ABSTRACT
George Orwell gives a revealing account of his early learning in the 1947 essay, Such, Such Were the Joys. The essay is about Orwell’s time at a preparatory school – St Cyprian’s – that was located just outside Eastbourne in Sussex, on the southern coast of England. Orwell began at St Cyprian’s at the age of eight and remained until he was thirteen. The school made Orwell desperately unhappy; it bred feelings of isolation and insecurity that he memorialised in Such, Such Were the Joys. The chapter presents a very different view of what learning can be. Learning takes place for an individual remaking themselves in response to their changing perceptions. Orwell’s political education was shaped by his travels through the industrial north of England in 1936. He was commissioned to document the working and living conditions prevailing there and amongst other places; Orwell visited Hanley and Burslem in Stoke-on-Trent, Longsight in Manchester, Liverpool, Wigan and Sheffield.
