Search Results for: why i write

“A one hundred per cent. record?”

Her shoulders stiffened under her crisp, white blouse as she clenched her teeth. Her patience was starting to wane.

“People move to Sentor because of our excellent care solutions.” Her voice clipped the ends of the words. I felt relief as the visceral scream of frustration escaped from me. It didn’t feel like my voice. Conversations stopped. All I could hear was the huge plastic “Sentor Cares” banner flapping against the concrete outside and the quick muffle-thud beat of my heart in my ears.

“Sentor has the second highest resident satisfaction rate in the North-West.”

I felt like I was at the end of a news item, where the minister trots out a one-liner. Argument is shut down. I stared frostily. People tutted. The murmur of conversation and fingertip tapping on keyboards resumed.

“I can run a balance test.”

I nodded, my throat burning with anger or shame or both.

“There are exceptions. Are you under 25, in full time training or education?” Her eyes didn’t move from the screen.

“You know I’m not. You have my birth-date.”

She didn’t react.

“Do you fall within any of the following exempt categories?” She turned the screen to face me. Employer of more than 200 people, genetic editor, super-programmer, advanced crop innovation. The list was as short as it was ridiculous. “I’ll tick no.” She clicked another box. “The care for you and your child at birth was excellent.”

“It was, I…”

“And you received immediate, intensive healthcare after your no-fault accident.”

“Yes, but it wasn’t no fault, it…”

“The Routemaster-AI has a perfect safety record.”

“Well obviously not…”

“The official report into your accident attributes blame to you.”

“I was unconscious. They didn’t ask me. I can’t access my bank account. I’m locked out of my home. I need to find somewhere to sleep tonight.”

“Is this your signature on the accident report?”

“Yes, but I don’t remember…”

“So, running a balance test, you have benefitted from a state education, further education, immunisations for you and your child, emergency healthcare including…” she scrolled down… “birthing and, most recently, an individual private parent and child room and next of kin state burial… And you were previously working as a laboratory assistant in North-West State Secondary 12 and had done for…” I don’t know whether she paused to check or for effect, the impression of disdain was the same, “eight years, which means that, if anything, you are in state balance deficit.”

“I paid my tax and my national insurance.”

“I have no doubt that you did, it’s just that…” she rolled a few words around her mouth, trying them out, “you weren’t very far along in your working life before reliance circumstances arose.”

“Reliance circumstances! My husband was killed. I was severely injured. I’ve been in hospital for two and a half months, as has my baby. You’ve repossessed my home, my car. I’ve lost my job. What am I supposed to do? You have everything. You owe me now. I’ll, I’ll go to the papers…” I spluttered, “I’ll take this to my MP…”

“There is no representation without taxation. Perhaps you would like to file an anomaly report with the Care Solutions Ombudsman? Sentor takes its civic duty very seriously.”

“I have paid tax all my working life.”

“I think we’ve established that you’ve not paid nearly enough. To gain credit and level 1 entry housing entitlement you will need to re-establish a work hours surplus.” The words registered like hammer blows.

“How am I supposed to do that? My husband and I shared childcare. I can’t do that now. I can’t afford a nursery.”

“You have no relatives who can help you?” she quizzed.

“I don’t know where they are. They left over twenty years ago in the 2042 exodus.”

“Most found the one-time exceptional elderly care payment very liberating. It gave the senior members of our society control over their own destinies. There was a 64 per cent. approval rate.”

“I didn’t vote for it.”

“The majority did. It freed everyone. Win-win.”

“I was too young. I didn’t have a vote.”

“You are free from the care costs of your elderly relatives, something that would weigh heavily in your state balance test. As part of our reboot, restart, reskill programme, you are entitled, even with your deficit, to entry level state nursery and state accommodation.” She handed me raffle tickets from two giant reels, one orange, one blue. “These entitle you to your first night and two hot meals at North-West Region Multi-care Centre 5. You can go now to settle yourselves in. Childcare is for forty-eight hours dependent on your mandatory return and registration back here tomorrow morning when we can discuss the reboot phase of your personalised plan.” She held out the tickets as if they were some sort of prize.

“You need to think of your child.” The words were hard to hear.

“Her name’s Pearl.” She didn’t look up…

“I don’t want to go there.” I knew the place. Back along the Parkway, hunched against the concrete sweep of the
raised dual carriageway, multi-sports hall sized and municipal.

“Her name’s Pearl.” I held on tight and the nursery receptionist half-heaved, half wrestled her out of my arms.
Pearl started to grumble and cry.

“Hello, three-seven-six-three.” The nursery receptionist cradled her softly against her chest, handed back the ticket stub, smiled cheerily and turned on her heel. “Three-seven-six-three…” her voice blended with the hubbub and screams behind the primary plastic panelling that shielded the cavernous childcare facility.

My own voice caught in my throat like split wood. “Her name’s Pearl.”

There were hostel rooms. I was too late to secure an all-women’s room and so I crept into the thick, hot fug and sweat-stench blackness. Crouched up on a camp bed, I wrapped the scratchy, grey blanket around me. My eyesadjusted and searched for shapes. I was liminal now. I, we, existed only in the half light.

Rosie Lewis was a junior Orwell Youth Prize Runner Up in 2019, responding to the theme ‘A Fair Society?’ We asked Rosie some questions about her inspiration and why she writes:

What was the inspiration behind your piece? 

My piece was inspired by the growing political uncertainty that we face in the UK today. I wanted to explore the idea of someone falling through the safety net that is provided by the UK’s welfare state whilst encompassing other futuristic ideas into the piece. The looming election and Brexit deadlines helped me to think about a divided, judgemental, poorly resourced, post-Brexit society, but I also wanted to explore the idea of China’s social credit score (a system where people are awarded a score depending on their behaviour). Overall, I was inspired by current news stories, which helped me to create a futuristic world that could still be understood by today’s audience.

Why did you pick the form you did?

I chose to write a short story in order to display my answer as I thought that following a single character’s struggle and frustration would be the most effective way to communicate my ideas to the reader within the tight word limit. As well as writing a story to be read for enjoyment, I also wanted to subtly highlight that the individualist society that we live in has, and will always have, flaws. I felt like this message was best conveyed in the form of a story.

Why I write:

I started writing in order to express my ideas in a form that could be communicated to, and shared with, others, whether it was a poem or short story. More recently, I have started to write in order to articulate and share my views (whether they are about politics or major issues in the world right now).

Advice to fellow young writers:

I would say that you should write about issues that you are passionate about as you will find it a lot easier to express your emotions through your writing if you are writing about something you actually care about. Also, I would encourage others to try different styles of writing (i.e poems, plays etc.), so that they can find a style they really enjoy.

Influences:

A piece of writing/poem/novel/article film that has influenced me is George Orwell’s 1984. It definitely fuelled my passion for more dystopian and futuristic pieces of writing and also provoked me into questioning our society and whether the decisions our society makes are morally correct.

Walking swiftly into school, Morgan clutched at his papers, holding them so tightly that his fingers turned white. He trudged along with the rest of the student body: heads low and shoulders
hunched.

Black irritating strands of thread fastened his lips together. His brown hair was long and hung limp in front of his face; the fringe obscured his fiery eyes. The boy’s hands were littered with ink marks, giving them the appearance of being scarred and calloused.

It was just another day.

The morning passed without any noticeable incidents. Morgan joined his group of friends at break; they huddled in the corner of the playground. Communication was stilted as everyone stuffed their shaking hands in their pockets to protect them from the biting wind. One of his friends gestured at him and Morgan took out his writings from the safety of his bag. He handed them over with little hesitation.

“These are my peers,” he thought, “equals in nearly every way. They will consider my views.” Holding his breath, Morgan watched as his friend read the proposal. It was pointless of course,
policies had to be discussed verbally and he wouldn’t be permitted to speak until his eighteenth birthday. Even then, there were bureaucratic hoops to jump through and impossibly high standards to reach if he wanted more influence than a tick in a box.

Morgan’s confidence rose when his friend smiled and started to hand the papers around the group. Everyone nodded and smiled in agreement. The threads tugged sharply as the corners of their mouths but they ignored the stab of pain.

Like a hive of bees, his friends flittered around and shared out the papers to those slightly older and slightly younger. The cold was forgotten as the flurry of activity and racing minds caused the young peoples’ blood to boil.

Morgan looked on, pride and excitement flooding his body. His friends pointed him out and pushed him to the front of the growing crowd. Being recognised for his work made him stand taller, something he never thought he would be able to do.

