Another thing I was excited about as we planned the trip to Jura was the idea of maybe walking to the northern tip of the island after we'd visited Barnhill. In the biographies I'd read the exciting story about Orwell being sucked into the Corryvreckan whirlpool and surviving it. I thought it would be exciting to look at that stretch of water.

The Coryvreckan story, in the words of Orwell's nephew, is told in GEORGE ORWELL, A LIFE by Bernard Crick.

As things turned out we didn't walk to the Corryvreckan whirlpool after VISITING ORWELL'S BARNHILL because my husband didn't feel up to walking the extra three miles there and three miles back. As he so Orwellingly put it, "three plus three equals six" and I couldn't argue with that. But indirectly we DID experience the Corryvrecken whirlpool as I explain below:

After leaving Jura on Sunday and arriving by ferry at Kennacraig we met a hitchhiker from Ireland who needed a ride to the Glasgow airport. He and friends had sailed from Belfast to Islay the day before in a big rubber boat but couldn't go back that way because strong winds had come up. His friends were still in Islay waiting for calm waters so they could sail back as planned. But he had to be at work on Monday and couldn't wait.

During the course of the next couple of hours, as we drove along the road to Glasgow, I told him all about George Orwell. Talk about a captured audience!

When I got to the part about how Orwell almost died a couple of times, ie the first time when he got shot through the neck in Spain and the second time when he got sucked into the Corryvreckan whirlpool, he got really interested. It turns out that the day before - which was Saturday, the same day we'd been at Barnhill - he'd sailed along the coast of Jura and through the Corryvrecken whirlpool in the rubber boat. They'd passed Barnhill on the way and remarked to each other that that was Orwell's house. That would have been at around the same time that we were there.

When I told him that Orwell and his son, niece and nephew had washed up on a little island after the boat flipped over he knew exactly which 'rock' it would have been, having so recently seen it himself. He then went on to explain the speeds at which a person's boat has to be able to travel if it starts getting pulled in and how Orwell's little boat wouldn't have had a chance. He said the whirlpool happens during tide times and then you can see it from the cliff, churning around like a bathtub drain, but otherwise it's not noticeable. He said he'd be interested in reading about Orwell's Corryvreckan experience and also that he planned to read "1984" as soon as he got home.

By this time we were approaching Glasgow and when we stopped to check our bearings to the airport another car pulled up and asked directions to the toll bridge. When we told them we were lost ourselves and heading toward Newcastle after dropping off our hitch-hiker at the airport they offered to take him there for us and gave us directions through Glasgow avoiding the bridge. So we quickly waved our Corryvreckan hitch-hiker goodbye, had a bite to eat in downtown Glasgow, and then followed signs to The South, with a stop at Hadrian's Wall along the way.

go next to 4. ANCESTRAL BOOK ENDS TO ORWELL or back to index at PILGRIMAGE TO ORWELL

(reader sends photo) PETER PICS ORWELL'S WHIRLPOOL