“Even today, with fifty million words published about him, CHURCHILL IS MISJUDGED as a warmonger ardent for battle. In reality he hated and feared war,
and struggled to avoid both World Wars in the 20th century.” —RML
Alistair Cooke: Why didn’t They Listen to Churchill?
Alistair Cooke addressed this question over thirty years ago. I’ve quoted his words repeatedly over the years. A recent comment (reprised below), encouraged this revision from 2011. Mr. Cooke’s full speech is available by email. RML
Back in the 1930s, who all denounced and criticized Churchill for his beliefs in the radical Nazi Germany? Who specifically mocked him? Obviously Churchill was right about Hitler and his plans but who in the political, intellectual, or entertainment arenas vilified him? —A.H.
The answer to your question, I think, is “just about everybody,” from the Royal Family to ordinary citizens, most of the media, his own party, the Labour and Liberal parties, and certainly most intellectuals and entertainment personalities.…
Why did Studebaker go out of business? I have your book Studebaker 1946-1966, originally published as Studebaker: The Postwar Years. I worked for the old company at the end in Hamilton, Ontario. Your book brought back memories of many old Studebaker hands. Stylists Bob Doehler and Bob Andrews were good friends about my age.
I am looking forward to the last chapter discussing how Studebaker went wrong, especially since I also have theories. It would fun to compare notes. I often quote from your book: “For many years, Raymond Loewy Associates would be the only thing standing between Studebaker and dull mediocrity.”…
Moving right along, the 1911 Census was recently released in England. No address was “ex-directory” in those days. Winston Churchill is listed at 33 Eccleston Square, London (seventeen rooms) with wife Clementine, daughter Diana and eight servants. The help comprised a cook, nurse, lady’s maid, housemaid, parlor maid, under-parlor maid, kitchen maid and hall boy). Can this be so? —A.J., NSW, Australia
A: Absolutely.
By the 1920s and 1930s, when the Churchills were ensconced at Chartwell, the help had grown to fifteen or more, counting gardeners, handymen, secretaries and household staff.…
Concluded from Part 2. My Tremulis piece was published in full in The Automobile, March 2020.
Alex Tremulis in the 1950s
When Kaiser left Willow Run, Alex Tremulis decided it was time to work for a company with a future. In Dearborn, Ford Chief of Design George Walker hired him with an unchanged job description: chief of advanced styling. There he joined Bob Thomas, who wrote warmly of him in 2008. “Alex thought he was back in the Army Air Corps, turning out scores of 3/8th scale models of futuristic things like flying cars and nuclear-powered vehicles.…
Excerpted from “Which Historical and Contemporary Figures were Churchill’s Inspirations?” Written for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project, February 2020. For Hillsdale’s complete text and illustrations, please click here.
We are often asked which historical and contemporary personages most influenced Winston Churchill’s thought and statesmanship. One is right to start with Lord Randolph Churchill, Napoleon, Clemenceau and Marlborough. The classics open another avenue. Readers can find pithy remarks by Churchill on many of the following figures in Churchill by Himself.
Lord Randolph Churchill
His father was the first of young Winston’s political inspirations, and the subject of his first biography.…
…we must regard the next week or so as a very important period in our history. It ranks with the days when the Spanish Armada was approaching the Channel and Drake was finishing his game of bowls; or when Nelson stood between us and Napoleon‘s Grand Army at Boulogne. We have read all about this in the history books, but what is happening now is on a far greater scale and of far more consequence to the life and future of the world and its civilisation than these brave old days of the past.…
Continued from Part 1. My Alex Tremulis piece was published in full in The Automobile, March 2020.
Alex and Tucker
Like Bob Bourke’s famous 1953 Studebaker “Loewy coupe,” the 1948 Tucker was almost entirely the work of one designer. Of course many helped, and both Bourke and Tremulis gave them credit. But as near as one comes to designing a car by oneself, they did.
Alex set to work in a studio at Tucker’s large, ex-Dodge plant in Chicago. As chief designer he had to inject practicality into Preston Tucker’s enthusiasm. First concepts included a car with cycle fenders that turned with the wheels, a periscope rearview scanner, and vast expanses of compound-curved glass.…
My Tremulis piece was published in full in The Automobile, March 2020.
“That was a different time,” Alex Tremulis told me, recalling his heyday in car design. “The Forties through the Seventies. Back then a single person could often influence the shape of a car. Sometimes the whole car. Of course, lots of our ideas were sheer rubbish. But now and then, by luck or force of personality, we put something good into production.”
Many famous automotive designs did have whimsical beginnings. Bill Boyer put portholes on the rear roof quarters of the 1956 Ford Thunderbird to recall “the coachwork heritage.”…
My brother Andrew Roberts inspired this post, when he asked for Churchill quotations about childbirth. Yes, even now, friends have brought a new life into the world. Three months ago, my son and daughter-in-law did likewise.
Life Goes On
On 30 May 1909, Clementine Churchill was pregnant with their first child, Diana. Winston, asking her to practice social distancing, wrote these beautiful words: “We are in the grip of circumstances, and out of pain joy will spring, and from passing weakness new strength will arise.”
Four and one-half decades later, his daughter Mary was a fortnight overdue for the birth of Charlotte, her fourth child.…
We are constantly asked to verify the famous exchange. Shaw writes: “Am reserving two tickets for you for my premiere. Come and bring a friend—if you have one.” Churchill replies: “Impossible to be present for the first performance. Will attend the second—if there is one.” Though it’s lovely repartee, both of them denied it.
