Changes in England: 1900 to 1939

Changes in England: 1900 to 1939

George Orwell’s novel, Coming Up for Air, portrays England at two different times. The story is based around George Bowling in 1939 and his life in the suburbs of London on Ellesmere Road, where all the houses are the same. He is very cynical of the world around him and dreams of his times as a child in Lower Binfield when things were not perfect, but not yet ruined by the Great War. The vision of 1900 England versus England in 1939 creates a sharp contrast in life for George Bowling. In 1939 England is on the verge of another war, and life is impersonal, harsh, and industrial. The reality of 1939 is only accentuated by George’s trip to his childhood home of Lower Binfield, where nothing is the same as he left before the Great War.

George Bowling’s first glimpse of Lower Binfield in 1939 leaves him baffled. He does not even recognize his childhood home. The small town of two thousand has turned into a city of twenty five thousand. Upon seeing his old home he exclaims, “But where was Lower Binfield? Where was the town I used to know? It might have been anywhere. All I knew it was buried somewhere in the middle of that sea of bricks.” The town is fundamentally different then when George left it. The old brewery is gone and the main manufacturing in the city was bombs for the RAF. People in the streets are preparing for impending war with Germany. They are practicing for air raids and bombers are constantly flying overhead. The marketplace where all the shops were during his childhood is now called the “Old Market”. George could not even find his way around town because of all the new streets. He recognized many of the shops but they all had different names and owners. This difference startles George but also shows an important difference between England in 1900 and 1939 England. Towns were becoming cities, the war had industrialized the entire nation very quickly, and a small town like Lower Binfield quickly became a manufacturing center. The city no longer housed the smaller family owned businesses that had once dominated Lower Binfield. These smaller shops had been bought out by national businesses that were expanding across England closing smaller shops in all the towns. Shopkeepers like George’s dad who refused to innovate and carry different merchandise were left to slowly die as stores like Sarazins, “big retail seedsmen” took over.

George Bowling enjoyed to fish during his childhood. However all of the places he enjoyed to fish as a kid had been destroyed by the new Lower Binfield. In his excitement about fishing he buys a new rod and all the necessary equipment to go fishing but decides to go and check out his old fishing spots before he actually fishes. The first spot he goes to is the Thames River where he is met with a surprise. When he arrives at the river he sees, “The place was black with people. And where the water-meadows used to be- tea-houses, penny-in-the-slot machines, sweet kiosks and chaps selling Wall’s Ice Cream. Might as well have been at Margate.” The stream where he had found solitude as a child was completely overrun with people. He could not fish in a place with the kind of commotion that would scare all the fish away. The river itself had also changed. The clear water he saw as a kid had become murky and brown. As a child he could fish all day by the river and not see another person. England had changed since he was a child. Crowds of people and a polluted river ruined his nostalgic view of fishing. England had grown and with the growth of the town came the destruction of nature.

Discouraged but not completely done with the idea of fishing he decided to go to find his other sacred fishing spot. This spot had suffered an even worse fate. The spot was located near the house at Upper Binfield (which had been turned into an insane asylum). Much to George’s dismay a new housing development had gone in by the pond he used to fish at. The pond itself had turned into the Upper Binfield Model Yacht Club, and was overrun by kids. Even worse was the fact that the second pond had been turned into a trash dump for the housing development. The housing development was called Upper Binfield Estate, for people that wanted to escape the “dark satanic mills” of Lower Binfield. It was for people who wanted to be closer to nature but they were houses that only the upper class could afford. George was disgusted, “ Even the pavements were crazy. I didn’t let him take me far. Some of the houses made me wish I’d got a hand-grenade