Marrakech
Following in Orwell's footsteps...
From 2nd-8th November 2023, The Orwell Youth Prize Programme Coordinator, Tabby Hayward, visited Morocco with the Orwell Society, to follow in the footsteps of Eric Blair (George Orwell) and his wife, Eileen. The couple travelled to Marrakech in September 1938, where they stayed until March 1939, and where Orwell wrote his fourth novel, Coming Up For Air. The following is inspired by Orwell’s Marrakech diaries, including his religious counting of eggs, which you can read in full here.
2 November 2023
Rained in violent bursts throughout the night before my departure. Weather in London very bleak - steady downpour, flooding on the roads, and Storm Ciaran threatening to delay flights. Strikes at French Air Traffic Control also meant our flight was rerouted – but none of this competes with Orwell and Eileen’s complex journey to Marrakech, 85 years ago, in September 1938.
They travelled by sea, originally arriving in Gibraltar (by mistake – they could have got off at Tangier, where the ship docked first) then back to Tangier, where they planned to get a ship to Casablanca, but the boats were full, so they had to travel by train, through Spanish Morocco – which Orwell had been hoping to avoid, as his passport showed that he had fought on the Republican side in Spain. However, they passed through without incident (other than their newspapers being confiscated) crossing two borders before reaching Pierrejean (now Sidi Kacem) in French Morocco, where they lost their baggage. They then took a connecting train to Casablanca, staying for two nights, waiting to be reunited with their suitcases, before taking the train to Marrakech.
My journey was dazzlingly short by contrast – just 3 and a half hours in the air – from the storms and heavy cloud of England, over the dry and dusty terrain of Morocco – and then the plane turned and the rugged High Atlas Mountains came into view, as we came in to land.
Collected at the airport by our driver Ismail, we arrived at the President Kennedy Resort in the early afternoon. Swimming pool surprisingly cold, even under the hot sun. Palm trees, cats, Casablanca beers and noisy birdsong, as the group met, some for the first time, and our adventures began.
No eggs.
View from my hotel room
3 November 2023
Breakfasted on crusty bread, eggs (one, hardboiled), soft cheese, honey, fresh yogurt, oranges. Headed out to the Oued Tensift. Stood on the banks of the very dry river - it flooded when Orwell was here - and heard Richard Blair, Orwell’s son, read from his father’s diary, of the ‘fresh water mussels, very similar to those in the Thames, moving to & fro in the mud leaving deep track behind them’. No chance of spotting these on our visit, the dry river instead occupied by a stray dog.
Then to the Museum for Water Civilisation – impressively extensive history of water in Marrakech, its political, social and environmental importance, risks and customs – especially how water is shared in communities, by the Jemaa, a traditional assembly in each community, who regulate the management of natural resources to avoid conflicts related to water use or rights.
We made the short journey to the approximate location of Villa Simont, as established by our guide, Kevin Carter. Orwell wrote Coming Up For Air, in all its Englishness, in the Villa Simont’s observatory, amidst the heat and dust of Morocco. The building has since been destroyed, with not much to see there now other than a few stray dogs, broken bottles and rubbish. Richard read from his mother and father’s letters about the new home they were making in Marrakech, with goats and chickens, and no oven. We took a picture, imagining from Kevin’s photographs how the Villa would have looked. We then lunched at Hotel Wazo – Kevin later established that the true site of the Villa Simont would have been just beyond the hotel garden – just a short distance away from where we had stood.
Later, we headed to the Jemma El Fna (central square) for dinner at Cafe France - excellent tagine, overlooking the bustling square. Saddened by a monkey on a chain, dressed up in silk trousers and jacket, and by the poor horses, walking themselves further down the taxi ranks, dust and flies clouding their faces. Drumming, singing, shouting. Market stalls piled high with oranges and bananas, sparkling shoes, gleaming lanterns, the growing darkness thick with smells of spices, incense, urine, horses. We asked Ismail when the market closed and he told us it went on all night.
Home ready for a busy day tomorrow. One egg.
Richard Blair reading from his father’s diaries at the Oued Tensift.
4 November 2023
Headed back to Jemma El Fna this morning on an Orwell pilgrimage - as well as taking in the snake charmers, the painted ceramics, the music from the Shilha people from the High Atlas Mountains, the mountains of vivid red, orange, green and yellow spices, looking more like paint pigment than stuff to eat.
We started at the former hotel where Orwell and Eileen first stayed (Eileen noticed it was a brothel – Orwell didn’t), and the former home of Madame Vellat, which they then moved to after realising this fact (before moving on again to Villa Simont).
We walked through the medina (old town) to the Mellah, the Jewish quarter. More cats in this area, waiting by the butcher’s stall for chicken guts and gristle.
Paused for mint tea and lunched on the top floor of a very nice establishment – little dishes of jewel-bright salads, chicken pastilla (sweet and spicy inside the flaky pastry).
We then stopped at the site of the former British Consulate where Eric and Eileen registered upon arrival (with Orwell’s date of birth incorrectly marked as 1902 rather than 1903 – apparently a mistake also on his passport); the hospital where Orwell was seen by Dr Diot, a friend of a friend of Eileen’s brother Lawrence; and the Hotel de Ville where the couple also registered - with the interesting spelling of Eileen’s home town of South Shields, noted as South Swecas…
To dinner at Al Fassia, a community restaurant run by women who have escaped from abusive relationships or difficult family situations. The food - sublime. Harira, a traditional soup to start, followed by lamb and aubergine tagine and couscous - and then, when you thought that was that, a second round of chicken and pumpkin tagine. A mix up with the ordering, but a wonderful treat to sample these rich yet subtle flavours.
