Year: 2023

Churchill's London
Little known but important: the old London Magazine near the Serpentine, Hyde Park. An 1805 Palladian-style villa, it once housed naval cordite for the defense of London. In 1911, war threatened over the Agadir Crisis. Observing the Magazine was unguarded, Churchill sent a marine detachment. His decisive action helped convince Prime Minister Asquith to appoint him First Lord of the Admiralty, where he prepared the Royal Navy for war. For years abandoned, it reopened in 2013 as an art gallery then a restaurant. (Zaha Hadid Architects)
Visitor’s Guide to the REAL “Churchill’s London”

Visitor’s Guide to the REAL “Churchill’s London”

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"Cast your eye from the entrance on the War Rooms slightly to the right. You’ll see a doorway well above ground. To the right of that doorway you will see a set of six windows ending in a curved window at Storey’s Gate. Those are the actual rooms in which Winston Churchill slept and worked during the Second World War."

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Napalm
Napalm dropped by a B26 on an enemy-occupied Korean village envelops a military barracks, forced through open windows and doors by the blast. (U.S. Air Force, 1951, public domain)
Winston Churchill’s Revulsion over Napalm Bombing

Winston Churchill’s Revulsion over Napalm Bombing

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"My own feeling is that Napalm ought not to be used in the way it is being done by the American Forces. This is I am sure the overwhelming feeling of the House of Commons, but I do not take my opinion from them. I certainly could not agree to our taking any responsibility for it, otherwise than in the general duty of serving with and under the United Nations Commander. I do not see how Press articles and jabber of that kind compares with splashing about this burning fluid on the necks of humble people...."

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Tucker
1948 Tucker. (Photo by Rex Gray, Creative Commons)
The Tucker Story (No, It Wasn’t the Car to Beat Detroit)

The Tucker Story (No, It Wasn’t the Car to Beat Detroit)

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For all his brilliance, Preston Tucker "was out of his pond. He remained a stranger and perhaps even a threat to the SEC, and he didn’t know anyone in government. Preston was careless in some of his pencil-work, perhaps in a bit of his talk, too. Nevertheless. Tucker conceived an amazing automobile. Nevertheless, the government did overreact, despite all he did to earn it.

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Jefferson
Dinner for Western Hemisphere Nobel Prize Winners at the East Room, the White House, 29 April 1962. Gathered for a reading by actor Frederic March of excerpts from the works of late Nobel laureates are (L-R): Lady Bird Johnson, Pearl Buck, President Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Robert Frost and Agnes Charlier Jarring, wife of Swedish Ambassador Gunnar Jarring. (Photo by Robert Knudsen, JFK Library, public domain)
“Since Thomas Jefferson Dined Alone”…. JFK, Winston Churchill

“Since Thomas Jefferson Dined Alone”…. JFK, Winston Churchill

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Churchill's Jefferson: "He came from the Virginian frontier, the home of dour individualism and faith in common humanity, the nucleus of resistance to the centralising hierarchy of British rule. He was in touch with fashionable Left-Wing circles of political philosophy in England and Europe, and, like the French school of economists who went by the name of Physiocrats, he believed in a yeoman-farmer society. He feared an industrial proletariat as much as he disliked the principle of aristocracy. Industrial and capitalist development appalled him."

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Lili Marlene
Woodford remembers: The Churchill statue at Woodford Green, Essex, sculpted by David McFall, dedicated 1959. (Acabashi, Creative Commons)
Churchill Anecdotes: Epping, Woodford, “Lili Marlene,” Fitzroy Maclean

Churchill Anecdotes: Epping, Woodford, “Lili Marlene,” Fitzroy Maclean

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"On 4 July 1942 the 8th army held the line at El Alamein.... You’d see the glow from their cigarettes and pipes, and the little glow from the radio dial. After the news we'd switch over to the "Message from Home" program from Germany. And before long it would go Ompa Ompa—and there was Lili Marlene.... And the 8th Army swept on, capturing on its way 800 miles of desert, 75,000 prisoners, 5000 tanks, 1000 guns, and the famous enemy song of Lili Marlene." —Denis Johnston

