大象传媒

Bush House, which has been the home of the 大象传媒 World Service since 1940, is a legendary place and I'm going to tell you about the biggest of its legends.

It was a rainy day in May, 15 years ago, when I - an Uzbek, a product of the Soviet system - slipped quickly through the massive doors of Bush House, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of wet air from entering along with me. After the freshness of the outside world, the reception area smelled of attic dust and old indoor carpets, but the fluffy warmth insulating the building swallowed the whirl and I shivered one last time before noticing a young lady, who was waiting for me with a pack of welcoming papers. She moved swiftly towards the receptionist and said 'He is a newcomer. The time is 13:00. Room 101. North East'.

Room 101

In this semi-automatically delivered tirade there was something both enigmatic and frightfully familiar. In the silence broken only by our steps, we passed a long and empty corridor, came to a mezzanine, entered another building and then she overtook me to open the door into Room 101.

She gave me plenty of paperwork to sign, and then left me to myself for a while. I looked around and noticed a thick dusty Oxford Dictionary of English. I gazed: it was the XI-th edition.

Then she returned and took me through many seemingly endless corridors and stairs to the Russian Service. Why the Russian service? I had nothing to do with Russia, apart from being from the former Soviet bloc. But I didn't ask questions, I just followed her, and entered a room with thin wooden walls littered with windows, where she introduced me to a bold, tall man, who said: 'Brayne' and seeing a strange fear in my face, added: 'Mark Brayne... You can call me just Mark... I'm a Deputy Head of the Service... '

Then I knew exactly what my anxiety had been about and where it had come from, Orwell! 1984! How on earth couldn't I have worked it out any quicker?! Yes, everything was a step by step recollection of George Orwell's book: the entrance, Room 101, the XI-th edition, O'Brien (to my non English ears 'Brayne' had sounded exactly like 'O'Brien'... I subconsciously looked around for a poster with the infamous 'Big Brother is watching you', and saw with an inexplicable horror, the drilling eyes and pointing finger of a Red Army soldier right the opposite of O'Brien, silently asking: '孝褘 蟹邪锌懈褋邪谢褋褟 写芯斜褉芯胁芯谢褜褑械屑?!' - 'Have you conscripted yourself as a voluntary soldier?!'

Later I learned that shortly before he wrote his masterpiece about totalitarianism, George Orwell had worked here, at the 大象传媒 World Service.

Orwell - 'unsuited to the microphone'

George Orwell didn't actually work in Bush House, but in a building situated at 200 Oxford Street, though by all indications he came here from time to time, since the Hindi Service of which he was a part was situated in Bush House. The 大象传媒 World Service archives in Caversham has lots of documents about him. One in particular, signed by Controller of Overseas Services Mr JB Clark on 19 January, 1943, says:

'I listened rather carefully to one of George Orwell's English talks in the Eastern Service on, I think, Saturday last. I found the talk itself interesting, and I am not critical of its content, but I was struck by the basic unsuitability of Orwell's voice.

'I realise, of course, that his name is of some value in quite important Indian circles, but his voice struck me as both unattractive and really unsuited to the microphone... I am quite seriously worried about the situation and about the wisdom of our keeping Orwell personally on the air.'

So as a result George Orwell was taken off the air because of his squeaky voice - a consequence of an old wound from the Spanish Civil War, when he was shot in his throat. But this wasn't the main tension that preoccupied George Orwell during his time at the World Service. In one of his letters he wrote:

'Re. cynicism, you'd be cynical yourself if you were in this job. However, I'm definitely leaving in abt. 3 months. Then by some time in 1944 I might be near-human again & able to write something serious. At present I'm just an orange that's been trodden on, by a very dirty boot'.

Though working during the World War II, when 'everyone is putting a 'case' with deliberate suppression of his opponent's view' - in Orwell's own words, he himself was trying to keep 'our little corner of it fairly clean'.

Orwell interviews Jonathan Swift

In his weekly radio talks Orwell was trying to raise the level of war-time narrative from propaganda to literature, and the best example of this is his imaginary 'interview' with the 18th century satirist Jonathan Swift.

It went a little like this:

Swift: When a true Genius appears in the world, you may know him by this infallible sign: that all Dunces are in Confederacy against him.

Orwell: So you did wear a wig, Dr. Swift, I've often wondered.

And so the conversation between George Orwell and Jonathan Swift starts. The themes of that conversation are progress and humanity, war and Englishness. Here's another part of it:

Orwell: That was 200 years ago. Surely you must admit that we have made a certain progress since then?

Swift: Progress in quantity, yes. The buildings are taller and the vehicles move faster. Human beings are more numerous and commit greater follies. A battle kills a million where it used to kill a thousand. And in the matter of great man, as you still call them, I must admit that your age outdoes mine. Whereas previously some petty tyrant was considered to have reached the highest point of human fame if he laid waste a single province and pillaged half a dozen towns, your great men nowadays can devastate whole continents and condemn entire races of men to slavery...

Inspired by this exhange, in my next essay I'm going to have a go at interviewing a legendary writer too... George Orwell himself.