“Flaws and all, he is still a hero, whose wisdom still inspires free peoples. CHURCHILL STOOD FOR SOMETHING. He stood for certain critical human possibilities that are always worth bringing to the attention of thoughtful people.” —RML
Please can you comment on, the “Dutchman, Burgener by name,” mentioned by Churchill in his account of his escape from the Boers in his autobiography, My Early Life? Is he one and the same person as the Charles Burnham mentioned by Sir Martin Gilbert in Churchill: A Life? Perhaps the surname was changed to protect Mr Burnham`s position in South Africa? Yet thoughthree decades had elapsed by the publication of My Early Life. It seems certain that Churchill knew of Burnham and the role that he had played.…
“Churchill and the Myths of D-Day is excerpted from a lecture on the 2019 Hillsdale College Round-Britain cruise. Hillsdale cruises with “lectures at sea” are an annual event, usually occurring in May or June. For information on the 2020 cruise to Jerusalem and Athens, click here.
I’m here to talk about Winston Churchill. I know this audience knows who he was! Did you know a survey of British schoolchildren reveals that one in five think he was a fictional character? And better than half think Sherlock Holmes was a real person?
On 15 June in the Wall Street Journal opinion columnist Peggy Noonan wrote a perceptive piece about the prospects and challenges for Boris Johnson as Britain’s new Prime Minister: “England Needs a Slap, and So Does China” (sorry, that link carries a paywall).
It was a good column, saying essentially what Britons of all stripes were saying to me on a recent visit.
“Talk to me about anything, except Brexit.” “Right, we voted, so let’s get on with it.” “We’re tired of platitudes and useless debates.” “Keep diddling and we end up with Corbyn.” “Just do it.” (Or as Henry Joy, a famous President of the Packard Motor Car Company liked to say: “Let’s do something, even if it’s wrong!”)
