Sioux City Journal, 4 September 2003
London (AP) -- A television station has shown what it described as the first film footage ever discovered of George Orwell, picturing him as a young student at England's prestigious school Eton, marching arm and arm with fellow classmates.
Two researchers, Phil Windeatt and Jonathan Levi, found the footage which aired Tuesday in a film library. Their discovery came in 2003, the year that marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the author of novels including 1984 and Animal Farm.
Still photos of Orwell have long been available, but Channel 4 News quoted Orwell biographer D.J. Taylor as saying that fans of the author had never seen film footage of him.
Orwell worked for the British Broadcasting
Corp. in 1941-43, but the company has never been able to find tapes
of the famous author in its files, Channel 4 News said.
The
brief images, shot in 1921, show a vibrant and happy 18-year-old
Orwell marching across the grounds of the private school with a
group of fellow students on their way to a sports field, where they
would play a ball game against a wall that was traditional at
Eton.
"We know that's Orwell because we had still photos to
check the film against," said Windeatt. "The wonderful thing is that
the Pathay Film Library had 35mm film of Orwell, which is very good
quality. It may be 80-odd years old, but it allowed us to make a
good ID of him."
The Pathay Film Library in London contains
millions of hours of footage, often many years old, and is now
managed by Independent Television News.
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