The Woodcocks remained close friends with the Dalai Lama since they first visited him in Dharamsala, India, in 1961. The George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award for British Columbia is fittingly named for the anarchist philosopher whose unrivalled productivity was achieved in concert with consistent ideals and humanitarian actions ever since he and Ingeborg Woodcock arrived from London, England, and built a rough cabin at Sooke in 1949. After their deaths, the Woodcocks' little house was demolished in order to generate their bequest of almost $2.3 million to the Writers Trust of Canada to support writers in distress. A friend and biographer of George Orwell, and a friend to the Dalai Lama, Woodcock became the first author to receive Freedom of the City from Vancouver City Council. Here, as well, Woodcock edited Canadian Literature, the first publication entirely devoted to Canadian books. Here he lived as "a man of free intelligence" from 1959 to 1995 with his wife Ingeborg, raising funds for two charities they founded-Tibetan Refugee Aid Society and Canada India Village Aid-while writing and editing approximately 150 books. Self-described as "a British Columbian by choice, a Canadian by birth," the Winnipeg-born, England-educated anarchist George Woodcock was B.C.'s most prodigious man of letters.
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