No eggs.
Staircase in what used to be Madame Vellat’s house.
5 November 2023
Early start to Casablanca - a three or so hour drive. Called Casablanca (obvious, retrospectively) because the buildings are all white - in Marrakech they are all pink/red, or terracotta coloured. Fes is yellow, Chefchaouen blue. Rain started up about half way there, grew steadily heavier and foggier as we entered Casablanca.
Stopped for lunch at Rick’s Cafe - the real one was a movie set in London but this has been exquisitely recreated, with a live jazz band in the evening (we had recorded music over lunch) and a delicious menu.
Next, we drove past the railway station (rain still heavy) where Eric and Eileen arrived (separately from their luggage), then on to the Rialto cinema, where they watched a film on their brief stay, and finally the city hall, police station and French consulate. The statue of the first Resident-General, Marshal Lyautey, was moved to the grounds of the French Consulate in April 1959 (Morocco gained independence in 1956) from its former position in the middle of the main square in front of the city’s courthouse.
On the drive back, rain continued most of the way, but stopped about an hour from Marrakech. Sun sets very swiftly here and the bus journey gave the perfect opportunity to appreciate this - sun like a very shiny red grapefruit, spectacular in the sky for about 5 minutes, then rapidly sinking, leaving a lovely orangey glow, which lasts another 20 or so minutes before full darkness. Orwell described in his diaries a green sky at sunset. I tried to see it as he had – but it stayed orange for me.
No eggs.
The Rialto cinema, Casablanca
6 November 2023
Headed out to the Jnane El Harti gardens, visited by Orwell and Eileen, and mentioned in Orwell’s ‘Marrakech’ essay as the site of the gazelle with the hindquarters that looked good enough to eat with mint sauce. The gardens used to contain a zoo, but no more. The gardens are also where Orwell saw the turtles ‘coming up for air’ - which he expands into sea turtles in the novel.
Next, to the hospital which Eileen visited for neuralgia. We then stopped at the Cafe Les Negociants, frequented by Eileen and Eric (and where they later stayed in rooms, probably on the first floor) for coffee and more interesting materials to peruse, including the couple’s shopping lists, photographs and letters.
Next, to Chatr bookshop, also frequented by Orwell and Eileen and on to lunch at Chez Lamine - which may not have been visited by Orwell but was by Gordon Ramsey, Jamie Oliver and Mary Berry. Not yet tired of tagine.
We visited the European cemetery, the site where Simon Fankhauser (owner of the Villa Simont) and Madame Vellat are buried - Madame Vellat rather sadly in an unmarked grave, just a little mound of rubble with a brick on top. But there was life in the cemetery – Ismail handed me a ‘gift’: a small, flailing tortoise with a long stalk of grass in his mouth, like he was smoking a pipe. The tortoise seemed fairly unfazed being suddenly airborne (his head stayed out) but peed in a surprising quantity for such a small creature. When we had circled the cemetery, we spotted him still making his slow, persistent way along the path, the grass pipe still in his mouth.
Watched the sundown from my hotel balcony before dinner. Tomorrow - The High Atlas Mountains.
One egg.
The Jnane El Harti gardens
7 November 2023
Today to the High Atlas Mountains. Ismail had had to replace the old, grumbling minibus (which had struggled coming back from Casablanca) but this one made it up the very long and winding road nicely. Those who had visited last year remembered the roads as being far worse – they seemed newly resurfaced and we made it up in half the time expected.
We stopped at Taddert. Many places are called Taddert, or similar, as it means village, but this one had been correctly pinpointed by the group as the location of the Auberges des Noyeurs, the hotel where Orwell and Eileen stayed in Jan 1939 after Orwell had completed his first draft of Coming Up for Air. It boasted views ‘panoramique’, which were spectacular from the terrace, where we encountered some interested cats (perhaps on their own Orwell pilgrimage), and enjoyed strong mint tea, walnuts from the walnut tree, and tomato omelettes.
Our host (who promised that next year, the hotel would be ready for us to stay in) gave us the tour of the hotel - now decaying and worn but with remnants of its former grandeur, especially in the bar downstairs where Orwell and Eileen likely spent their January evenings by the open fire. In his diaries, Orwell describes the hotel as being ‘exactly like a cheap Paris hotel’. Seems unlikely that it will be back to that standard again anytime soon (apparently the owner made the same promise last year, before offering to sell the place for 1000 euros).
Not quite tempted by this interesting offer, we went on, to the highest point of the mountains - it’s not clear the Blairs ever made it here, but the views were wonderful. Bitingly cold winds. Dramatic drive back down again, for our final night in Marrakech.
I’m not usually sentimental about visiting places where writers have lived. I couldn’t see Orwell’s green sunsets, cannot pretend to be as interested in egg counting as he (there are 139 eggs mentioned in Orwell’s Marrakech diaries), and I can’t correctly identify, as he did, types of trees or birds, beyond the obvious. But up in the mountains on the hotel terrace, I could imagine, at least, the feeling of having completed a draft of a novel, and coming up here to the panoramic views of this extraordinary landscape, ‘up for air’.
Two eggs, in omelette form.
At the Auberge des Noyers in Taddert, the High Atlas Mountains