They left the school as one, and marched on to the local government building.

They felt like they could make their voices heard, despite their mouths being sewn shut, despite being young and naïve and despite the fact that they apparently hadn’t had enough experience to be of value.

An electric atmosphere engulfed them, powering their fever and determination. Other young people joined them; the purpose was explained and still they stayed. Some had markers, which they passed around and used to write messages on their foreheads (the spontaneity didn’t allow them time to bring signs). An ally approached Morgan and held the marker to his head; the sickly smell made him slightly dizzy but he nodded his consent. Biting their tongue, the person wrote in big bold letters:

ALSO OUR FUTURE

No one could speak but their march wasn’t silent. Morgan joined the others in clapping and stomping their feet rhythmically. “Unstoppable,” he thought, giddy with realisation, “we’re
unstoppable.”

However, as they were closing in on the government building, outsiders’ comments damped their atmosphere. Some of the older people looked on with disdain, muttering darkly about the “uppity children”. “Go-getters” others called them, smiling patronisingly; their support was superficial as they immediately crumpled the papers they were given. Morgan felt his heart fall as his work was discarded like rubbish.

The group gathered outside the building. Hours passed and eventually news cameras showed up. The reporters spoke to the onlookers, asking for their opinion. Their voices were broadcasted nationwide, contrasting views were given equal weight and debated by older people on the TV and Facebook.

“They didn’t talk to us,” Morgan noted sadly. He could see everyone else thinking the same as him:

“What was the point?”

Elizabeth  Tappin was a junior Orwell Youth Prize Runner Up in 2019, responding to the theme ‘A Fair Society?’. We asked her where she got her inspiration for ‘Sewn Shut’ and what motivates her to write: 

What was the inspiration behind your piece? The main image in my story was inspired by the Norse myth (which I read in Neil Gaiman’s “Norse Mythology”) where Loki’s lips are sewn shut after he tricked some dwarves. To fit the theme, I used this image to question whether silencing teenagers by keeping them out of politics was really fair.

Why did you pick the form you did?
Most of my work is in this form (3rd person/past tense) as that is what I’m most comfortable with.

‘Why I Write’
Mostly, I write because it’s fun. I love creating stories, whether serious or light-hearted, and sharing them with others.

Advice to fellow young writers:
There’s so many challenges online that are great for encouraging you to write a lot which is one of the best ways to improve your work. If you keep writing, you can experiment and improve your techniques to find what works best for you.

A piece of writing/poem/novel/article that has influenced me
This is very hard as there have been so many things that have influenced throughout my life. If I had to pick one, I would say Rick Riordan’s “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” series which got me into reading when I was very young (say around 7/8 years old). It gave me the passion for reading and the desire to tell stories myself which lead to me writing.

He awoke again, supporting a god-awful hangover headache. Curse the lowly father he had inherited his alcohol addiction from. And his gambling, drug, prostitution addiction, for that matter. Squinting his eyes to block out the glaring daylight, Alex took a moment – or five – to recover his bearings. Cold, concrete floor? Check. Torn clothes? Check. Bruised, sore body? Check. He must have had a typical night then. Well, more like what he considered typical ever since his vicissitude on that unforgettable evening of 28th September. Gradually, half-formed images of the previous evening formed in his throbbing mind: he’d gotten into a bar fight again, after drinking one too many cheap beers and goading a particularly belligerent patron of the tap room. Slowly (whilst experiencing excruciating pain) Alex lifted himself off the floor – not bothering to fix his appearance.

Alex arrived at his one-bedroom apartment at quarter past ten and launched himself upon the hole-filled fabric sofa. It was the colour of mouldy cheese! Filled with a sense of satirical humour, Alex let loose a belly-deep laugh. Oh, how the mighty have fallen! All his life, he had lived a privileged lifestyle after being the only son of millionaire conglomerate owner Edward Charles Arthur Logan Saint. As formidable as his father had seemed, he too had been over-powered by his bone-deep desire for gambling. Even though his father was an evil wretch, Alex had mourned his death: he had been devastated to lose his only parent at the age of 19. His mother had disappeared long before that – she had abandoned them both when Alex was two – for a middle class banker. He could still vividly recall the afternoon he learnt of his father’s murder. Alex had just left a lunch meeting with a potential contractor, when he received a call from his now former best friend.

‘Sin, I’m so sorry but your father… he was murdered. It was a gambling deal gone wrong. Your father thought he could outsmart Vittorio but just triggered him instead. Vit retaliated by sending a group of hoodlums to finish him off.’

It’s kind of detestable, but Alex was partially happy to hear his father was dead. That man had robbed him of a happy childhood, constantly beating and punishing him: his father had wanted to mould him into the ideal heir but to no avail. Edward Saint had completely and utterly resented his son for being ‘a shoddy imbecile’. Being the sole heir, Alex immediately became the CEO of Saint Enterprises. Up until then, Alex had never truly understood how arduous it was to run a multi-million-pound company. Within days, excess work had piled up and Alexander Charles Arthur Logan Saint found himself resorting to a debauched lifestyle to find reprieve. Every weekend, without fail, he had hosted the most scandalous parties at his 8-bedroom mansion in Chelsea Park Gardens. Oh, how he longed to be back in his four-poster bed rather than this mouldy couch in a closet-sized apartment in Hackney!

Ever since he had started living the lifestyle of a vagabond, his perception on reality had altered drastically: he had been such a self-absorbed socialite he had failed to identify that his former lifestyle was not common, but extremely rare for a citizen of the UK. He had always heard on the morning news about poverty increase and more people living on the breadline. Until now, he had never truly understood their dire straits; he felt like the worst idiot in the world for not helping them when he had the means to do so. That fact that these people- despite their hardships- had welcomed him with open arms and shared their meagre possessions with him only added to his guilt.

The initial days after losing his wealth had been decidedly difficult: he had been manhandled out his own home by the brutes sent courtesy of Vittorio Vidali: An Italian multi-millionaire kingpin who dabbled in every unethical business practise known to man from money lending to human trafficking. Alex knew it was pure madness associating with the man responsible for his father’s death but Vidali was the only contact he knew that could appease his disreputable proclivities such as drugs and prostitution. It was thanks to his aforementioned proclivities that he was now both penniless and homeless. Since his time on the streets, he had discovered how corrupt society truly was: as a rich entrepreneur he was able to escape punishment for breaking the speed limit or drunk-driving by flashing a little cash but an ordinary person would be charged with bribery for attempting to do the same. His weekend ‘hobbies’ would result in jail time for most people but because he had wealth, he was exempt from that. Knowing all this now made him feel sick; he couldn’t even do anything to fix this appalling problem as he no longer had influence over politicians without his excessive wealth. Sat on the sofa contemplating life, Alex felt his stomach rumble. There was no food in the kitchen – he would have to go back out again.

It would be dark soon. Alex decided to take the short cut to get to the local Chinese place faster. Suddenly, a trio of hooded men burst through the alley; the first carried a hunting knife while the other two possessed a hockey stick and baseball bat.

“Hand over the shoes, man.”

Alex glanced at his shoes and then back to the men. They weren’t even a pair worth mugging, only like £150. He once owned pairs worth triple the price; now this was his only one. With one last glance at his feet, Alex spun around and launched into a sprint. Adrenaline pumped through his veins and fear pooled in his stomach: something terrible was going to occur. He knew it. The sound of feet thudding on the pavement got louder, as did the curses erupting from their throats. He sensed it before he felt it. The impact of the swing splintered wood and left Alex seeing stars. His footsteps lost rhythm and he fell to his knees. The trio mercilessly rained down blows upon him as he curled himself into a ball. He felt blood seep into his clothing from the multiple wounds punctured into his flesh.

He knew this was the end.

But that’s not what pained him. What pained him the most, was knowing nothing would be done to investigate his death. Hackney was notorious for its obscene knife crime levels and so the police just didn’t put in as much effort with incidents that occurred here. All he hoped for in his final moments was that one day every crime – no matter how big or small – got treated with equal importance.

***

Sidra Hussain was a junior Orwell Youth Prize Runner Up in 2019, responding to the theme ‘A Fair Society?’.

What was the inspiration behind your piece?

