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Bullock
Neville Bullock, Churchill Bodyguard, R.I.P.

Neville Bullock, Churchill Bodyguard, R.I.P.

Neville Bullock…

…a kind and decent man, died aged 92 on August 29th, sur­round­ed by his fam­i­ly. Neville had served most recent­ly as a parish and dis­trict coun­cil­lor for Billinge and Sene­ley Green. Described as a “great bloke” by his friends, he will be deeply missed by all who knew him. Among these are Churchill his­to­ri­ans, who had the ben­e­fit of his remem­brances. Bul­lock was prob­a­bly the only man alive whose encoun­ters with the great bridged Churchill in 1945 with Rudy Giu­liani in 1996.

Trained as a Roy­al Marine, aged only 19, Neville Bul­lock sud­den­ly found him­self a body­guard to the Prime Min­is­ter.…

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Lindemann
Frederick Lindemann Viscount Cherwell (1886-1957), arriving for a Cabinet meeting, 1951. (Fred Ramage, history.net)
Frederick Lindemann: Churchill’s Eminence Grise?

Frederick Lindemann: Churchill’s Eminence Grise?

Revi­sion­ist His­to­ry, Sea­son 2, Episode 5, “The Prime Min­is­ter and the Prof [ Fred­er­ick Lin­de­mann ],” pod­cast by Mal­colm Gladwell.

A pop­u­lar week­ly half hour pod­cast, Revi­sion­ist His­to­ry takes aim at shib­bo­leths, real and imag­ined. This episode is Churchill’s turn in the barrel.

Scientific Nemesis

The vil­lain, aside from Sir Win­ston, is his sci­en­tif­ic advis­er, Fred­er­ick Lin­de­mann,  lat­er Lord Cher­well, aka “The Prof.” You’ve prob­a­bly nev­er heard of him, says nar­ra­tor Mal­colm Glad­well. You should have. It was Lin­de­mann who made Churchill bomb inno­cent Ger­man civil­ians and starve the Bengalis.

Iron­i­cal­ly, the pro­gram begins with an ad for its spon­sor, Chanel Per­fume.…

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rhinoceros
Cover of the first edition MAJ, 1908.
Rhinoceros Table, Mr. Churchill? Thanks but No.

Rhinoceros Table, Mr. Churchill? Thanks but No.

The Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project received a nov­el ques­tion: “After his 1908 African safari, Churchill’s  taxi­der­mists ask if he wants a ‘Rhi­noc­er­os Table.’ What in the world is a Rhi­noc­er­os Table?”

Rhinoceros Table, anyone? The ref­er­ence is in The Churchill Doc­u­ments, vol. 4, Min­is­ter of the Crown, 1907-1911 (2007), page 753:

Row­land Ward Ltd., 167 Pic­cadil­ly, to WSC, 4 March 1908

Sir, In accor­dance with instruc­tions giv­en on your behalf by Lieu­tenant Colonel Gor­don Wil­son, we have in hand the fol­low­ing: MODELLED HEADS 1 Rhi­noc­er­os, 1 Zebra, 1 Warthog, 1 Wilde­beest, 1 Coke’s Har­te­beest, 1 Grant’s Gazelle, 1 Thomson’s Gazelle and the dress­ing of three Zebra skins, at a total cost of £​32.…

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quotations
Holding forth in Parliament, 1912. (Illustrated London News)
How Would Churchill Tweet? -National Review

How Would Churchill Tweet? -National Review

“How Would Churchill Tweet?” appeared in Nation­al Review, 12 August 2017.

Since Pres­i­dent Trump has tak­en office, the pub­lic has quick­ly learned to get its polit­i­cal news from a nov­el source—namely, the President’s Twit­ter account.

The move to this plat­form rep­re­sents a shift in the nature of pol­i­tics, both for good and for ill. Trump might be among the first polit­i­cal lead­ers to use this medi­um to attack oppo­nents or make major announce­ments. He is cer­tain­ly not the first to uti­lize the kind of brevi­ty the plat­form requires to make his points.

Such brevi­ty also char­ac­ter­ized the rhetor­i­cal style of Win­ston Churchill, whose wit, humor and insight com­ple­ment­ed his deci­sive and effec­tive polit­i­cal lead­er­ship.…

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movies
Well-cast leads in “Churchill: The Wilderness Years” (1981). L-R: Edward Woodward (Sir Samuel Hoare), Peter Vaughan (Sir Thomas Inskip), Robert Hardy (Winston Churchill), Eric Porter (Neville Chamberlain), Peter Barkworth (Stanley Baldwin).
Churchill Bio-Pics: The Trouble with the Movies

Churchill Bio-Pics: The Trouble with the Movies

“The Trou­ble with the Movies” was pub­lished in the Amer­i­can Thinker, 5 August 2017.

David Fran­co, review­ing the film Churchill, star­ring Bri­an Cox, rais­es ques­tions he says every­one should be ask­ing. “Isn’t the abil­i­ty to accept one’s mis­takes part of what makes a man a good leader? …. To what extent should we rely [on] past expe­ri­ences in order to min­i­mize mis­takes in the future? These are the ques­tions that make a bad movie like Churchill worth seeing.”

