houses, and two motor-caravans for which she won prizes."Remembering George Orwell"
review of ''Eric & Us'', Leslie Frewin Publishers, London 1974 She wrote a book of poetry published in America, and her ''Cat Poems'' were published in 1972, two years before ''Eric & Us'' appeared.

Publications

*''Cat Poems'' Leslie Frewin, 1972 *''Eric & Us'' Leslie Frewin, London, 1974 *''The Young Eric'' in Miriam Gross (ed.) ''The World of George Orwell'' Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971 *''The compleat workes of Cini Willoughby Dering'', New York : Payson & Clarke, 1929

Biography

Relationship with Eric Blair

Poetry and other activities

Publications

References

Further reading