Comments on: Garfield, “The Paladin” (or: Christoper Creighton’s Excellent Adventure) http://localhost:8080/garfield-paladin Senior Fellow, Hillsdale College Churchill Project, Writer and Historian Sat, 29 May 2021 20:21:02 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 By: Douglas S. Russell http://localhost:8080/garfield-paladin#comment-31554 Sat, 31 Aug 2019 11:18:13 +0000 https://richardlangworth.com/?p=8796#comment-31554 Larry Kryske makes a good point. In the film “Darkest Hour” Churchill relied on the people riding the London Underground to prop him up. A totally fictitious scene and, as we know, WSC didn’t need propping up. He was the prod for others.

]]> By: Richard M. Langworth http://localhost:8080/garfield-paladin#comment-31529 Thu, 29 Aug 2019 14:00:26 +0000 https://richardlangworth.com/?p=8796#comment-31529 In reply to Larry Kryske.

I think that’s open to question. Churchill himself had doubts (vide his remark to bodyguard Thompson on 10 May 1940: “All I hope is that it is not too late. I am very much afraid it is.” Until his noble fighting speech to the outer cabinet on the 28th, he had to ponder the very prevalent view, typified by Halifax, to seek a away out. Thus, on the 26th: “If we could get out of this jam by giving up Malta and Gibraltar and some African colonies I would jump at it.” (Cabinet Minutes, Confidential Annex, CAB 65/13). So I put down Dobbs’s “prop up” characters as a fiction author’s license. (Both quotes are in my book, Churchill by Himself, page 272.)

]]> By: Larry Kryske http://localhost:8080/garfield-paladin#comment-31526 Thu, 29 Aug 2019 13:15:00 +0000 https://richardlangworth.com/?p=8796#comment-31526 I disagree with your view of Michael Dobbs’s Churchill novels. Sure they are accurate with regard to setting. But in his first one, Winston’s War, Churchill needs Guy Burgess to prop him up and to be resolute. In the second, Churchill’s Triumph, WSC needs a German woman emigrant to prop him up. I don’t think Churchill needed anyone to prop him up. Same goes for James Hogan’s novel, Proteus Operation, about modern-day people going back in time in the 1930s to prop up Churchill.

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