19.7.39.

Foreign & General
1. Gov.t advising all householders to lay in supply of non-perishable food. Leaflet on the subject to be issued shortly. Daily Telegraph [a]
2. D. Tel. Gives over 2 pages to scale picture of entire British battle fleet. Daily Telegraph [b]
3. German economic mission in Moscow said to be making no more progress than Anglo-Russian pact, with implication that 3-cornered bargaining is going on. [No reference]
Party Politics
1. First appearance of People’s Party in Hythe by-election. Daily Telegraph [c]
2. Appears that Lidell° Hart’s book “Defence of Britain” boosts Hore Belisha.° Daily Telegraph, 18.7.39 [d]
Miscellaneous
1. General estimation that harvest this year will be good, & not (as last year) wheat only. [No reference]

[a] [b] [c] [d]

19.7.39.

Showers, but mostly fine. Everything now growing very fast. Many peas. A few tomatoes about the size of marbles. One or two marrows about size of peanuts.
Not certain whether a pullet has started laying prematurely or whether the mother hen which is still in the youngster’s run (& which lays a small egg) had laid out, but found an egg in that run today.
Sowed Canterbury bells (prob. Too late, but they do very well if treated as triennials.)
13 eggs (2 very small). Sold 35 for 4/3 (2/6 a score – should have been 4/41/2).

18.7.39.

Raining almost the whole day. Too wet to do much outside.
Female flowers coming on first marrow.
11 eggs.

17.7.39.

Warmish in the morning, thunderstorms & heavy rain most of afternoon.
Picked first peas, about 1lb. Thinned out turnips, which are very good & look untouched by the fly. Began digging patch for greens, but too wet to do much.
Hens which have made nests outside will apparently continue to sit there in the middle of pouring rain. Very small newt tadpoles put into aquarium seem to disappear. Fear the large ones may be eating them, but if so this must only occur at night. Note that the water-snail is able in some way to elevate himself to the top of the water & remain floating there – or possibly is naturally buoyant & only remains down when using suction.[a]
11 eggs. (1 double egg – the first for some time).

[Orwell’s note]
[a] Can also rise to surface when he wants to, or can remain on bottom without holding on.

17.7.39.

Foreign & General
1. British send cruiser & thus prevent threatened anti-British demonstration at Tsingtao. Tokyo conversations evidently not getting anywhere. Daily Telegraph [a]
2. Anglo-Russian pact only just makes front page of D. Tel. Daily Telegraph [b]
Social
1. Definitely states in D. Tel that Saturday’s militia draft (34,000 men) turned up with not one absentee (except cases of illness etc). Daily Telegraph [c]
Party Politics
1. Left wing of Indian Congress party (as judged by “Congress Socialist”) more vigorously anti-war than before. Publishes vicious attack on C[ommunist].P[arty]. from Trotskyist angle, but another article demands democratic bloc. Congress Socialist [no date given]

2. Serious trouble in I.L.P. on pacifist-revolutionary controversy & long statement from I.L.P.’ers (London group) published in “Socialist Correspondence”, which also takes other opportunities of attacking McGovern. Socialist Correspondence

[a] [b] [c]

16.7.39.

Foreign & General
1. 12,000 naval reservists to be called up July 31 for about 7 weeks. Sunday Times [a]
2. General impression that Anglo-Russian pact is going to fall through. Sunday Times [b]; Sunday Express [c]
3. Sunday Express states that move to include Churchill in Cabinet is really move to get rid of Chamberlain. Sunday Express [d]
Social
1. No mention of dissentients among 30,000 militiamen called up yesterday. [No reference]
2. More or less scaremongering article (submarine menace) by Liddell Hart[1] in Sunday Express. Sunday Express [e]
Party Politics
1. Liberal retains N. Cornwall seat, slightly increasing previous small majority. Both candidates’ polls rose largely. Daily Telegraph, 15.7.39 [f]
2. Beaverbrook press accuses P.P.U. of being pro-Nazi, misquoting article. Peace News, 14.7.39
Miscellaneous
1. Eton-Harrow match ends in a fight, the first time since 1919. Sunday Express [g]

[a] [b] [c] [d] [e] [f] [g]

[1] Orwell wrote of him, ‘The two military critics most favoured by the intelligentsia are Captain Liddell Hart and Major-General Fuller, the first of whom teaches that defence is stronger than the attack, and the second that the attack is stronger than the defence. This contradiction has not prevented both of them from being accepted as authorities by the same public. The secret reason for their vogue in left-wing circles is that both of them are at odds with the War Office’; see ‘Notes on Nationalism,’ Polemic,1, [October] 1945, 2668. Peter Davison

16.7.39.

