“Among his many qualities over fifty years of political prominence was CHURCHILL’S CONSISTENCY. He might not agree with every position, biographer Martin Gilbert wrote: ‘But there would be nothing to cause me to think: How shocking, how appalling.’” —RML
revisioon
How Churchill Polished and Improved His Writing by Constant Revision

How Churchill Polished and Improved His Writing by Constant Revision

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Con­densed from “Con­stant Revi­sion,” an arti­cle under my pen name for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the com­plete text click here.

Revision and redraft

We are asked: “As I recall Churchill labeled his man­u­scripts some­thing like “draft,” “almost final draft” and “final draft.” Do you recall what those cat­e­gories were?”

We can­not estab­lish that he rou­tine­ly used those labels. Instead he tend­ed to use “revise” or “revi­sion.” Fre­quent­ly his fin­ished draft was marked “final revise.” It often took a long time before, with a sigh of relief, his pri­vate office staff reached that point.…

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Election
British Election for Dummies: Churchillian Reflections from Afar

British Election for Dummies: Churchillian Reflections from Afar

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…In which an igno­rant Yank with a slight remem­brance of his­to­ry pon­ders the impli­ca­tions. (Friends in Hert­ford­shire write: “What an elec­tion. Let’s hope now we can move on and sort this coun­try out and become Great Britain again.🇬🇧“) Elec­toral map image repro­duced under the Cre­ative Com­mons-Share Alike 4.0 Inter­na­tion­al license. For a detailed map with results by name or con­stituen­cy, see Bloomberg News. Piers Mor­gan on ardent anti-Brex­it actor Hugh Grant: “Hugh’s sor­ry now. Corbyn’s celebri­ty fans weep into their almond milk lattes.” Note: Even Grant approved Johnson’s cam­paign ad, spun off of Hugh’s charm­ing film “Love Actu­al­ly.”…

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White Russians
Churchill and the White Russians: The Russian Civil War, 1919

Churchill and the White Russians: The Russian Civil War, 1919

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Extract­ed from “Churchill: A Mil­lion Allied Sol­diers to Fight for the White Rus­sians?” for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project, Novem­ber 2019. For the orig­i­nal text click here.

A read­er refers us to The Polar Bear Expe­di­tion: The Heroes of America’s For­got­ten Inva­sion of Rus­sia 1918-1919 (2019). It repeats a mis­un­der­stand­ing about Churchill’s role in aid­ing the White Rus­sians against the Bol­she­viks. By the spring of 1919 in Rus­sia, we read:

…the cat was out of the bag: whether its allies—English, French, White Russians—liked it nor not, the U.S. was pulling out. On March 4, the British War Cab­i­net decid­ed to fol­low suit, ignor­ing the argu­ments of the vir­u­lent­ly anti-Bol­she­vik Win­ston Churchill, who as sec­re­tary of war had pro­posed increas­ing the Allied com­mit­ment in Rus­sia to one mil­lion men.…

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McKinstry
McKinstry’s Churchill and Attlee: A Vanished Age of Political Respect

McKinstry’s Churchill and Attlee: A Vanished Age of Political Respect

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Churchill and Attlee: Allies in War, Adver­saries in Peace, by Leo McK­instry. New York: Lon­don, Atlantic Books, 736 pages, £25, Ama­zon $25.66.  Excerpt­ed from a book review for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the orig­i­nal text, click here.

The McKinstry Epic

Leo McKinstry’s book 738 pages—twice the size of the pre­vi­ous Attlee-Churchill book and is riv­et­ing from cov­er to cov­er. Scrupu­lous­ly fair, McK­instry tells the sto­ry, backed by a volu­mi­nous bib­li­og­ra­phy, exten­sive research and pri­vate cor­re­spon­dence. Thus he cap­tures Churchill’s gen­eros­i­ty of spir­it, and Attlee’s great­ness of soul.

“Some­times tur­bu­lent, often fruit­ful, theirs was a rela­tion­ship unprece­dent­ed in the annals of British pol­i­tics,” McK­instry con­cludes.…

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Richard II
Churchill’s Memorable Allusions to Shakespeare’s Richard II

Churchill’s Memorable Allusions to Shakespeare’s Richard II

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“Allu­sions to Richard II” is extract­ed from an arti­cle for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the orig­i­nal text, click here.

Richard II and “This Sceptr’d Isle.”

