There are few works of fiction that have has a large an impact on the world as 1984.
Published in 1949, George Orwell’s dystopian novel about repression, surveillance, manipulation and rebellion has embedded itself, and its chilling language, into everyday culture – from Big Brother and the Thought Police to Newspeak and Room 101.
Much of the classic novel – adapted for TV and starring Peter Cushing in the fifties, then as a film with John Hurt in the eighties – was written in Scotland, with some of it penned at Hairmyres Hospital in East Kilbride, while Orwell was suffering from tuberculosis.
A new BBC ALBA documentary, Sar-Sgeoil – Nineteen Eighty-Four, is being shown on Thursday, December 16, from 9-10pm.
Cathy MacDonald visits the remote house on the island of Jura where Orwell – or Eric Blair as he was known on the island – wrote his classic novel.
She explores the mood and themes of the book and reveals why he went to such a remote place to write. Cathy also reveals how his time on the island impacted on his attitudes towards the Scottish people – and Gaelic.
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