Brev till Brenda Salkeld, maj 1935. Orwell upplever den patriotiska yran i samband med George V’s ”Silver Jubilee”, dvs firandet av kungens 25 år på tronen — och hamnar sedan på ett socialistiskt möte.
On Saturday night I was down in Chelsea, and it took me two hours to get back to Hampstead, the whole centre of London was so blocked with taxis full of drunken people careering round, singing and bellowing ”Long live the King!” What surprised me was that most of them were very young — the last people whom you would expect to find full of patriotic emotion; but I suppose they just welcomed the excuse for making a noise.
That night I had been to see Rees, really to borrow some money off him, as I had forgotten Monday was a bank holiday and had not got any money out of the bank, but he was at some sort of socialist meeting and they asked me in and I spent three hours with seven or eight Socialists harrying me, including a South Welsh miner who told me — quite good-naturedly, however — that if he were dictator he would have me shot immediately.
Björn Östbring 