Month: May 2020

“American Jennie” and Other Books on Lady Randolph Churchill

“American Jennie” and Other Books on Lady Randolph Churchill

A read­er requests rec­om­men­da­tions for good books about Sir Winston’s moth­er, Lady Ran­dolph Churchill (1854-1921). The most round­ed and thor­ough­ly sourced is Anne Sebba’s Amer­i­can Jen­nie (2007). Bar­bara Lang­worth pub­lished a thor­ough review and analy­sis of Jennie’s many accom­plish­ments, below. Scroll to the end for a Bib­li­og­ra­phy and com­men­tary on oth­er books about Lady Ran­dolph. RML

Barbara F. Langworth: The Right Parent Survived

Jen­nie Churchill: Winston’s Amer­i­can Moth­er, by Anne Seb­ba (Lon­don, Mur­ray, 2007).  Amer­i­can Jen­nie: The Remark­able Life of Lady Ran­dolph Churchill), (New York: Nor­ton, 2007). 

It may seem a new sto­ry to many read­ers, since the pre­vi­ous biogra­phies of Lady Ran­dolph Churchill date back up to eight decades.…

Read More Read More

Churchill on the Egyptians: “Set the Jews on them.” Or so it is alleged.

Churchill on the Egyptians: “Set the Jews on them.” Or so it is alleged.

Egyptians and all that A.M. in India fol­lows Churchill issues and strives to under­stand the truth. He ques­tions what Win­ston Churchill said about the Egyptians….

Good after­noon, I’ve emailed you before. If it’s not too much trou­ble could you please ver­i­fy whether Sir Win­ston actu­al­ly said this? “If we have any more of [Egypt­ian] cheek we will set the Jews on them and dri­ve them into the gut­ter from which they should nev­er have emerged.”

* * * We may accept this as like­ly. It is hearsay and the source was not pro-Churchill.…

Read More Read More

Churchill Memories of the Mount Washington and Bretton Woods

Churchill Memories of the Mount Washington and Bretton Woods

Read­ers react­ed kind­ly to my essay on Alis­tair Cooke. I ven­ture to add some pri­vate Churchillian moments at the Mount Wash­ing­ton Hotel at Bret­ton Woods. I sent these to still-liv­ing par­tic­i­pants, who urged I pub­lish them—with strate­gic edits to pro­tect the innocent.

“I’ve been using microphones before you were born”

Com­man­der Lar­ry Kryske USN was our toast­mas­ter for the 1988 Mount Wash­ing­ton Churchill din­ners. I remem­ber par­tic­u­lar­ly his naval dec­la­ra­tion after din­ner: “The smok­ing lamp is light­ed.” (How odd that sounds now! In my expe­ri­ence, group smok­ing stopped almost dead around 1990.) Lar­ry sends this amus­ing mem­o­ry of that night, 27 August:

Dur­ing his address, Sir Alis­tair appeared to be hav­ing trou­ble with the mic.…

Read More Read More

80 Years On: Winston Churchill Prime Minister, 10 May 1940

80 Years On: Winston Churchill Prime Minister, 10 May 1940

The 10th of May…

In the splin­ter­ing crash of this vast bat­tle the qui­et con­ver­sa­tions we had had in Down­ing Street fad­ed or fell back in one’s mind. How­ev­er, I remem­ber being told that Mr. Cham­ber­lain had gone, or was going, to see the King, and this was nat­u­ral­ly to be expect­ed. Present­ly a mes­sage arrived sum­mon­ing me to the Palace at six o’clock. It only takes two min­utes to dri­ve there from the Admi­ral­ty along the Mall. Although I sup­pose the evening news­pa­pers must have been full of the ter­rif­ic news from the Con­ti­nent, noth­ing had been men­tioned about the Cab­i­net cri­sis.…

Read More Read More

Alistair Cooke: An Introduction and an Appreciation

Alistair Cooke: An Introduction and an Appreciation

My pre­vi­ous note was about Alis­tair Cooke on Churchill in 1930s. I now reprise my intro­duc­tion to his speech, and a per­son­al epi­logue. Sir Alistair’s speech, at the Mount Wash­ing­ton Hotel, Bret­ton Woods, 27 August 1988, is avail­able by email. RML

Sir Alistair Cooke KBE

When, in what we must regard as a stroke of bril­liance, we thought to invite Sir Alis­tair Cooke to talk about Win­ston Churchill, we wrote him with trep­i­da­tion. We were told he had a rep­u­ta­tion for being very hard to get. To our delight, he defied the odds. “This is the time of year when I turn down every­thing,” he wrote.…

Read More Read More

Alistair Cooke: Why didn’t They Listen to Churchill?

Alistair Cooke: Why didn’t They Listen to Churchill?

Alis­tair Cooke addressed this ques­tion over thir­ty years ago. I’ve quot­ed his words repeat­ed­ly over the years. A recent com­ment (reprised below), encour­aged this revi­sion from 2011. Mr. Cooke’s full speech is avail­able by email. RML

Back in the 1930s, who all denounced and crit­i­cized Churchill for his beliefs in the rad­i­cal Nazi Ger­many? Who specif­i­cal­ly mocked him? Obvi­ous­ly Churchill was right about Hitler and his plans but who in the polit­i­cal, intel­lec­tu­al, or enter­tain­ment are­nas vil­i­fied him? —A.H.

The answer to your ques­tion, I think, is “just about every­body,” from the Roy­al Fam­i­ly to ordi­nary cit­i­zens, most of the media, his own par­ty, the Labour and Lib­er­al par­ties, and cer­tain­ly most intel­lec­tu­als and enter­tain­ment personalities.…

Read More Read More

RML Books

Richard Langworth’s Most Popular Books & eBooks

Links on this page may earn commissions.