Well, I won’t be see­ing this bad movie. Described as “per­verse fan­ta­sy” by his­to­ri­an Andrew Roberts, it joins a recent spate of slop­py Churchill bio-pics that favor skewed car­i­ca­tures over his­tor­i­cal fact.…

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invasion
“Operation Sea Lion” (www.YeovilHistory.info)
“Dunkirk” film: What if Hitler had Launched an Invasion?

“Dunkirk” film: What if Hitler had Launched an Invasion?

Inva­sion in 1940? Tim­o­thy Egan pos­es a thought­ful ques­tion in The New York Times. What if Hitler, not hes­i­tat­ing after Dunkirk, had rapid­ly launched an inva­sion of Britain? In con­vey­ing the movie Dunkirk‘s impor­tance, Egan’s first para­graph is a much bet­ter intro­duc­tion than the film provides: For more than a thou­sand years, the tribes of Europe have stared into the gun-met­al-gray chop of the Eng­lish Chan­nel and thought of con­quest. “We have six cen­turies of insults to avenge,” said Napoleon. I was just there, on the same spring week when the great bedrag­gled scraps of the French and British armies were cor­nered for slaugh­ter by the Nazi war machine 77 years ago.…

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Churchill Myth and Reality at Nashville, Oct. 14th

Churchill Myth and Reality at Nashville, Oct. 14th

Nashville, Tenn., October 2017

The Churchill Soci­ety of Ten­nessee held its autumn ban­quet pro­gram in Nashville on the evening of Sat­ur­day Octo­ber 14th. Our guest speak­er, Richard M. Lang­worth, CBE dis­cussed “Win­ston Churchill: Cur­rent Con­tentions.” Some 200 mem­bers and friends attended.

Resid­ing in Moul­ton­bor­ough, New Hamp­shire and Eleuthera, Bahamas, Lang­worth is a writer and pub­lish­er of works on Win­ston S. Churchill and auto­mo­tive his­to­ry. His newest book is Win­ston Churchill, Myth and Real­i­ty: What He Actu­al­ly Did and Said (McFar­land, August).

Churchill Works

Lang­worth is also author or edi­tor of A Connoisseur’s Guide to the Books of Sir Win­ston Churchill, Churchill in His Own Words, Churchill By Him­self and nine oth­er books about Churchill.…

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Antwerp
In Antwerp (wearing Trinity House cap) with his friend Gen. Jack Seely (T.P. O’Connor, “Great Deeds of the War,” 12 Dec 1914). “He completely ignored the enemy fire…criticizing the siting of guns and trenches and emphasizing his points by waving his stick or thumping the ground with it.” Asquith: “If he was able to do himself justice in a foreign tongue, the Belges will have listened to a discourse the like of which they have never heard before.” Excerpted from my new book, “Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality.” To order at $15 off, click under book cover at right. Kindle: amzn.to/2siYbQT
Churchill Myth and Reality: Antwerp. Shocking Folly?

Churchill Myth and Reality: Antwerp. Shocking Folly?

Churchill’s role in the defense of Antwerp, in Octo­ber 1914, has been called one of his “char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly pirat­i­cal” adven­tures. An emi­nent his­to­ri­an described it as “a shock­ing fol­ly by a min­is­ter who abused his pow­ers and betrayed his respon­si­bil­i­ties. It is aston­ish­ing that [his] cab­i­net col­leagues so read­i­ly for­gave him for a lapse of judg­ment that would have destroyed most men’s careers.”1

 As the Ger­mans closed in around Antwerp, Max Hast­ings writes, Churchill “assem­bled a hotch­potch of Roy­al Marines and sur­plus naval per­son­nel… his own pri­vate army.” Then he “aban­doned his post at the Admi­ral­ty.”…

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Announcing “Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality”

Announcing “Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality”

Churchill was not infallible, and it diminishes him to treat him as superhuman. On some topics in my book, accomplished scholars have catalogued Churchill’s failings. I take note of them, along with certain less-well-known exculpatory facts. None detract from his greatness. Churchill published 20 million words and left an archive of a million documents: easy pickings for anyone determined to expose his alleged faults by selective editing. Yet that same archive offers the complete context. You have only to do your homework. I have done it. There is no missing context.

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king
The 2011 edition, “Churchill by Himself” (Ebury Press / Random House)
Churchill on the Optimist and the Pessimist

Churchill on the Optimist and the Pessimist

Opti­mist and Pes­simist: Fif­teen min­utes of fame! David Davis MP, Sec­re­tary of State for Brex­it, boots one in his recent speech and I’m final­ly in The Guardian. Prob­a­bly the first and last time, giv­en my opinions. **

Ques­tion: Refer­ring to your posts of quotations Churchill nev­er said, do you know who actu­al­ly did say “A pes­simist sees the dif­fi­culty in every oppor­tu­nity; an opti­mist sees the oppor­tu­nity in every dif­fi­cul­ty”? I find no attri­bu­tion oth­er than to Churchill.

Pessimist: Not Churchill’s Quip

Answer: Sor­ry. I can’t track it; nor can my col­league Ralph Keyes, edi­tor of The Quote Ver­i­fi­er.…

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