I was inspired to write this piece because of two primary reasons – the first being my political allegiance to the Labour party. The Labour party believes in socialism and equality and my piece highlights there’s not enough of these values in our society. You always hear on the news how there are more and more people who are living on the breadline, but what’s being done to fix this on-going issue? Not much at the moment considering Brexit is the government’s priority at the minute. Furthermore, in our society today, wealth equals power and privileges. This is the root cause of corruption as it enables the wealthy to skirt around laws and punishments which leads to inequality. The second reason I chose to write this piece was because, in recent years, knife crime has become more prominent in society. It is always horrific to hear about loved ones lost to knife crime and I felt like more awareness needed to be created on this issue. Therefore, I chose to write about it because the written word is a wonderful way of getting a message across.

Why did you pick the form you did?
The reason I chose the format of a fictional story was because characters are easier to understand and sympathise with rather than cold, hard statistics. As an avid reader myself, I can appreciate the beauty of a well-developed character that the reader feels an inexplicable bond with, and I was hoping to recreate that in my work. Knowing someone – the protagonist – who has experienced the problem makes it easier for us to understand how brutal the effects can be as it puts everything into perspective.

‘Why I Write’
Reading is my favourite pastime and translates over into my love of writing. I feel it is easier to express myself with a pen and notepad, whereas some find that contentment with a sketching pencil or paintbrush. The most important aspect of writing for me is the characters because they are the ones that make the storyline. It’s their lives that you’re reading about, so you need to feel an emotional connection to them. I love creating characters and sharing their stories with others: I can express myself through the words, actions and choices of these characters, created from my imagination.

Advice to fellow young writers
My advice to fellow writers would be to write about something that truly resonates within you because your passion will shine through your words and make your work all the more enjoyable for others to read. Also, don’t worry about conforming to ideas and literary expectations because it makes your work unique. Finally, read as much as you can because it will expand your vocabulary; teach you new and random things, and influence your creativity.

A piece of writing/poem/novel/article/film that has influenced me 
There are two pieces of work that influenced my entry. The first is a beautifully written novel by Afghan author, Khaled Hosseini. ‘The Kite Runner’ is an extremely emotional book with many inspirational messages. The message that most influenced my work was the divide between rich and poor and how it can affect one’s entire life. The other piece that influenced my work, was a letter written by the acclaimed actor Lennie James about knife crime. The letter was very expressive and written in such a way that it was impossible for the reader not to be engaged. I thought his message to knife carriers was eye-opening and certainly left a lasting impact.

Read Lennie James’s letter here 

Nobody seemed to notice when Tommy vanished. James and I did, we’d known him since primary school, but no one else seemed to care. He’s not been seen since. There’s been a few rumours going around school about how he’s been spotted working in an office in Moss Side, which would be illegal considering he only got Band 3. His disappearance never sat well with James, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Tommy just left and never got picked up during the clearing.

It was our turn now. James walked beside me through the corridors, which had an almost clinical feel from the excessive cleaning that had been done in preparation for the news crew. It was far different from how it had felt for the past five years, aside from the loose wire hanging from the light fixture, which school still couldn’t afford to fix even though it appeared two years ago. James’ eyes flickered, glancing at every display and picture but not once at his envelope.

“You’re not even the one who should be stressing James. Just don’t worry about it.” I said, trying to reassure him, “I mean, Miss has been saying you should get Band 1 all year.”

“It’s not about that anymore is it?”, he snapped, “Doesn’t even matter what Miss said, Mum still thinks I can be a doctor, she doesn’t understand how hard it is to get into Band 1 for people like us.”

“Yeah hard if you can’t afford it”, I replied, trying to lighten the mood. It was one of our inside jokes that we’d had since the university scandal a few years back – before they decided to change the system to make it more ‘meritocratic’. James didn’t reply, his eyes fixed on his phone. “If you do get Band 2 it won’t be that bad, you can still get a decent job. It’s only Band 3 you have to worry about. No wonder Tommy vanished.”

“I don’t blame him”, James muttered as he started to walk towards his bus stop.

“Text me once you’ve opened it!” I called after him.

The weather was dreary as usual, the clouds painted the sky with a murky haze and a sharp wind nipped my fingers as I walked home. I wasn’t expecting much, there was no way I could get into Band 1 – hardly anyone did from round here – and even Band 2 seemed out of reach because I’d never been that clever in school, especially compared to James. Since the tests in Year 6 he was miles ahead of everyone else, in science particularly. Never failed to help anyone though.

***

By the time I arrived home, Mum was already at work, but Dad and Nan were in the living room with the TV blasting at full volume. They had it so loud that neither of them had noticed me come in.

“So, you’re telling me that you have to be a teacher if you get put in the second Band?” Nan asked, peering over her glasses as dad sighed.

“No. There are other jobs too like administration and accounting, you don’t have to be teacher”, he explained.“So then why does everyone in the third Band have to work in those internet warehouses or be left with nothing?”, she nagged, “I don’t want our Jake to be left with that, I thought those robots did it all now anyway!”.

The argument didn’t seem to be ending, so I gritted my teeth and went into the living room. “Oh, look who it is! What did you get Jake?” It was no surprise that Nan was the first to ask as the tension disappeared, replaced with a flicker of hope. “Not opened it yet”, I replied, as I slumped onto the settee. Deep down, I already knew that whatever result I got, nothing I ever did, or could do would change the Band I was assigned, but they didn’t understand that.

The news on the TV blared in the background, “The controversial Band system enacted just two years ago in 2027 was designed to find the most capable…” They started reeling out statistics about the number of Band 1 students, apparently on the rise this year, although hardly anyone from our school had managed it. “And now, reporting live from a local grammar school in Buckinghamshire, where a record 87 students have placed In Band 1 this morning. So…”

“Well go on then”, Dad said, giving me a nudge. Slowly, I tore the seal of the envelope and peeked inside. ‘BAND 2’ was stamped across the sheet. It was difficult to miss, as was my huge sigh of relief. I was safe. Free from the fears of being trapped in the ‘underclass’, which was what everyone at school called Band 3 students.

“Band 2!” I said, unable to hide my smile. The newsreader continued: “Charity groups fear more student disappearances, but government officials insist…” I tried to ignore it and texted James.

‘Band 2! You?’

The wait seemed to last forever. ‘2’, he replied eventually.

‘That’s pretty good, right? We can go to the Work Bureau together. I told you you’d be fine!’

James didn’t reply, and I didn’t think much of our conversation – after all, Band 2 was great for us. It meant that we could choose between a few jobs and we could stay in education for a bit longer, which was much better than we expected.

***

That morning, time seemed to pass so quickly. Dad made a big fuss about my Band and I’d forgotten about my conversation with James. It was hours later when we heard a faint knock on the door. I rushed over, hoping to see James, but instead I was shocked to see his mum, Julie.

“James isn’t here, is he?” she asked, her voice trembling.

“No, I texted him a few hours ago though, why wha-”

“And he replied?”

“Yeah, he got Band 2, did you not know?”

“I haven’t seen him since he went to get his results…he’s not come home. Did he tell you where he was going?” Her voice cracked, and her eyes flashed with fear as the uncertainty of James’ situation dawned on her.

It had dawned on me too. I grabbed my phone and headed outside to call James. No answer. I started walking, trying to think where he might go. Surely James wouldn’t do the same as Tommy? He always insisted, or perhaps boasted, that he didn’t really care about the band he got.

I passed our old primary school. James had been quite sure of himself back then, he’s changed since the Band system started. Before I knew it, I’d walked to school, where flocks of people gathered around the TV crew. Maybe James was there, waiting to be interviewed. I pushed my way through the crowd – he wasn’t there.

They were talking to Josh, who moved to our school halfway through the year. It looked like he had just become the first Band 1 student our school had produced, even though he was nowhere near as smart as James. Apparently his parents were lawyers though, which wasn’t hard to tell as he was driven to school in a brand new car every morning.

For a second, I thought about getting in front of the camera myself. Maybe if people knew why students were vanishing and that they weren’t just numbers they would care more. But I couldn’t. Freedom of speech is real, but freedom of opinion is not. As I backed away I checked my phone. Still nothing from James. I started to walk back home, hoping that he had turned up. Hope. It became clear to me then. People who had hoped for a better future than what our parents had, like me and James, were never meant to be in Band 1, just like Josh would never have been in Band 2 or even Band 3, like Tommy.

Tommy. The thought of him suddenly made my blood run cold. He was just another statistic. We all were.

Including James. They found his body whilst clearing the woods the following day. He’d left a note with just two words: ‘Sorry Mum’.

***

“Do you want a brew Jake?”, Nan called from the kitchen, “It’ll make you feel better”.

“Not really” I mumbled whilst flicking through the news channels. She soon came into the living room with a mug of tea, glancing at the TV as she sat next to me. “Cheer up now, at least you got the band you wanted.”

