The police in Wigan wanted to know from Scotland Yard who this man was and whether he was "associated with the Communist Party."
Special branch sent them an extensive background report on Orwell. It made much of the fact that he had given no official reason for resigning his job as an assistant superintendent of police in Burma "but he is reported to have told his intimate friends that he could not bring himself to arrest persons for committing acts which he did not think were wrong."
The special branch officers knew he had lived the life of a "down and out" in Paris and London to collect material for the book of the same party and spent a good deal of time studying L'Humanite (the communist daily).
Information is not available to shew whether he was an active supporter of the revolutionary movement in France, but it is known that whilst there, he offered his services to the Worker's Life, the forerunner of the Daily Worker, as Paris correspondent.
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