"There are disgusting scenes in the Tube stations at night."

There is very little political news.1 All the currents seem to be moving in the same direction as when I wrote to you last—public opinion moving leftward, the Right nevertheless consolidating its power owing to the weakness of the Labour leaders, and the minor left-wing parties quarrelling among themselves. It seems to be taken for granted that there will be a general election before the end of the year, and most people assume that the Labour Party is going to fight the election independently, which I cannot believe; at least I cannot believe that they will make a serious effort to win it.2 The Conservatives, though continuing to disillusion the public by their every act, now feel strong enough to disclaim responsibility for their past mistakes […]

Domestic issues continue to occupy most people’s attention. India, for instance, has almost dropped out of the news. The chief subjects of discussion are demobilization, re-housing and, for those who are a little longer-sighted, the birth-rate. The housing shortage, already serious, is going to be appalling as soon as the troops come home, and the Government proposes to cope with it by means of prefabricated steel houses which are reasonably convenient but so small as to only have room for one-child families. In theory these temporary shacks are to be scrapped after three year, but everyone assumes that in practice the new houses will not be forthcoming. It is widely recognized that our birth-rate cannot be expected to rise significantly unless people have houses to live in and that re-housing on a big scale is impossible while private property rights are respected […]. The Conservatives, who are on the whole more concerned about the birth-rate situation than the Left, are at the same time fighting the landlord’s battles for him, and try to solve the problem by preaching to the working class the duty of self-sacrifice and the wickedness of birth control […]

Other highly unpopular subjects are postwar mobility of labour, postwar continuation of food rationing, etc., and the war against Japan […] No one wants to remember that we shall have to keep living for years on a wartime basis and that the switch-over to peace production and the recapture of lost markets may entail as great an effort as the war itself. Everyone one wants, above all things, a rest. I overhear very little discussion of the wider issues of the war, and I can’t discern much popular interest in the kind of peace we should impose on Germany […]

There are a few social developments… Evening dress (i.e., for men) is gradually reappearing. The distinction between first and third class on the railways is being enforced again. Two years ago it had practically lapsed. Commercial advertisements… are definitely on the up-grade again, and make use of the snobbery motif more boldly […] Everything grows shabbier and more rickety. Sixteen people in a railway carriage designed for ten is quite common. The countryside has quite changed its face, the once green meadows having changed into cornfields, and in the remotest places one cannot get away from the roar of airplanes, which has become the normal background noise, drowning the larks.

There are very few literary developments to report. After nine months as a literary editor I am startled and frightened by the lack of talent and vitality. The crowd who are grouped about New Road, Now and Poetry, London—and I suppose these are “the movement” in so far as there is one—give me the impression of fleas hopping among the ruins of a civilization […] Attempts are constantly being made in short-lived reviews to revivify the various regional literatures, Scottish, Welsh, Irish and Northern Irish. These movements always have a strong nationalist and separatist tinge, sometimes bitterly anti-English, and will print anything however bad which is politically O.K. But the various nationalisms are so to speak interchangeable […]

No more news to speak of. This has been a foul summer, everything happening at the wrong time and hardly any fruit. I have been tied so tight to this beastly town that for the first time in my life I have not heard a cuckoo this year . . . .3 After the wail of the siren comes the zoom-zoom-zoom of the bomb, and as it draws nearer you get up from your table and squeeze yourself into some corner that flying glass is not likely to reach. Then BOOM, the windows rattle in their sockets, and you go back to work. There are disgusting scenes in the Tube stations at night, sordid piles of bedding cluttering up the passageways and hordes of dirty-faced children playing round the platforms at all hours. Two nights ago, around midnight, I came on a little girl of five “minding” her younger sister, aged about two. The tiny child had got hold of a scrubbing brush with which she was scrubbing the filthy stones on the platform, and then sucking the bristles. I took it away from her and told the elder girl not to let her have it. But I had to catch my train, and no doubt the poor little brat would have been eating filth in another couple of minutes. This kind of thing is happening everywhere. However, the disorganization and consequent neglect of children hasn’t been serious compared with 1940.

George Orwell

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