The news droned with statistics. James was one of around 5,400 this year, but even this figure seemed played down. It didn’t take long for people to forget him. He was a normal case; the news was only concerned with the ones who made the band system look good, the ones who made it.

They couldn’t choose either. None of us could, our futures were fixed. They always were.

***

Jessica Johnson was an Orwell Youth Prize Senior Winner in 2019, responding to the theme ‘A Fair Society?’. We asked her where she got her inspiration for ‘A Band Apart’ and what motivates her to write: 

What was the inspiration behind your piece? – The inequality between schools in the UK, whether it be between the North and the South or state and independent, is what made me want to write my piece. I go to a state school in the North, so it’s something that directly affects me and I felt it was important to give a student’s perspective on the matter.

‘Why I Write’ – I’m inspired by what goes on around me, so I like to write about things which seem really normal to us because they’re so ingrained into our society, but have a massive impact on individuals. Inequality in the education system is an example of this.

Advice to fellow young writers – I would encourage them to write about something they feel passionate about, but also to be open to criticism and to write and re-write their pieces.

A piece of writing that has influenced me – I’m definitely influenced by Orwell a lot in my writing, but I also took aspects of ‘The Pedestrian’ by Ray Bradbury in helping to form a dystopian short story, and ‘The Class Game’ by Mary Casey to get a better feel for the dialect between the characters.

The aptitude test kid knows
that if she cannot remember
the conjugation of être
her parents will sell their home.

The aptitude test kid knows
she holds her brother’s fate
in the pen in her palm.

What alphabet is Russian written in?
She sounds out the answer,
finger by finger.

How many tenses are there in French?
What’s the rent in the school’s catchment area?
What are the differences between Punjabi and Gujarati?
How many zeros in a mortgage?

The aptitude test kid knows.
The aptitude test kid spent her summer
reciting the answers by heart.

She knows how to decode language which endings
mean what:
the parents is a plural noun and the child is singular.

She sat at a desk
and learned
te amo, je t’aime
but has never heard them said
since the letter that gave her
the words she wished she was allowed to forget.

The look on her parents’ faces was untranslatable.
The aptitude test kid
knows every word for sorry
but pronounces each one of them
wrong.

Nadia Lines was an Orwell Youth Prize Senior Winner in 2019, responding to the theme ‘A Fair Society?’. We asked her where she got her inspiration for ‘The Aptitude Test kid’ and what motivates her to write: 

What was the inspiration behind your piece?
This poem was directly inspired by the experiences of a very close friend of mine. I love learning, but I’m very concerned by the academic pressures facing young children, as well as the fact that many are unable to access a good education without facing immense challenges.

Why did you pick the form you did?
I love words, and for me, the poem is a great chance to play and experiment with them. My subject matter was language, and so poetry seemed to be the best way to discuss this.

‘Why I Write’
I write because I enjoy it. Language is fascinating and I want to find ways to give words new power.

Advice to fellow young writers:
Don’t be afraid to try out new forms. I only came to poetry after years of writing stories. No form is too new or too strange- give them all a go.

The goalkeeper come out to catch the ball.
Arms stretched out, legs up high.
For his first time in goal, I think he did alright.
But the man on the side didn’t. No.
In fact, he thought the complete opposite.
Abused, both physically and verbally.
The black boy in goal, he didn’t do anything wrong,
he didn’t deserve it, he was just a normal boy,
doing what his job is to do.
It’s only a Sunday morning after all.

So the boy got home wet and cold,
but that wasn’t what he felt down about.
Up the stairs without a noise coming out of his mouth.
Ignoring his mum and his dad,
even his dog which he adores so much.
Onto his bed, he lay staring at the ceiling,
next to his school clothes, with his tie,
standing out, shining right in his eyes.
He didn’t need those clothes for school.
It’s only a Sunday morning after all.

Tom Warburton was an Orwell Youth Prize Junior Winner in 2019, responding to the theme ‘A Fair Society?’. We asked Tom what the inspiration was behind his poem. 

What was the inspiration behind your piece?

My inspiration for my piece of work “The Man on the Side” came from my love of football. When asked in class by my teacher, Mr Taylor, to take part in the competition I was unsure on what to do. I then came up with the idea of trying to create a poem and wanted to link it in with football.

Why did you pick the form you did?

I decided to take the form of a poem, as I thought it would be the best way for me to express my thoughts on society nowadays within the sport of football. Also with the big issue of Respect within the game at the moment, I thought that I would try to include that in there too.

‘Why I Write’

As I started to work on this piece of work , all of my ideas sort of started to fit together and the more I worked on it, the more my ideas came across, and it seemed to all work out.

Advice to fellow young writers

Don’t be afraid to express yourself. Pick a topic that means something to you as this makes the piece of work easier to complete.

A piece of writing/poem/novel/article/film that has influenced me
Today’s society helped to influence the ideas within my piece of writing. Just watching television, and reading about the topic of football highlighted some of the ideas I had for it. It then just all seemed to come together.

“I’m not sure about this,” she muttered as the needle was placed in front of her.

The nurse smiled sympathetically, “Trust me, it doesn’t hurt a bit.”

“No,” she looked up at the nurse, “I mean I’m not sure about this morally.”

With a response so well-rehearsed there was barely a pause, the nurse said “Moral Code 52, issued by The Government of the United People of Earth, states that: ‘the use and distribution of the Juror Drug is found to be not only legally applicable but also advisable in all 7 states of the world.’”

“Right… great.” She said with a sigh, turning her gaze to the rain dribbling down the window. “Can I have a few minutes? I just want to think.”

“Of course, whatever you want.” The nurse gave her an exasperated look and waddled out of the examination room with a series of squeaks resonating from her uniform-blue crocs.

Once the nurse left her alone, she could deliberate.

She knew what the government said about it: a drug that blurs the face of the accused. How brilliant! Finally, each member of the jury could decide on the verdict with no leniency, no bias. Instead of swaying for or against the defendant based on their appearance or their emotional presentation, jurors can deduce the sentencing founded on cold, hard facts.

She also knew what the newspapers said about it: a drug that not only blurs but is also said to reshape the face of the criminal defendant. The jurors told tales of feeling instinctively disgusted by the litigant, of seeing no longer a human, but an animal. It was suggested that the drug led to unjustly harsh judgments. Petty crime had ended in life sentences; embezzlement had resulted in the death penalty.

“Ok! Are we ready then?” said the nurse as she popped her head around the door with that same, unshakeable smile.

“I mean… I still don’t know.”

“Well, you’ve got to make up your mind. It’s not yet compulsory for jurors, but it’s highly recommended.” “

Yeah.” She thought for a moment. “Well, if The Government is advising the drug, I guess I’ll take it…”

“Wonderful sweetie! It should take a few minutes before it kicks in.”

“Ow!” The next thing she knew, the nurse had jabbed her arm with the needle. The horrible icy sensation of an injection spread through her left bicep. Then she was hastily guided out of the examination room and directed along a corridor before entering the place she had been dreading for weeks: the courtroom.

The other jury members were already seated, all with similarly dazed expressions. The defendant was only a few feet away and consulted his lawyers in nervous whispers. The first thing she noticed was how young he was. 19 years old? His eyes were bright with adolescence and his hands were strong but marred with callouses that stretched along the juts of his knuckles. She saw his eyes glaze over with tears before he rubbed them away hurriedly and his hands picked at his trousers in a fiercely agitated manner.

She wanted the drug to kick in. She didn’t want to see him. She wanted to see a monster.

And then, as if by magic, his body altered.

It wasn’t an overt change. His features sort of blurred and the edges appeared worn away. His skin seemed to droop like a painting left out in the rain. His mouth -once a pink oval- formerly opening and pursing in tense murmurs had gone, and in its place was a vacuous streak contorting into inaudible mumbles. Her eyes gently traced his face: moving around the pixelated rim; across the brow; down into the furrows; up to the sickly glow of the eyes. She followed the foundations of what had been a face, ten minutes ago.

He was still scared… at least she thought he was. The flustered motions of a desperate man were still recognisable in theory, but they no longer had the same triggering effect on her conscience. In fact, if she forgot what he used to look like then he could only be described as a monster.

No, he wasn’t a monster. When she harked back, she could still see the pain on his face and the dampness in his eyes. Oh, it was horrible! She remembered and it was horrible! She remembered and he was too human!

She remembered; so she let herself forget.

She let herself forget; so she reinvented.

