Month: March 2020

The Greatness of Alex Tremulis: A Car Designer from Another Era (1)

The Greatness of Alex Tremulis: A Car Designer from Another Era (1)

My Tremulis piece was pub­lished in full in The Auto­mo­bile, March 2020. 

“That was a dif­fer­ent time,” Alex Tremulis told me, recall­ing his hey­day in car design. “The For­ties through the Sev­en­ties. Back then a sin­gle per­son could often influ­ence the shape of a car. Some­times the whole car. Of course, lots of our ideas were sheer rub­bish. But now and then, by luck or force of per­son­al­i­ty, we put some­thing good into production.”

Many famous auto­mo­tive designs did have whim­si­cal begin­nings. Bill Boy­er put port­holes on the rear roof quar­ters of the 1956 Ford Thun­der­bird to recall “the coach­work her­itage.”…

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Life Amid Chaos: “The Hope Still Lives…The Dream Shall Never Die”

Life Amid Chaos: “The Hope Still Lives…The Dream Shall Never Die”

My broth­er Andrew Roberts inspired this post, when he asked for Churchill quo­ta­tions about child­birth. Yes, even now, friends have brought a new life into the world. Three months ago, my son and daugh­ter-in-law did likewise.

Life Goes On

On 30 May 1909, Clemen­tine Churchill was preg­nant with their first child, Diana. Win­ston, ask­ing her to prac­tice social dis­tanc­ing, wrote these beau­ti­ful words: “We are in the grip of cir­cum­stances, and out of pain joy will spring, and from pass­ing weak­ness new strength will arise.”

Four and one-half decades lat­er, his daugh­ter Mary was a fort­night over­due for the birth of Char­lotte, her fourth child.…

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Churchill and George Bernard Shaw: Less than Meets the Eye

Churchill and George Bernard Shaw: Less than Meets the Eye

We are constantly asked to verify the famous exchange. Shaw writes: “Am reserving two tickets for you for my premiere. Come and bring a friend—if you have one.” Churchill replies: “Impossible to be present for the first performance. Will attend the second—if there is one.” Though it’s lovely repartee, both of them denied it.

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Churchill’s Potent Political Nicknames: Adm. Row-Back to Wuthering Height

Churchill’s Potent Political Nicknames: Adm. Row-Back to Wuthering Height

Spo­rad­i­cal­ly, pun­dits com­pare Don­ald Trump with Win­ston Churchill. There’s even a book com­ing out on the sub­ject. I dep­re­cate all this by instinct and will avoid that book like the Coro­n­avirus. Sur­face sim­i­lar­i­ties may exist: both said or say main­ly what they thought or think, unfil­tered by polls (and some­times good advice). But Churchill’s lan­guage and thought were on a high­er plane. Still, when a friend said that Churchill nev­er stooped to deri­sive nick­names like Trump, I had to disagree.

Whether invent­ed by the Pres­i­dent or his scriptwrit­ers, some of Trump’s nick­names were very effec­tive.…

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“The Charlie Chaplin of Caricature”: Churchill on Low

“The Charlie Chaplin of Caricature”: Churchill on Low

“Churchill on Low” is excerpt­ed from “David Low” for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. Click here for the orig­i­nal text. To sub­scribe for reg­u­lar Hills­dale updates, click here, scroll to bot­tom and fill in your email.

“Master of invective”

“Low is the great­est of our mod­ern car­toon­ists,” wrote Win­ston Churchill in his delight­ful essay “Car­toons and Car­toon­ists.” He praised “the vivid­ness of his polit­i­cal con­cep­tions,” declar­ing Low a sin­gu­lar tal­ent: “He pos­sess­es what few car­toon­ists have—a grand tech­nique of draughts­man­ship. Low is a mas­ter of black and white. He is the Char­lie Chap­lin of car­i­ca­ture, and tragedy and com­e­dy are the same to him.”…

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Churchill Derangement Syndrome: A is for Aryans, R is for Racism

Churchill Derangement Syndrome: A is for Aryans, R is for Racism

“Quality local journalism”

In our elec­tron­ic Speaker’s Cor­ner (the Inter­net), Win­ston Churchill is beset by haters. Their knee-jerk spouts are laced with out-of-con­text quotes and pre­con­ceived notions. Call it Churchill Derange­ment Syn­drome. Where is the truth? Per­haps we need a Derange­ment Index. Click on “A” for Aryan Suprema­cy, “B” for the Ben­gal Famine, etc. A handy ref­er­ence to every derange­ment you can access with a cou­ple of clicks.

An e-zine called This is Local Lon­don, describ­ing its offer­ings as “qual­i­ty local jour­nal­ism,” is a stan­dard exam­ple. Well, maybe not so stan­dard. “The Prob­lem with Glo­ry­ing Win­ston Churchill” was writ­ten not by a his­to­ri­an or researcher, but a stu­dent at Walling­ton Coun­ty Gram­mar School.

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