George Orwell died on this day in 1950. Phil Tinline's series of short documentaries Orwell in Five Words on BBC Sounds https://bbc.in/3hm1dig | BBC Radio 4

15K views · 278 reactions | #OnThisDay 1973: George Orwell was the subject of a Melvyn Bragg documentary. Contributors included W.H Auden, Noam Chomsky, Michael Foot, Norman Mailer and Angus Wilson. | BBC Archive | Facebook

#OnThisDay 1984: Boy George was eloquent and entertaining when he spoke to Terry Wogan about identity and eccentricity. “I don’t believe anybody is really that different.” | BBC Archive

In 1943, George Orwell was cold and broke. He’d just quit the BBC to write a novel, moving to a basement flat in north-west London. After spending two years producing wartime propaganda, Orwell wrote that he felt like “an orange that’s been trodden on by a very dirty boot.” The winter of 1943-44 was one of the coldest of the century. The flat had no heat. Every evening when his wife Eileen came home from her job at the Ministry of Food, Orwell read what he’d written that day. They huddled under