Year: 2020

Alex
Alex Tremulis as Chief of Advanced Design at Kaiser-Frazer, 1951-53. (Author’s collection)
The Greatness of Alex Tremulis, Part 2: Tucker to Kaiser-Frazer

The Greatness of Alex Tremulis, Part 2: Tucker to Kaiser-Frazer

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Con­tin­ued from Part 1. My Alex Tremulis piece was pub­lished in full in The Auto­mo­bile, March 2020. 

Alex and Tucker

Like Bob Bourke’s famous 1953 Stude­bak­er “Loewy coupe,” the 1948 Tuck­er was almost entire­ly the work of one design­er. Of course many helped, and both Bourke and Tremulis gave them cred­it. But as near as one comes to design­ing a car by one­self, they did.

Alex set to work in a stu­dio at Tucker’s large, ex-Dodge plant in Chica­go. As chief design­er he had to inject prac­ti­cal­i­ty into Pre­ston Tuck­er’s enthu­si­asm. First con­cepts includ­ed a car with cycle fend­ers that turned with the wheels, a periscope rearview scan­ner, and vast expans­es of com­pound-curved glass.…

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

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

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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
A message from Queen Victoria, made into a placard and placed on the cabinet table, Central War Rooms, London, by Winston Churchill in 1940. (Author’s photo)
Life Amid Chaos: “The Hope Still Lives…The Dream Shall Never Die”

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

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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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Shaw
The great protagonists (Wikimedia Commons and Hillsdale College Press)
Churchill and George Bernard Shaw: Less than Meets the Eye

Churchill and George Bernard Shaw: Less than Meets the Eye

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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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nicknames
“Make Britain Great Again”? Attacking the opposition on behalf of the Tory candidate Anthony Fell (seated), Hammersmith, London, 23 February 1949. Labour won the safe seat, but by under five points, ominous in a usually reliable constituency. Sir Anthony eventually sat for Yarmouth, 1958-83. (Crown copyright expired, public domain)
Churchill’s Potent Political Nicknames: Adm. Row-Back to Wuthering Height

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

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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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Low
Churchill by Low for the New Statesman, 1 May 1926 (Wikimedia Commons)
“The Charlie Chaplin of Caricature”: Churchill on Low

“The Charlie Chaplin of Caricature”: Churchill on Low

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“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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derangement
A jail cell for that warmongering “Naval Person” was Dr. Goebbels’ prescription for the First Lord of the Admiralty in 1940. It’s odd to reflect that eighty years later, Churchill’s despisers would like to do that with his reputation. (Lǔstige Blätter [Funny Papers], Berlin, January 1940.)
Churchill Derangement Syndrome: A is for Aryans, R is for Racism

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

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“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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Auschwitz
“Work sets you free.” The main gate of Auschwitz, the first sight Jews caught of their place of doom. (Creative Commons Dnalor 01 via Wikimedia)
Bombing Auschwitz: “Get everything out of the air force you can.” -WSC

Bombing Auschwitz: “Get everything out of the air force you can.” -WSC

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“Bomb­ing Auschwitz” is Chap­ter 31 in my book, Win­ston Churchill, Myth and Real­i­ty: What he Actu­al­ly Did and Said. Avail­able in Kin­dle or paper­back from Ama­zon.

The Auschwitz myth

“War is main­ly a cat­a­logue of blun­ders,” Churchill wrote. [1] A war leader is “the slave of unfore­see­able and uncon­trol­lable events. Anti­quat­ed War Offices, weak, incom­pe­tent or arro­gant Com­man­ders, untrust­wor­thy allies, hos­tile neu­trals, malig­nant For­tune, ugly sur­pris­es, awful miscalculations—all take their seat at the Coun­cil Board….” [2]

Churchill’s most fla­grant inac­tion, accord­ing to many crit­ics, was fail­ing to bomb Auschwitz, the noto­ri­ous Nazi death camp, or the rail lines lead­ing to it.…

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words
A collection of Churchill’s books in various editions easily fills a wall. (Author photo)
Update: How Many Words did Winston Churchill Produce?

Update: How Many Words did Winston Churchill Produce?

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How many words, how many speeches?

“How many speech­es did Churchill make, and in how many words? Also, how many words did he write in his books and arti­cles? [Updat­ed from 2014.]

Word counts

Through the won­ders of com­put­er sci­ence (Ian Lang­worth and the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project), we know that the present cor­pus of works by and about Win­ston S. Churchill exceeds 80 mil­lion words (380 megabytes). This includes 20 mil­lion (120 megabytes) by Churchill him­self (count­ing his let­ters, mem­os and papers in the 23 vol­umes of Churchill Doc­u­ments. Here are his the top word counts among his books:

The Churchill Doc­u­ments: 10,000,000*

Win­ston S.…

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"Man is Spirit"
Churchill did believe in a spiritual connection with his forebears, witness “The Dream,” 1947. Lord Randolph’s ghost: “Are you still a Protestant?” Winston: “Episcopalian.” (Painting by Sal Asaro, 1987.)
Question for Readers: What did Churchill Mean by “Man is Spirit”?

Question for Readers: What did Churchill Mean by “Man is Spirit”?

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“Man is spirit”

Win­ston Churchill retired as Prime Min­is­ter on 5 April 1955. On April 3rd, he met with his non-Cab­i­net min­is­ters. His last words were report­ed by William Sid­ney, Vis­count De L’Isle and Dud­ley, his neigh­bor in West­er­ham, to Mar­tin Gilbert. “Man is spir­it,” he told them. Then he added: “Nev­er be sep­a­rat­ed from the Americans.”

The lat­ter is well under­stood. In 1956, when he wasn’t around, there was quite a seri­ous sep­a­ra­tion, over Suez. “Man is spir­it” is hard­er to under­stand. What did Churchill mean?

A pro­fes­sor teach­ing Churchill’s states­man­ship says his class is going back and forth on that.…

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RML Books

Richard Langworth’s Most Popular Books & eBooks


Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

Churchill in His Own Words

Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

Triumph Cars - The Complete Story
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