George Orwell| Photo Credit:Special Arrangement On the island of Jura live more deer and sheep than people. Five miles of trudging beyond the main road will bring you to a croft now called Knockavill, or as George Orwell named it, Barnhill, where he set up a frugal farmhouse and wrote his classic 1984. This Hebridean island in Scotland has always been an abiding fascination for me, as I too, like Orwell, sought its isolation and peace, its beauty and remoteness, its ruggedness and wildlife, its solitude and its adventure.
Scotland holds a special enchantment for me, and I have found myself drawn back to its rolling hills, placid lochs, and peaceful streams time and again. My sense of a lonely man mourning the death of his wife, Eileen, and suffering from frequent bouts of tuberculosis in a homestead in austere surroundings of a faraway windswept island, piqued my curiosity, inspiring me to embark on a journey to this isolated island; its eerie stillness has always seized my imagination. Amid the cacophony of modern life, where every experience is recorded and shared, I too find solace in the simplicity and quiet of this unfettered place.
Orwell’s decision to settle here was initially driven by a whimsical claim to Scottish lineage, but his true intention was to seek refuge from the constant demands of the “tyranny of the telephone”. He was entranced by the bleak beauty and the loneliness of the Highlands, so vividly captured by Daniel Defoe. Orwell had envisioned a self.