Winston S. Churchill Archives - Page 16 of 63

Winston Churchill in “Peaky Blinders” and On the Art of Sleep

20 July 2022 Comments 0 Comments

Given the differences in ages, Maskell's makeup and mannerisms are excellent. Close-ups are better than full figure shots. Unfortunately the scriptwriter didn't consult the right experts. For example, Churchill wouldn't have lorded over Tommy Shelby for being lesser born than he. That simply was not Churchill's style. Nor did he regard Oswald Mosley as a serious a threat as "Peaky Blinders" makes him.

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Catherine Zoë Spencer Churchill, 1968-2022: A Remembrance

15 July 2022 Comments 0 Comments

Catherine’s particular interest was Sir Winston’s paintings. She had studied art history at the British Institute in Florence, worked in the Victorian paintings department of Sotheby’s and the Director’s Office of the National Arts Collection, now the Art Fund. She brought these credentials to the research and cataloguing of Churchill's art.

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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

10 July 2022 Comments 0 Comments

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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“Twelve million feathers on his wings, 16,000 lenses in his eye, a mouthful for a bird.” Indian butterflies. (Kailash Kumbhkar, Creative Commons)

Churchillisms: Twelve Million Feathers on a Butterfly’s Wings

30 June 2022 Comments 0 Comments

Churchill was a keen collector of butterflies in India, but in later life he couldn't bear to kill them or even keep them captive in his chrysalis house at Chartwell. Strolling by the cage on one of his walks, he left the screening open. Secretary Grace Hamblin asked, did he do that on purpose. Churchill replied, "I can't bear this captivity any longer."

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

25 June 2022 Comments 0 Comments

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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Churchill’s “Democracy is the Worst Form of Government…”

20 June 2022 Comments 3 Comments

"At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man, walking into the little booth, with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper—no amount of rhetoric or voluminous discussion can possibly diminish the overwhelming importance of that point."

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Anti-Bolshevik Collaborators? Reilly, Ford, Savinkov, Churchill

16 June 2022 Comments 0 Comments

Reilly considered Churchill the only useful British politician in the anti-Bolshevik cause. Shortly before his death he told a friend: “Only one man is really important, and that is the irrepressible Marlborough [WSC]. I have always remained on good terms with him…. His ear would always be open to something sound.”

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What Happened to the Library at Chartwell?

6 June 2022 Comments 1 Comment

In 1992 Michael Wybrow and I spent a day in the Chartwell library. Security was less of a concern then, and the administrator, Jeane Broome, kindly let us examine books closely. We were able to survey all the shelves and even to open (very carefully!) the odd volume. We did not attempt an inventory, but did learn the fate of many volumes.

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When Did Churchill Become a Zionist?

31 May 2022 Comments 2 Comments

"A Jewish State in Palestine is an event in world history to be viewed in the perspective, not of a generation or a century, but in the perspective of a thousand, two thousand or even three thousand years. [But] British postwar policies “led to the winding up of our affairs in Palestine in such a way as to earn almost in equal degree the hatred of the Arabs and the Jews.”

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The Problem with Recorded Churchill Speeches

27 May 2022 Comments 0 Comments

Many who heard his original speeches said the subsequent broadcasts (and postwar recordings) lack the fire of the originals. Churchill did not particularly enjoy broadcasting, Harold Nicolson believed. Of his classic 18 June 1940 "Finest Hour" oration, Nicolson said: "He just sulked and read his House of Commons speech over again."

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