Category: In the News

shocking
Winston Churchill with MacKenzie King, Quebec, August 1943. (Wikimedia Commons)
Shocking Facts: “Nuclear Armageddon” Then and Now

Shocking Facts: “Nuclear Armageddon” Then and Now

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"Churchill's style of tossing ideas around with his companion, often to test their effect, mistakenly inclined Moran to give these half-formed thoughts and suggestions a status of hard fact." And not just Moran. Bridges and King were certainly taken aback sufficiently to record Churchill's contemplation of nuclear war.

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drunk
Where’s your glass, Prime Minister? Stalin toasts Churchill’s 69th birthday, Teheran, 30 November 1943. (Faces to camera: Air Marshal Portal, Anthony Eden, unknown, WSC, Marshal Voroshilov, Marshal Stalin, Averell Harriman, interpreter Pavlov.) WSC wrote: “The Marshal and his colleagues invariably drank their toasts from tiny glasses, taking only a sip on each occasion. I had been well brought up.” (Photo by Lt. D.C. Oulds RN, Imperial War Museum, public domain)
Churchill the Drunk. Or: Fasten Seatbelts on Bar Stools

Churchill the Drunk. Or: Fasten Seatbelts on Bar Stools

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Churchill did have an astonishing capacity, and most historians grant him a decided preference for lubrication. But Lockhart is no more reliable than others. from Alan Brooke to Bessie Braddock, who attributed to alcohol a Churchill who worked and harangued 18 hours a day and was often exhausted…. Yet apparently not drunk enough to debate Empire Free Trade—or to spark Lockhart’s imagination.

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Soames
“Mr. Winston Churchill presents his compliments to Mr. Winston Churchill, and begs to draw his attention to a matter which concerns them both.” Reading the correspondence between the two Winstons, Baker Library, Dartmouth, with Barbara Langworth and librarian Philip Cronenwett. (Photo by the author)
Mary Soames Centenary 1922-2022: A Remembrance by a Friend

Mary Soames Centenary 1922-2022: A Remembrance by a Friend

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Mary Soames taught us all the most important rules any Churchill scholar must follow: never to proclaim what her father would do today; and strive to “keep the memory green and the record accurate.” She also taught us magnanimity—that what really matters is friendship, and trust. She was our guiding light—the person we sought to please with word committed to print on behalf of her great father.

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smog
London is still renowned for fogs. This photo of Tower Bridge in a pea-souper was taken in November 2011. (Photo by Modris Putns, Creative Commons)
Churchill and the Great London Smog, 1952

Churchill and the Great London Smog, 1952

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Churchill took no part in subsequent debates over air pollution. Remarkably, the subject didn’t even come up during the December smog. Not until 12 February 1953 did Marcus Lipton MP raise the issue. The Churchill government assured him that “intensive inquiry” would occur. The Clean Air Act of 1956 eventually followed.

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Orwell
Publicity photo for the CBS Studio One production of “1984,” 1953: L-R: scenic designer Kim Swados, Norma Crane, Eddie Albert, director Paul Nickell. (CBS, public domain)
Churchill, Orwell and “1984”

Churchill, Orwell and “1984”

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Orwell on Churchill: "It is rumoured that after promising to fight in the streets he turned from the microphone and said: 'We'll throw bottles at the bastards; it's about all we've got left!' One may assume that this story is untrue, but at the time it was felt that it ought to be true. It was a fitting tribute from ordinary people to the tough and humorous old man whom they would not accept as a peacetime leader [in 1945] but whom in the moment of disaster they felt to be representative of themselves."

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Mincemeat
Operation Husky, The Sicily Landings 9-10 July 1943: signalling waiting landing craft by semaphore at dawn of the opening day. (Imperial War Museum, public domain)
Netflix on Operation Mincemeat: Did They Get It Right?

Netflix on Operation Mincemeat: Did They Get It Right?

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Churchill believed Mincemeat had deceived Hitler, but he was always a fan of intelligence operations. Gilbert, Macintyre and Netflix say it did, and some German troops were sent to Greece. But German minefields and port defenses in Greece did not need resources from Sicily. Some motor torpedo boats were transferred, but they did not significantly weaken Sicily’s defenses.

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Boris
Whom will they announce in September? Boris Johnson in 2019, leaving for the Queen Elizabeth II Centre and the Conservative Party leadership announcement. (Steve Nimmons, Creative Commons)
Bring Boris Back? British Politicians, Churchillian Nicknames

Bring Boris Back? British Politicians, Churchillian Nicknames

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British politicians have such wonderful names. If your own isn't fun enough, your fellow MPs may provide a more amusing one. In the postwar Labour government, Attorney General Sir Hartley Shawcross began sounding more and more Conservative. So his fellow MPs dubbed him Sir Shortly Floorcross....

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now
To understand Churchill is to appreciate his respect for political opposites, as in the coalition he put together in the interests of the nation. In “All Behind You, Winston” (1940), cartoonist David Low emphasized this by placing Labour grandees Attlee, Bevan and Morrison in the front row with WSC. (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
Churchill Now: A Life Worth Contemplating in the Digital Age

Churchill Now: A Life Worth Contemplating in the Digital Age

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Larry Arnn wrote: "Churchill's life is an object lesson in the art of statesmanship. Prudence, involving ‘calculating and ordering many things that shift and change,’ has from ancient times been held to be the defining virtue and art of the statesman.” Churchill's challenges were those of human nature and governance, relevant to his world and ours. “Churchill’s trial is also our trial.”

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Punch
“Mr. Churchill and Friend. ‘Winston: We have both made history and we have both written it. Let us exchange headgear.’” (Oversize collars and absurdly small hats were a feature of Churchill caricatures between the wars.) Cartoon by Leonard Raven-Hill, 14 February 1923. (From “Churchill in Punch”)
Echoes and Memories: Foreword to “Churchill in Punch” by Gary Stiles

Echoes and Memories: Foreword to “Churchill in Punch” by Gary Stiles

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Gary Stiles's new book, "Churchill and Punch," captures their long relationship during an unprecedented career. The best artists of their time represented Punch’s often querulous, at times hilarious, sometimes wry, yet almost always respectful attitude toward Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill. In these pages, Gary Stiles and those artists renew those echoes and memories for future generations.

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Queen
The Queen and Prime Minister, with Prince Charles and Princess Anne, 10 February 1953. (Crown copyright expired, Wikimedia Commons)
The Queen 70 Years On: “A Sparkling Presence at its Summit”

The Queen 70 Years On: “A Sparkling Presence at its Summit”

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"Our Island no longer holds the same authority or power that it did in the days of Queen Victoria. A vast world towers up around it and after all our victories we could not claim the rank we hold were it not for the respect for our character and good sense...and I regard it as the most direct mark of God's favour we have ever received in my long life that the whole structure of our new-formed Commonwealth has been linked and illuminated by a sparkling presence at its summit." —WSC, 1955

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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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