The One That Got Away: The Bittersweet Story of George Orwell and His Childhood Sweetheart – Brain Pickings

 

"One summer day in 1914, an English family found a neighborhood boy standing on his head in their garden. When asked about his peculiar position, he replied: “You are noticed more if you stand on your head than if you are the right way up.”

The boy was eleven-year-old Eric Blair, better known today as George Orwell (June 25, 1903–January 21, 1950), and the neighboring family were the Buddicoms, whose three children — Jacintha, Prosper, and Guinever — became young Eric’s favorite playmates. But it was the budding poet Jacintha, two years older than Eric, who captured his heart — soon, between them blossomed the tender and unspoken romantic affection of early adolescence.

And then something happened that abruptly ruptured the relationship — something that would remain a secret for decades, until years after Jacintha’s death in 1994 and more than half a century after Orwell’s."

read the story by Maria Popova>>

The One That Got Away: The Bittersweet Story of George Orwell and His Childhood Sweetheart – Brain Pickings: "It took me literally years to realise that we are all imperfect creatures but that Eric was less imperfect than anyone else I ever met."