She could see the actions for what they now were. They were the marks of a Machiavellian psychopath. Yes! She laughed out loud. How could she have overlooked this before? The whispering and the subtle tears, they were the sly forgery of sentiments. People like him couldn’t feel real emotions.

She didn’t care what he might have done. She cared even less at what he might not have done. She just wanted to make him pay.

She gripped the oak panels that lined the jury box until the tips of her fingers turned white. She couldn’t hear anything above the ringing in her head. The words of the lawyers were wasted, for the jury box was nothing more than an animal pen, and very soon every juror’s lust for blood would be satisfied.

It took them all of 5 minutes to decide the man’s fate. He was guilty of course; that’s what they said. They never saw his face after they convicted him, never saw his face again. But she wouldn’t forget him, the dampness of his eyes and how his hands picked at his trousers. How she had taken the drug knowing what it would do. How she had chosen to see him as an animal. How she was forced to see him as an animal, because if she had seen him as a human how could she have justified his sentence?

How could you ever justify sentencing another human to death?

Francesca Morgan was an Orwell Youth Prize Junior Winner in 2019, responding to the theme ‘A Fair Society?’. We asked her where she got her inspiration for ‘The Faceless Drug’ and what motivates her to write: 

What was the inspiration behind your piece?

Since reading an Orwell essay (‘A Hanging’) I was struck by the inhumanity of the death penalty. The incongruence between a man’s death and the amicable drink after the event was masterfully conveyed by Orwell. This inspired me to consider methods in the future which might purposefully remove emotions from judicial sentencing.

Why did you pick the form you did?

I did pander with the idea of an essay. However ultimately, I believe that only a story narrative could properly convey the mess of emotions experienced when dealing with a topic as sombre as the death penalty.

‘Why I write.’

The reason I write is a fairly selfish one if I’m being honest. I write in order to identify my own opinions on a subject. I find that only by the end of a story or essay have I established my views.

Advice to fellow young writers.

Write about something you feel innately passionate for. Don’t be scared of putting your views out there for others to disagree with. So long as you are writing about a topic that inspires you, you can’t go wrong.

A piece of writing that has influenced me.

Recently I read ‘Stoner’ by John Williams. It’s a story following one man’s ordinary life but Williams manages to mould a fairly bleak existence into a tale demonstrating the epic of the everyday.

A FAIR SOCIETY? OYP THEME 2019

George Orwell is one of the world’s most influential writers, the visionary author of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-four and his eyewitness, non-fiction classics Down and Out in Paris in London, The Road to Wigan Pier and Homage to Catalonia. During his life, and through his writing, Orwell was a fierce critic of totalitarianism and advocate for social justice.

“Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.”

George Orwell, Why I Write (1946)

By the time of his death in 1950, he was world-renowned as a journalist and author: for his eyewitness reporting on war (shot in the neck in Spain) and poverty (tramping in London, washing dishes in Paris, visiting pits and the poor in Wigan); for his political and cultural commentary, where he stood up to power and said the unsayable (‘If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear’); and for his fiction, including two of the greatest novels ever written: Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. His clear writing and political purpose have inspired and influenced countless journalists, authors and others, of all political persuasions and none, in the generations since.

On this page, we’ll introduce some of the ideas which Orwell wrote about which could offer some inspiration for your own take on this year’s theme. You can also find links to Orwell’s own writing on The Orwell Foundation website (with thanks to the Orwell Estate and Penguin Books).

Race, Nation and Empire

“The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”

George Orwell was born Eric Blair in India in 1903, which was then part of the British Empire. He was born to a comfortable ‘lower-upper-middle class’ family and a father who served the British Empire. Orwell’s own first job was as a policeman in Burma (today’s Myanmar). Orwell resigned from service while on leave in England in 1928.

In his first novel Burmese Days and striking essays like ‘Shooting an Elephant’ and ‘A Hanging’, Orwell reflected on his own experiences of colonialism. He argued that the British Empire was a destructive force both for the people it governed and the colonialists themselves. Orwell also wrote that after his work for the British Empire he ‘began to look more closely at his own country and saw that England also had its oppressed.’

Orwell remained a trenchant critic of the British Empire throughout his life. He also warned against the rise of nationalism and sought to examine the causes and effects of ‘nationalist’ thinking on people’s understanding of society.

• READ Orwell’s essay ‘Shooting An Elephant’
• READ Orwell’s essay ‘Notes on Nationalism’

Economic Injustice

‘The average millionaire is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit.”

After returning to England Orwell set out to become a writer. Although he was from a comfortable background, in order to report on poverty and economic deprivation he wanted to experience it for himself as far as possible. He therefore made various expeditions ‘down and out’ in London, living as a ‘tramp’, which he described in his essay ‘The Spike’. Later, Orwell took jobs as a dishwasher in restaurants and cafes in the centre of Paris. Orwell’s non-fiction work Down and Out in Paris and London described these experiences and asked searching questions about attitudes to people without work or in low paid, insecure labour.

In 1936 Orwell travelled to England’s industrial heartlands in the north, where many people were experiencing great hardship following the Great Depression. In The Road to Wigan Pier, part social reportage, part political polemic, Orwell described what he had seen and learnt. As ever, Orwell wanted to experience people’s living and working conditions for himself and wrote vividly about the life of coal miners and their families.

In the second part of the book, Orwell made a controversial and highly-influential argument about why campaigners at the time were struggling to win support for their vision of a fair society. He argued that many campaigners for social justice misunderstood the emotional lives of the people they wanted to help, concentrating too much on promoting their own political doctrines and dogma. Instead, he argued in favour of ‘common decency’ and a sense of fairness. Orwell expanded on these themes in his wartime essay ‘The Lion and the Unicorn‘, which argued for a ‘new form of Britishness’.

• WATCH Orwell’s Down and Out: Live, The Orwell Foundation’s dramatized live-reading of Down and Out in Paris and London, which features the testimony of people who have experienced homelessness and rough-sleeping in the UK today
• READ The Road to Wigan Pier diaries, a blog of Orwell’s personal diaries from 1936

Freedom and Totalitarianism

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

As an author, George Orwell is probably best known for his powerful, stark depictions of totalitarianism in his parable Animal Farm and dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In Animal Farm, inspired by the history of the Russian Revolution and the rise of Stalin’s dictatorship, Orwell depicted how a movement which was begun with ideas of fairness could be distorted into something very different. Nineteen Eighty-Four, his final novel, imagines a society in which the pressures of war and the power of the state have made even the idea of values like fairness impossible.

• WATCH 1984: Live, The Orwell Foundation’s dramatized, unabridged live-reading of 1984, read by actors, writers, journalists and members of the public at Senate House in 2017
• READ ‘The Freedom of the Press‘, Orwell’s proposed introduction to Animal Farm

“My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art’. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing. But I could not do the work of writing a book, or even a long magazine article, if it were not also an aesthetic experience.”

George Orwell, Why I Write

George Orwell is one of the world’s most influential writers, the visionary author of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-four and eyewitness, non-fiction classics Down and Out in Paris in London, The Road to Wigan Pier and Homage to Catalonia.

George Orwell was born Eric Blair in India in 1903 into a comfortable ‘lower-upper-middle class’ family. Orwell’s father had served the British Empire, and Orwell’s own first job was as a policeman in Burma. Orwell wrote in “Shooting an Elephant” (1936) that his time in the police force had shown him the “dirty work of Empire at close quarters”; the experience made him a lifelong foe of imperialism.

By the time of his death in 1950, he was world-renowned as a journalist and author: for his eyewitness reporting on war (shot in the neck in Spain) and poverty (tramping in London, washing dishes in Paris or visiting pits and the poor in Wigan); for his political and cultural commentary, where he stood up to power and said the unsayable (‘If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear’); and for his fiction, including two of the most popular novels ever written: Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

The Orwell Foundation maintains a wealth of Orwell resources, free to access online, from Orwell’s essays and diaries, to a library of work about Orwell and his writing. Read on for an extended biography written by D.J. Taylor. Taylor is an author, journalist and critic. His Biography of Orwell, Orwell: the Life won the 2003 Whitbread Biography Award.

As part of our wider commitment to promote knowledge and understanding of Orwell’s life and work, the Foundation also regularly releases new short educational films. These are free to access on YouTube and include contributions from Orwell’s son Richard Blair, D. J. Taylor, and previous winners of the Orwell Prizes:

• The Night Orwell Died
• George Orwell and the Battle for Animal Farm
• ‘Some Thoughts on the Common Toad’: 75th anniversary film

The Orwell Foundation is an independent charity – please consider making a donation or becoming a Friend of the Foundation to support our work and maintain these resources for readers everywhere. 

