[c. 10 June 1937] Handwritten; undated
Dear Eric,
Ten days ago George Kopp wrote you an account of the medical investigations & reports on Eric, & I wrote letters to you & Mrs Blair & the aunt. As we wanted you all to get the correspondence quickly we gave them to a man who was crossing into France, to be sent Air Mail from there. Today we hear that he lost the whole packet. So everyone will be feeling bitterly neglected, including me as I had expected a reassuring cable. I’ve written at least three letters & four postcards each to the three addresses since, but I don’t know which have arrived or when. You might ask mother to telephone Mrs Blair & write [to the]1 aunt – or better telephone yourself & give a medical opinion.
Eric is I think much better, though he cannot be brought to admit any improvement. His voice certainly improves very slowly, but he uses his arm much more freely though it is still very painful at times. He eats as much as anyone else & can walk about & do any ordinary thing quite effectively for a short time. He is violently depressed, which I think encouraging. I have now agreed to spend two or three days on the Mediterranean (in France) on the way home – probably at Port-Vendres.2 In any case we shall probably have to wait somewhere for money. The discharge is not through but I think we can leave next week, wire you for money when we arrive at Port-Vendres or other resting place, go on to Paris & spend there two nights & the day between, & then get the morning train to England. I do not altogether like this protracted travel, but no urgent complication seems possible now, & he has an overwhelming desire to follow this programme – anyway it has overwhelmed me.
Give my love to everyone. I now realise I haven’t explained that the enclosed letter from G.K. is a copy of the one that was lost.
Thank you very much for the liniment & the things for Lois, which I collected today.
Eileen
Did you get £20 from Fenner Brockway?
1. ‘to the’ is represented by two (or three) indecipherable letters.
2. They spent three days at Banyuls-sur-Mer, about ten kilometres north of the Spanish border and some five south of Port-Vendres. It was ‘the first station up the line’ into France, a ‘quiet fishing-town’, as Orwell wrote in Homage to Catalonia, p. 166–7 [VI/184]. They continued their journey via Paris, where ‘the Exhibition was in full swing, though we managed to avoid visiting it’ (p. 168 [VI/186]).