Sharp shower in the morning, otherwise fairly warm. The white hen has turned up, evidently having slept out somewhere. Note that Innes has coppered over some of the chains, bolts etc. in his haymaking machinery in the same way as I did experimentally with the nails, so evidently it is not so impracticable after all. The copper where I attempted it crusted the threads of bolts so that they would not turn.
All the small pools in the woods have dried up. Note that on one a waterhen had built a nest & then had to clear out when the pool dried up.
Seeds formed on bluebells, hips forming on briars.
12 eggs.

[on facing page in Orwell’s hand]

To drill holes in Glass (according to “Smallholder”): Use small twist drill. Mark spot with glass-cutter, give a turn or two of the drill, then smear on grease, sprinkle with emery or carborundum powder & drill gently, not pressing.

15.7.39.

Warm. A very short light shower in the evening. Weeded out the strawberries, as well as could be done, & picked off such as were ripe. More berries forming, but doubt if we shall get any now the nets are off.[a] Yesterday found a late thrushe’s° nest with one egg (bird on it). One white hen missing – possibly sitting somewhere on a nest, but afraid she is lost, as she has been gone since yesterday.
14 eggs. Sold 2 score @ 2/8. Total this week: 86[b].
Butcher says hens are laying better again, so eggs will go down [in price].

[Orwell’s notes]

[a] Up to taking off the nets, about 71/2lb @6d a lb = 3/9.

[b] Improvement of 10 on last week. Hens have been on Karswood since 4.7.39.

15.7.39.

Foreign & General
1. Large demonstration against British Embassy in Tokio. Daily Telegraph [a]

2. Celebration of 150th anniversary of taking of Bastille  included march-past of 30,000 troops including British Daily Telegraph [b]

3. Conscription of all persons 18-55 ordered in Hong Kong, but evidently so phrased as to apply chiefly to Chinese & allow exemption to most of the whites. Daily Telegraph [c]
Social
1. Cmr. Stephen King-Hall’s German circular letters thought to have reached 50,000 people in Germany, evading the Gestapo by different-sized envelopes & different methods of folding. Daily Telegraph [d]
2. Beginning of what are evidently large spy-revelations in France (cf. U.S.A.) by arrest of various persons connected with rightwing° newspapers. Daily Telegraph [e]
Party Politics
1. Economic League accuses P.P.U. of being vehicle of Nazi propaganda. Daily Telegraph [f]
2. Individual membership of N.C.L.[1] now said to be 4500. Affiliations: 281 Women’s Co-op Guilds, 30 Trade Councils & T.U. branches, 37 Labour parties & Women’s sections, 10 Co-op parties etc., 53 P.P.U. branches & miscellaneous. Communist press accuses N.C.L. of being a Fascist body. No Conscription, July-August 1939; Daily Worker, 13.6.39 [g]
Miscellaneous
1. Crowds at Eton-Harrow match estimated at 10, 000 & said to be smartest gathering for some years. [No reference]

[a] [b] [c] [d] [e] [f] [g]

[1] No Conscription League

14.7.39.

Foreign & General
1. Public Information Leaflet No. 2 (masking windows etc.) issued today. German visitors state gas masks have not been distributed in Germany. [No. reference]
Social
1. M.G. Weekly prints facts about the Spender letter, & a letter from Bonham Carter etc. Manchester Guardian Weekly [a]
Party Politics
1. M.G. Weekly considers pro-Churchill move inside the Conservative party has been checkmated. Manchester Guardian Weekly [b]
2. Communist party pamphlet against conscription withdrawn from circulation after 3 weeks. Left Forum, July 1939

[a] [b]