External links:

• The Orwell Society, an independent, worldwide membership society
• UCL Archives: Orwell Archive
• The Orwell Digital Archive
• George Orwell at the BBC

We hope teachers will find the Orwell Youth Prize programme a valuable way of introducing students to writing independently, as well as Orwell’s own work. But there are many other ways of using Orwell in the classroom.

Whatever your subject  – politics, English, history, citizenship, drama to name but a few – whatever the age group – the Orwell Foundation website also has a wealth of additional resources about Orwell and his work These are available free to everyone, regardless of whether you or your school are currently involved with the Youth Prize.

Our resources include works by George Orwell, works about George Orwell and video of events run by the Orwell Prize on politics and literature. Below we provide a useful guide to material that might be of particular interest in the classroom; much more is available through the publishers of Orwell, Penguin and Harvill Secker, and the works below are reproduced under copyright of them and the Orwell Estate and with their kind permission.

Works by Orwell

There is a dedicated webpage for each of Orwell’s six novels – Burmese Days, A Clergyman’s Daughter, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Coming Up for Air and of course Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four – and three major non-fiction works – Down and Out in Paris and London, The Road to Wigan Pier and Homage to Catalonia.

Additionally, a selection of other essays and short works (including poetry) by Orwell is available.

There are also three blogs of diaries written by Orwell:

• 1938-42, includes eyewitness accounts of the Blitz and the run up to WWII (as well as Orwell’s time in Morocco and his experiences of keeping animals and growing vegetables…)
• Hop-picking (1931), follows some of Orwell’s tramping exploits and his experience of picking hops in Kent, which many urban workers and their families would do in the summer
• The Road to Wigan Pier (1936), includes Orwell’s research for the book of the same name

Works about Orwell

Our Big Brother The Orwell Foundation has links to analysis, reviews and other material based on Orwell’s life and work; the most relevant to individual novels and diaries should already be linked to from the relevant novel and diary pages.

Orwell and Journalism

In July 2022, the Orwell Youth Prize teamed up with University College London Special Collections and the Orwell Archive to run a summer school for Year 12s on ‘Orwell and Journalism: In Pursuit of Truth’. As part of this project, we also produced online resources, designed for students in Years 12 and 13, on Orwell’s work as a journalist and how his life experiences informed his work:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/collections/special-collections/schools-and-outreach/orwell-archive-free-school-resources

The written resource also includes materials from the Orwell Archive, while the short film includes background about Orwell’s life and his journalism and writing style, as well as insights from contemporary journalists Marianna Spring, Stephen Armstrong and Max Daly.

Orwell Foundation events

Many of our Orwell Foundation events based on Orwell’s life and work and might be useful. These include:

• events comparing Orwell and Dickens (2009 and 2010)
• events comparing Orwell and Kipling (2011 and 2012)
• an event comparing Orwell and Waugh (2010)
• Chris Durlacher on producing George Orwell: A Life in Pictures (with the original here)
• Orwell’s son Richard Blair in conversation with biographer D. J. Taylor.

The Orwell Youth Prize also filmed our own exclusive interview with Richard Blair, which you can see here. Additionally, there are events based on themes Orwell wrote about (such as 2012’s ‘Poverty then and now, Orwell and his successors’), events about political writing more generally (such as ‘Autopsy of a Story’ with three shortlisted journalists dissecting their work and debates like ‘What makes a good political novel?’ with a critic and political novelists), and many events discussing different aspects of politics and society.

Below are a few examples of works, or combinations of works, which could work particularly well in the classroom or workshops. They have been selected based on the depth of what we have available, but also the sorts of exercises that they could be used for (e.g. comparing source material with the finished product) and curriculum relevance.

The Diaries

For historical source analysis – especially World War II – we have Orwell’s 1938-42 diaries. These also include other interesting contemporary sources, or links to them, such as a public information leaflet on masking windows in July 1939. Most striking are the newspaper articles Orwell references (and which the Diaries blog includes) in the approach to war, summer 1939, e.g. the surprise as the Nazi Soviet Pact is signed in August 1939.

These could help pupils improve their reading of historical sources, contribute to their historical understanding and be used to stimulate wider discussion. Orwell’s diaries can also be read as preparatory work for his longer essays and work, which could be an engaging way of comparing rough drafts with finished products.

For instance, The Road to Wigan Pier diary and Orwell’s other notes (e.g. Barnsley) were obviously kept with The Road to Wigan Pier in mind. Orwell’s Morocco diary (September 1938 to March 1939, part of the 1938-42 diaries) provides the basis for the essay ‘Marrakech’, while the Hop-Picking diaries are used for Down and Out in Paris and London, A Clergyman’s Daughter and essays including ‘Hop-picking’, ‘A Day in the Life of a Tramp’ and ‘The Spike’ (and the links from the Hop-Picking blog include newsreel and other materials).

A simple question would be: how does Orwell turn this material into essays and books? More complex questions might touch on the motivations, ethics and effects of this editing is. This extract from chapter one of Wigan Pier could be a starting point, as is this Observer article, which considers Orwell’s fact and fiction, and articles by Orwell winners, Timothy Garton Ash and Neal Ascherson on journalist Ryszard Kapuściński.

Individual essays that could prompt discussion – a few suggestions

Orwell wrote a number of compelling, accessible essays about language and literature: what do we think of Orwell’s rules? What should the role of literature be?

• Why I Write
• Politics and the English Language
• The Freedom of the Press
• The Prevention of Literature
• Inside the Whale

Eyewitness/descriptive essays: how does Orwell use imagery and other techniques?

• Shooting an Elephant
• A Hanging
• The Moon Under Water

Orwell’s essays about politics and ideas (these could be particularly useful in 20th century history – WWII; The Cold War; decolonization etc):

• In Front Of Your Nose
• You and the Atom Bomb
• Reflections on Gandhi
• In Defence of P. G. Wodehouse
• My Country Right or Left
• The Lion and the Unicorn

He was also a master at writing about the particular to make a more general point:

• The Art of Donald McGill
• Food, for example – what does it tell us about politics/society?

Other:

• Books vs Cigarettes – the London Word Festival once did an event which reimagined the ‘Books vs…’ contest for the 21^st Century.

Reviews of authors on the curriculum

Orwell’s best-known pieces of criticism include his essays  on Charles Dickens and Rudyard Kipling; lesser-known reviews include an essay on W. B. Yeats.

Works about particular novels

We have a wealth of background material on all of Orwell’s works, many of which are curriculum stalwarts.

• for Nineteen Eighty-Four we have Orwell’s essays about language, politics and culture, works by others adapting it, reviews and analysis which could all give a fresh perspective
• for Animal Farm we have essays concerned with similar themes, Orwell’s proposed prefaces, reviews, analysis and the stories behind the rejections and adaptations

Related works by others

We have pieces about other works contemporary to Orwell. For example, how does Orwell’s reportage in Down and Out (e.g.) compare to other similar works? How was it received by similar authors? And how do Orwell’s dystopias/representations of politics compare to others? (Not least those, like Zamyatin and Koestler, whose works he reviewed.)

We have some material on adaptations. How have others adapted Orwell and his work? For example, Mike Radford and the BBC on Nineteen Eighty Four, Chris Durlacher on adapting Orwell’s life, the story about the cartoon film of Animal Farm. How would you adapt Orwell?

And we have pieces by those inspired by Orwell. How have others followed in Orwell’s footsteps? For example, Emma Larkin in Burma, Stephen Armstrong and others to Wigan. How would you approach a similar project?

English Language Practice Papers

We have prepared these GCSE AQA-style exam practice papers to give you a helping hand – and to promote the Orwell Youth Prize (registered charity 1156494).

Scripts – which would allow performance

Many radio scripts by Orwell exist, such as adaptations of Animal Farm and various fairy tales. These can be found in the Orwell Archive and in editions of the Complete Works.

However, online we have a Christmas edition of his radio poetry programme, Voice as well as his own poetry. We also have a short one scene piece by a young Orwell called ‘Free Will’. There is also one chapter of A Clergyman’s Daughter, set in Trafalgar Square, which is written entirely in dramatic form.

“My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art’. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing. But I could not do the work of writing a book, or even a long magazine article, if it were not also an aesthetic experience.”

George Orwell, Why I Write

George Orwell was born Eric Blair in India in 1903. He was born to a comfortable ‘lower-upper-middle class’ family and a father who served the British Empire (Orwell’s own first job was as a policeman in Burma).