We are asked: “Churchill quot­ed Shakespeare’s famous lines, ‘This scepter’d isle,’ in one of his speech­es. They are the words of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lan­cast­er, from Richard II, Act 2, sc. 1. Could you direct me to the speech?”

Churchill knew his Shake­speare and had a near-pho­to­graph­ic mem­o­ry. Dar­rell Holley’s Churchill’s Lit­er­ary Allu­sions tells us he alludes to Shake­speare more than any oth­er Eng­lish author. King…

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Vorderman
Don Vorderman 1930-2018: The Best Editor I Ever Had

Don Vorderman 1930-2018: The Best Editor I Ever Had

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Editors exist to make writers better, and Don was the best editor one could have. He fired me once (I deserved it), but reconsidered when he liked my next piece, on Triumph. In it I’d written that the Luftwaffe "did its number" on Coventry. He blue-lined that and substituted "wrought terrible destruction"—sensitive and precise.

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Argentia
Researching the Atlantic Conference, Argentia, Newfoundland, August 1941

Researching the Atlantic Conference, Argentia, Newfoundland, August 1941

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 A Question about Argentia

I am research­ing events and indi­vid­u­als at the first “sum­mit” between U.S. and British lead­ers. This was the “Atlantic Con­fer­ence” at Argen­tia, New­found­land on 9-12 August 1941. Most his­to­ries focus on the sum­mit meet­ing, con­se­quent­ly exclud­ing crit­i­cal meet­ings between oth­er high rank­ing indi­vid­u­als. Argen­tia was cer­tain­ly also a mil­i­tary meet­ing. Strat­e­gy, tac­tics and materiel were like­wise dis­cussed. Can you help me devel­op a list of the indi­vid­u­als who involved? Sir John Dill, Admi­ral Ernest J. King, Lord Beaver­brook and Sir Alexan­der Cado­gan were not there to sim­ply to attend din­ners.…

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Wilderness Years
“The Wilderness Years” with Robert Hardy: Original Review

“The Wilderness Years” with Robert Hardy: Original Review

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“Churchill: The Wilderness Years”

The Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project has just repub­lished “Scal­ing Ever­est,” Robert Hardy’s rec­ol­lec­tions of play­ing the Wilder­ness Years Churchill. They are from 1987, his speech to one of our Churchill Tours, at the Reform Club, Lon­don. We are grate­ful to his execu­tors, Jus­tine Hardy and Neil Nis­bet-Robert­son for per­mis­sion to reprint. For Part 1, click here.

I thought the occa­sion appro­pri­ate to repub­lish my orig­i­nal review of the “Wilder­ness Years” from 1981, some years before we met. I thought at the time I had “laid an egg”—in Churchill’s phrase­ol­o­gy, not RH’s.…

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Nats
Nats Win! Washington Baseball for New Generations. It’s 1924 Again

Nats Win! Washington Baseball for New Generations. It’s 1924 Again

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The great­est thing about the 2019 Nats is that base­ball is again span­ning the gen­er­a­tions in Washington.

Think about it. New York, Philadel­phia, Boston, Chica­go ben­e­fit from six gen­er­a­tions of unin­ter­rupt­ed base­ball. Pitts­burgh, St. Louis, Cleve­land, Detroit—the list goes on. Atlanta, Los Ange­les and Hous­ton have had half a cen­tu­ry or more to build a fol­low­ing: fathers and sons, par­ents and kids. Alas, Wash­ing­ton was with­out base­ball thir­ty-four years. In 1971, the expan­sion Sen­a­tors left for Texas; in 2005, the Mon­tre­al Expos became the Nation­als. A beau­ti­ful ball­park revived a decrepit area of the city, which now resem­bles Wrigleyville in Chicago.…

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Titanic
What Sank the Titanic? Hopefully Not Churchill Again

What Sank the Titanic? Hopefully Not Churchill Again

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Titanic redux

On 10 April 1912, the world’s largest pas­sen­ger lin­er set out on her maid­en voy­age from Southamp­ton, Cher­bourg and Queen­stown to New York. Four days lat­er, she struck an ice­berg and sank in under three hours, killing 1514 peo­ple. Titan­ic has been a bit­ter­sweet, fas­ci­nat­ing news item ever since.

On 26 Octo­ber the Dai­ly Mail report­ed British Chan­nel 5 TV pro­duc­tion, “Ten Mis­takes that DOOMED the Titan­ic.” If you saw this, please let me know if one of the mis­takes named is Win­ston Churchill. (See below.) We are always watch­ful for the onward march of invin­ci­ble ignorance.…

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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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