January 2012 - Richard M. Langworth

“Houses, red meat, and not being scuppered…”

24 January 2012 Comments 0 Comments

I have read that Churchill told his private secretary, Jock Colville, in November 1951 that his new government’s priorities were ‘houses, red meat and not getting scuppered.’ But I can’t find this in Colville’s Fringes of Power. Any thoughts?

Wonderful quote, quite appropriate in an election season, wish it were in my book. The date was March 1952 not November 1951.

It is quoted as you state it by Paul Addison in his outstanding book Churchill on the Home Front (London: Cape, 1992) 412, footnoted to Fringes of Power “diary for 22-23 March 1952.” But Prof.…

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Churchill on Italian Cruise Ships: Untrue

20 January 2012 Comments 8 Comments

It’s all over the Web. And entirely bogus.

After his retirement, goes the story, Churchill was cruising the Mediterranean on an Italian liner and an Italian journalist asked why a former British Prime Minister chose an Italian ship. “There are three things I like about being on an Italian cruise ship,” Churchill supposedly says. “First, their cuisine is unsurpassed. Second, their service is superb. And then, in time of emergency, there is none of this nonsense about women and children first.”

Amusing to some, anathema to others, including relatives of the Costa Concordia passengers and many embarrassed Italians, this is NOT by Winston Churchill.…

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Winston Churchill was Not a Zionist?

12 January 2012 Comments 0 Comments

The Churchill Society of Israel serves Israelis with an interest in Sir Winston Churchill, according to Russell Rothstein, quoted in the January 9th Daily Telegraph: “Churchill’s long-standing support of Zionism and friendship with the Jewish people make it particularly appropriate that the modern state of Israel have a local organisation devoted to his memory and to preserving his thoughts, words and deeds for future generations.”

Sir Martin Gilbert, Churchill’s official biographer, added: “Churchill was very familiar with the Old Testament. He wrote about the Children of Israel who “understood and adopted ideas which even ancient Greece and Rome, for all their power, failed to comprehend.…

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Oldest Vessel Named for Churchill

4 January 2012 Comments 0 Comments

The 15-meter sloop Winston Churchill is one of several Churchill namesake vessels to have carried an heroic crew. The venerable sailboat, the oldest vessel named for Sir Winston, sank during the challenging Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race in 1998, and three of her crew, James Lawler, Michael Bannister and John Dean, drowned. The heroism of her crew matches that of the USS Winston S. Churchill, the most famous bearer of the name afloat.

The story of their survival, writes Paul Kalina in the Sydney Morning Herald, is part of a new film by Graham McNeice on Australians who defied narrow brushes with death.…

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