By the time of his death in 1950 (and since), he was world-renowned as a journalist and author: for his eyewitness reporting on war (shot in the neck in Spain) and poverty (tramping in London, washing dishes in Paris, visiting pits and the poor in Wigan); for his political and cultural commentary, where he stood up to power and said the unsayable (‘If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear’); and for his fiction, including two of the greatest novels ever written: Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

His clear writing and political purpose have inspired and influenced countless journalists, authors and others, of all political persuasions and none, in the generations since. We hope he can do the same for you.

The Orwell Prize website has a large number of Orwell’s work available free online – you can see the collection here.

Winner of the Orwell Youth Prize 2015 – Year group 12 and 13

“…my initial concern is to get a hearing.”

George Orwell, Why I Write

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL —

A WOMAN,

Defendant/appellant.

PROCEEDINGS —

CLERK: All rise.

THE COURT: Please be seated. We’ll hear argument first this morning.

WOMAN: Thank you, Your Honour. I am here to appeal against the Court’s ruling that I pose a danger to society.

THE COURT: The Court finds it remarkable that you are rejecting the judgement of twelve good men. Surely you realise that your current nutritional intake – the LighterLife diet – can hardly sustain a stable mental condition? The Court understands that you are consuming only 530 calories a day [1].

WOMAN: 530 calories is more than a quarter of the recommended female dietary intake – that’s enough to survive on. Sixty-five years ago the Minnesota Experiment demanded the same of conscientious objectors. All thirty-six of them lived to tell the tale. If those men could do it, why can’t we?

THE COURT: The case today isn’t a battle between the sexes – it only concerns yourself. Moreover the comparison you draw is highly inappropriate The Minnesota Experiment was a scientific study into the effects of a limited diet on postwar rehabilitation [2]. Each man’s intake was purposely controlled to replicate conditions faced in areas of devastation.

WOMAN: How is mine any different? The composition of each LighterLife foodpack is based on emergency supplies delivered to disaster zones. They contain the minimum calories I require, and a base level of protein needed to stay healthy.

THE COURT: And what do you hope to achieve by this? The men in the Minnesota Experiment were of sound mind. They chose to participate in the study as they considered that it was a national service – a worthy alternative to taking up arms.

WOMAN: Maybe I’m doing a national service too, as is any woman on a diet. We’re helping chink the £5 billion [3] or so that our NHS is spending each year on weight-related conditions. Gastric banding, bypass surgery –

THE COURT: Yes, that does sound very noble indeed.

WOMAN: But?

THE COURT: I’ve requested that the clerk to the Court provide me with some demographics on obesity prevalence.

WOMAN: And?

THE COURT: Please be patient. You might be interested to hear that over 67% of men in this country are rated as overweight or obese, as compared to 57% of women [4]. Yet male participation rates in weight management programmes are considerably lower – scraping 10%. You’d do better to convince the opposite sex to enroll.

WOMAN: … I see.

THE COURT: Is cutting the national healthcare deficit really your motivation? Or is it plausible that you are trying to conceal a condition of disordered eating before the Court?  Witness for the prosecution, your clinical psychologist, observed that you were continually chewing gum and drinking DietCoke in therapy. Both are commonly used by females as appetite suppressants [5], I understand.

WOMAN: Doesn’t the case today only concern myself? Your Honour is now happy to put all women in the dock with me.

THE COURT: Please calm down. Certainly not – nor does the Court believe that the majority of women suffer from the outbreaks of ‘hysterics’ noted by your psychologist.

WOMAN: I don’t believe that. Hysteria was the first disorder exclusively pinned to women [6]. There’ve been ‘women’s diseases’ ever since: paranoia, empty-nest-syndrome, “shopaholic-ism”, –

THE COURT: Please –

WOMAN: But what you’ve said hold some truth, Your Honour, I’ll admit that. Some things are peculiar to us girls. Fat shaming, food porn, Googling the restaurant menu the night before and totting up the calories as we do so.

THE COURT: Now it is the Court’s turn to remind you that the case today only concerns yourself. Don’t you consider these obsessive preoccupations, whether the rest of your sex engage in them or not, a cause for the Court to be concerned?

WOMAN: Not at all. When you’re on a diet, obsession is natural. Those men in the Minnesota Experiment admitted to thinking constantly about food. They’d start buying cookery magazines, watching culinary shows – it was all they could talk about at the dinner table. Some ended up chewing as many as forty packets of gum a day and downing up to fifteen cups of coffee [7] once the calorie restriction started.

THE COURT: And did they break into hysterics too?

WOMAN: Would ‘character neuroses’ fit the bill? If that’s the case, then yes they did.

THE COURT: So a set of behaviors analogous to yours.

WOMAN: I suppose.

THE COURT: But you’re making another invalid comparison. The Minnesota men were not on a diet, they were starving. Unless…

WOMAN: Unless?

THE COURT: Of course, the comparison wouldn’t be invalid, if you make an admission to the same behaviours.

WOMAN: But then I would be admitting to starving myself.

THE COURT: If so, please reconsider the question: would that not be a cause for the Court to be concerned?

WOMAN: In a society where women with a history of disordered eating end up with a lower personal income, and lower odds of owning a home [8]? Not at all. We are the most dedicated and reluctant cheerleaders for the patriarchy.

THE COURT: Dedicated yet reluctant, I see. Just as the Minnesota men were for the war-torn nation?

WOMAN: ‘Will you starve that they be better fed?’ – that’s how the brochures addressed those men. Would you not feel somewhat reluctant upon reading that?

THE COURT: But you are starving yourself anyway.

WOMAN: Starve that men be better fed [9]. But we are not just hungry for food. Women are starving for everything, and that is your true cause for concern. Maybe I am a danger to society after all.

THE COURT: If you will concede to that, then the Court considers this case closed.

CLERK: All rise.

THE COURT: Carry on.

— COURT ADJOURNS

WRITE ABOUT WHAT MATTERS TO YOU. GET EXPERT FEEDBACK. AND YOU COULD WIN!

The Orwell Youth Prize uses the writing of George Orwell to inspire you to write about your own ideas and experiences. Now open to Year 7s!

The Orwell Youth Prize 2024 – HOME

And above all, it is your civilisation, it is you.

George Orwell, ‘England Your England’

What does home mean to you? A physical space? A person? A memory? A town? A country? Our planet? A dream?

At a time when our idea of home seems under pressure, from the cost-of-living crisis and the housing crisis, to the plight of refugees and the climate crisis, we want you to write about what home means to you.

Throughout George Orwell’s novels, essays and non-fiction, the idea of home recurs – whether it be a place from childhood in Coming Up For Air; a country and sense of patriotism in ‘England Your England’; what it means to be without a home or to struggle for a home in Down and Out in Paris and London; the very idea of home being threatened by surveillance, in Nineteen Eighty-Four; or our home in the natural world in ‘Some Thoughts on the Common Toad’.

Inspired by Orwell, we want you to think about ideas of home today. What does it feel like to be at home? What happens when our sense of a safe and secure home comes under threat? What does home mean in an ever-moving world? And how can we make our homes the places we want them to be – be this a household, town, city, country, or the world?

WHO CAN ENTER?

This year, we are opening the Prize to all secondary school students, including Year 7s. The Prize is open to anyone in years 7-13 (or equivalent) who is at school or college in the United Kingdom (or studying from a British Curriculum abroad – see our Terms and Conditions for details).

You don’t need to have participated in an Orwell Youth Prize workshop or event to enter. Your entry must be your own work, but you can work individually or with a friend.

WHAT SHOULD I WRITE?

Entering the Prize is an opportunity to think about the impact of different kinds of writing. As long as you have engaged with the theme in some way in your piece, you can write in any form you like!  Journalism, essays, short stories, reviews, letters, blog posts, poems, plays and even video game design concepts are all welcome.

Orwell himself wrote in a huge variety of forms, from novels to non-fiction books, essays and journalism, depending on what he had to say. Our resources offer some suggestions on how to choose the form that works best for your entry.

Whatever form you chose, the word limit is 1000 words for the junior category (if you’re in years 7-11) and 1500 words in the senior category (years 12-13).

WHAT DO I WIN?

All entries will be read by expert, volunteer readers and everyone who enters by our feedback deadline of 8th April 2024 [updated deadline!] is offered personalised feedback.

Winners and runners up are published on our website, receive Orwell’s collected essays and a certificate, and are invited to become part of the Orwell Youth Fellows programme. Winners also receive a £50 cash prize and the complete works of Orwell for themselves and for their school.

