George Orwell spent a short stay in Leeds with his sister Marjorie and her husband named Humphrey Dakin. Dakin had known Orwell when they were both children and remained as unappreciative of him in adulthood as he was in their younger years. “His history in these years is marked by dualities and contrasts. There is Blaire leading a respectable, outwardly eventless life at his parents’ house in Southwold, writing; then in contrast, there is Blair as Burton (the name he used in his down-and-out episodes) in search of experience in the kips and spikes, in the East End, on the road, and in the hop fields of Kent”.

Orwell contributed regularly to the ‘Adelphi’ magazine whilst continuing his explorations of the lower depths. Orwell took part in the East End tradition of working in the Kent hop fields and kept a diary to document the entire experience. His lead character in A Clergyman’s Daughter was also to engage in this tradition of working in the hop fields. After his work in the hop fields, Orwell had his “Hop Picking” published in the October 1931 issue of New Statesman. Orwell was not to write on led gu10s.