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Homage to a Scot hater; Imperfectly formed by the arrogance and prejudices of his public schoolboy background, George Orwell nevertheless became one of the last century's greatest advocates of freedom and intellectual honesty with a commonplace belief

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From: The Sunday Herald
Date: 20020602
Author:Christopher Hitchens

WHEN he was a schoolboy at an insufferable snob establishment on the south coast of England, George Orwell developed a strong aversion to all things Scottish. The richer pupils at this place were often the sons of lairds, or of parents who owned the rights to shoot and fish in Scotland, and their whole cult of tartan, grouse and ghillie imprinted him with a lifelong dislike. Meetings later in life with Scots colonial officers and soldiers in the empire did little to appease this prejudice, and indeed in his writings he referred ill- temperedly to a British colonial racket run by gangs of Jews ...

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