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Maclean
The Macleans at Strachur, ca. 1960. Sir Fitzroy and Lady Veronica née Fraser with their two sons, Charles (now the 2nd Baronet) and Alexander. (Ccab2bb, Creative Commons)
Wit and Wisdom: Fitzroy Maclean, 1911-1996

Wit and Wisdom: Fitzroy Maclean, 1911-1996

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"Today, looking back over a long life, I can honestly say that almost the only things in which I take any conscious pride or esteem in one way or another is my association with Winston Churchill. After the war I was lucky enough to be a member of his Government and also, with my wife, to be asked every now and then to Chequers or Chartwell to join him and his family in their noisy, affectionate, hilarious, often uproarious family life. That, as a friend said to me the other day, was something that left you both wiser and also warmer at heart." —Sir Fitzroy

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Rhodes James
Sir Robert Rhodes James saw 1939 as the year that ended Churchill’s “Study in Failure” and heralded his sequel, “A Study in Success.” On 5 November 1939 near Avesnes, France, WSC meets British Expeditionary Force Commander Field Marshal John Gort. Lt.-Gen. Henry Pownall, Chief of Staff, who would later assist WSC in writing his war memoirs, is at right. (Imperial War Museum, public domain)
“A Good House of Commons Man”: Robert Rhodes James

“A Good House of Commons Man”: Robert Rhodes James

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Randolph Churchill had sacked Robert from his research team on the Official Biograhy, and Robert never forgave him (or his dislike of Eden). He maintained that Randolph just repeated the “case for the defence” Sir Winston had already made in his own books. Robert always said exactly what he believed—in the most forceful terms available to a gentleman. In an age of prevaricating phonies of Left and Right, such a character is rare. Winston Churchill would have loved him.

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newspapers
Meet the Press: Reporters at the Second Quebec Conference, September 1944, question WSC, FDR and Canadian PM Mackenzie King. Forgive flaws in photo negative. (National Archives, Public Domain)
Winston Churchill’s Favorite Newspapers

Winston Churchill’s Favorite Newspapers

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“Is [the Prime Minister] aware that...the Iver Heath Conservative Party Association held a fete to raise money for party purposes to which it invited American Service baseball teams to participate for a ‘Winston Churchill’ trophy?” WSC: “I read in the Daily Worker some account of this. I had not, I agree, fully realised the political implications that might attach to the matter, and in so far as I have erred I express my regret. [If the situation were reversed] I hope we should all show an equal spirit of tolerance and good humour.”

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Beaverbrook
Beaverbrook and Churchill leaving HMS Prince of Wales to bid farewell to Rooevelt, following the Atlantic Charter conference, Argentia, Newfoundland, 12 August 1941. (Admiralty Collection, Imperial War Museum, public domain)
One Last Shining Moment: Churchill’s Paean to Beaverbrook

One Last Shining Moment: Churchill’s Paean to Beaverbrook

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"I was glad to be able sometimes to lean on him. He did not fail. This was his hour. Time has but added to the intensity of what I then felt, and to my regard and affection." —Sir Winston Churchill on the 85th birthday of Lord Beaverbrook, 25 May 1964.

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Nigel
Nigel Knocker received The Churchill Centre’s Blenheim Award from Chairman Bill Ives, now also gone, Southampton, 2004.
Nigel Bedingfield Knocker OBE 1930-2023: He Answered the Call

Nigel Bedingfield Knocker OBE 1930-2023: He Answered the Call

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"He made himself useful at a critical moment." Nigel arrived at one of those periodic crises of the Old Guard. The Churchill Centre UK Branch had unexpectedly lost its chairman, and we were at a loss over whom to send for. Celia Sandys had the answer: a retired Army colonel. We expected a severe taskmaster, perhaps even an officious mandarin. We found instead a warm-hearted collaborator and devotee of the Churchill saga.

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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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