We also work with our winners and runners up to ensure your writing reaches the people you want to be heard by, from policymakers to inspirational writers and journalists.

WHY GEORGE ORWELL?

The Orwell Youth Prize takes its inspiration from the author, journalist and essayist George Orwell. Orwell wrote from his own experiences and observed the social injustices and political happenings of the world around him.

“My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art’. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.”

George Orwell, Why I Write

Orwell also wrote in language that was clear, concise and compelling for his audience. We encourage you to follow George Orwell’s example: to write about something that matters to you, and that you want to draw to the attention of others.

WHERE NEXT?

Once you have a piece you would like to enter today, you can use the entry form to ask for feedback, or to submit your final draft. Everyone who enters is entitled to individual feedback. Find out more about the feedback we offer here.

If you’re a teacher supporting your students through the programme, you can find out more about our resources here. 

We have also designed a pathway and resources for individual entrants to support you as you research and write your entry, beginning with some inspiration from Orwell himself, and reading recommendations, which we will update throughout the year. Head here to get started!

If you have any questions take a look at our Frequently Asked Questions. If you can’t find the answer there, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Follow us on social media for the latest updates –
Instagram: @orwellyouthprize
Twitter: @orwellyouthpriz

Whatever your subject  – politics, English, history, citizenship, drama to name but a few – whatever the age group you teach – the Orwell Foundation website has a wealth of resources. These are available free to everyone, regardless of whether you or your school are currently involved with the Youth Prize. If you are interested in learning more about our workshops in schools, please get in contact with the administrator at admin@orwellyouthprize.co.uk.

Our resources include works by George Orwell, works about George Orwell and video of events run by the Orwell Prize on politics and literature. Below we provide a useful guide to material that might be of particular interest in the classroom; much more is available through the publishers of Orwell, Penguin and Harvill Secker, and the works below are reproduced under copyright of them and the Orwell Estate and with their kind permission.

Works by Orwell

There is a dedicated webpage for each of Orwell’s six novels – Burmese Days, A Clergyman’s Daughter, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Coming Up for Air and of course Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four – and three major non-fiction works – Down and Out in Paris and London, The Road to Wigan Pier and Homage to Catalonia.

Additionally, a selection of other essays and short works (including poetry) by Orwell is available.

There are also three blogs of diaries written by Orwell:

• 1938-42, includes eyewitness accounts of the Blitz and the run up to WWII (as well as Orwell’s time in Morocco and his experiences of keeping animals and growing vegetables…)
• Hop-picking (1931), follows some of Orwell’s tramping exploits and his experience of picking hops in Kent, which many urban workers and their families would do in the summer
• The Road to Wigan Pier (1936), includes Orwell’s research for the book of the same name

Works about Orwell

We have links to analysis, reviews and other material based on Orwell’s life and work; the most relevant to individual novels and diaries should already be linked to from the relevant novel and diary pages.

Orwell Prize events

Many of our Orwell Prize events based on Orwell’s life and work and might be useful. These include:

• events comparing Orwell and Dickens (2009 and 2010)
• events comparing Orwell and Kipling (2011 and 2012)
• an event comparing Orwell and Waugh (2010)
• Chris Durlacher on producing George Orwell: A Life in Pictures (with the original here)
• Orwell’s son Richard Blair in conversation with biographer D. J. Taylor.

The Orwell Youth Prize also filmed our own exclusive interview with Richard Blair, which you can see here. Additionally, there are events based on themes Orwell wrote about (such as 2012’s ‘Poverty then and now, Orwell and his successors’), events about political writing more generally (such as ‘Autopsy of a Story’ with three shortlisted journalists dissecting their work and debates like ‘What makes a good political novel?’ with a critic and political novelists), and many events discussing different aspects of politics and society.

Below are a few examples of works, or combinations of works, which could work particularly well in the classroom or workshops. They have been selected based on the depth of what we have available, but also the sorts of exercises that they could be used for (e.g. comparing source material with the finished product) and curriculum relevance.

The Diaries

For historical source analysis – especially World War II – we have Orwell’s 1938-42 diaries. These also include other interesting contemporary sources, or links to them, such as a public information leaflet on masking windows in July 1939. Most striking are the newspaper articles Orwell references (and which the Diaries blog includes) in the approach to war, summer 1939, e.g. the surprise as the Nazi Soviet Pact is signed in August 1939.

Thesecould help pupils improve their reading of historical sources, contribute to their historical understanding and be used to stimulate wider discussion. Orwell’s diaries can also be read as preparatory work for his longer essays and work, which could be an engaging way of comparing rough drafts with finished products.

For instance, The Road to Wigan Pier diary and Orwell’s other notes (e.g. Barnsley) were obviously kept with The Road to Wigan Pier in mind. Orwell’s Morocco diary (September 1938 to March 1939, part of the 1938-42 diaries) provides the basis for the essay ‘Marrakech’, while the Hop-Picking diaries are used for Down and Out in Paris and London, A Clergyman’s Daughter and essays including ‘Hop-picking’, ‘A Day in the Life of a Tramp’ and ‘The Spike’ (and the links from the Hop-Picking blog include newsreel and other materials).

A simple question would be: how does Orwell turn this material into essays and books? More complex questions might touch on the motivations, ethics and effects of this editing is. This extract from chapter one of Wigan Pier could be a starting point, as is this Observer article, which considers Orwell’s fact and fiction, and articles by Orwell winners, Timothy Garton Ash and Neal Ascherson on journalist Ryszard Kapuściński.

Individual essays that could prompt discussion – a few suggestions

Orwell wrote a number of compelling, accessible essays about language and literature: what do we think of Orwell’s rules? What should the role of literature be?

• Why I Write
• Politics and the English Language
• The Freedom of the Press
• The Prevention of Literature
• Inside the Whale

Eyewitness/descriptive essays: how does Orwell use imagery and other techniques?

• Shooting an Elephant
• A Hanging
• The Moon Under Water

Orwell’s essays about politics and ideas (these could be particularly useful in 20th century history – WWII; The Cold War; decolonization etc):

• In Front Of Your Nose
• You and the Atom Bomb
• Reflections on Gandhi
• In Defence of P. G. Wodehouse
• My Country Right or Left
• The Lion and the Unicorn

He was also a master at writing about the particular to make a more general point:

• The Art of Donald McGill
• Food, for example – what does it tell us about politics/society?

Other:

• Books vs Cigarettes – the London Word Festival once did an event which reimagined the ‘Books vs…’ contest for the 21^st Century.

Reviews of authors on the curriculum

Orwell’s best-known pieces of criticism include his essays  on Charles Dickens and Rudyard Kipling; lesser-known reviews include an essay on W. B. Yeats.

Works about particular novels

We have a wealth of background material on all of Orwell’s works, many of which are curriculum stalwarts.

• for Nineteen Eighty-Four we have Orwell’s essays about language, politics and culture, works by others adapting it, reviews and analysis which could all give a fresh perspective
• for Animal Farm we have essays concerned with similar themes, Orwell’s proposed prefaces, reviews, analysis and the stories behind the rejections and adaptations

Related works by others

We have pieces about other works contemporary to Orwell. For example, how does Orwell’s reportage in Down and Out (e.g.) compare to other similar works? How was it received by similar authors? And how do Orwell’s dystopias/representations of politics compare to others? (Not least those, like Zamyatin and Koestler, whose works he reviewed.)

We have some material on adaptations. How have others adapted Orwell and his work? For example, Mike Radford and the BBC on Nineteen Eighty Four, Chris Durlacher on adapting Orwell’s life, the story about the cartoon film of Animal Farm. How would you adapt Orwell?

And we have pieces by those inspired by Orwell. How have others followed in Orwell’s footsteps? For example, Emma Larkin in Burma, Stephen Armstrong and others to Wigan. How would you approach a similar project?

English Language Practice Papers

We have prepared these GCSE AQA-style exam practice papers to give you a helping hand – and to promote the Orwell Youth Prize (registered charity 1156494).

Scripts – which would allow performance

Many radio scripts by Orwell exist, such as adaptations of Animal Farm and various fairy tales. These can be found in the Orwell Archive and in editions of the Complete Works.

However, online we have a Christmas edition of his radio poetry programme, Voice as well as his own poetry. We also have a short one scene piece by a young Orwell called ‘Free Will’. There is also one chapter of A Clergyman’s Daughter, set in Trafalgar Square, which is written entirely in dramatic form.