Tag: Chequers

life
A message from Queen Victoria, made into a placard and placed on the cabinet table, Central War Rooms, London, by Winston Churchill in 1940. (Author’s photo)
Life Amid Chaos: “The Hope Still Lives…The Dream Shall Never Die”

Life Amid Chaos: “The Hope Still Lives…The Dream Shall Never Die”

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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.…

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Kiss
Churchill with General de Gaulle during an inspection of French troops at Marrakesh in Morocco, January 1944. (War Office – Wikimedia Commons)
Origins: “I’ll kiss him on all four cheeks”

Origins: “I’ll kiss him on all four cheeks”

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Q: Churchill’s Kiss: A Cheeky Affair

I found myself using an alleged Churchill wit­ti­cism I have long known, but could not find in your book, Churchill’s Wit: The Defin­i­tive Col­lec­tion (2009). As I have it, Churchill was prepar­ing to meet Mar­shal Stal­in, and a diplo­mat­ic advi­sor said, “He will prob­a­bly expect to kiss you on both cheeks.” “Oh, that’s all right,” said Churchill, “as long as he doesn’t want to be kissed on all four.” Can you ver­i­fy this one?

My own main area of schol­ar­ly research is Samuel John­son, anoth­er sub­ject often mis­at­trib­uted. Good quote col­lec­tions more than just the quo­ta­tion and its source.…

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Rose
The greatest generation: Roger Miles marries Doris Clayton Greene, St. Peter’s Church, Vere Street, London, 8 January 1942. (Jill Rose)
“Every chance brought forth a noble knight”: Jill Rose, “Nursing Churchill”

“Every chance brought forth a noble knight”: Jill Rose, “Nursing Churchill”

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Jill Rose, Nurs­ing Churchill: A Wartime Life from the Pri­vate Let­ters of Win­ston Churchill’s Nurse.  Fore­word by Emma Soames. Stroud, Glouces­ter­shire: Amber­ley Pub­lish­ing, 2018, 286 pages, $27.95, Kin­dle $20.02. Reprint­ed from a review for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For Hills­dale reviews of the hun­dred Churchill works pub­lished since 2014, click here. For a list and descrip­tion of books about Churchill since 1905, vis­it Hillsdale’s anno­tat­ed bibliography.

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Jill Rose…

…begins this fine World War II nar­ra­tive with a friend­ly warn­ing. Don’t wait till your par­ents are gone before pre­serv­ing their mem­o­ries. The par­ents of “baby boomers,” Rose writes, lived through the most momen­tous times of the 20th cen­tu­ry.…

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Peck
“This is your Victory!” Churchill waves to the crowds on VE Day, 8 May 1945. On his left is Chancellor John Anderson; on his right is Minister of Labour Ernest Bevin. (Wikimedia Commons)
John Peck, 1945: General Eisenhower asks if the war is over….

John Peck, 1945: General Eisenhower asks if the war is over….

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Col. Gault (Mil­i­tary Assis­tant to Gen­er­al Eisen­how­er, 29 April 1945): “John Peck, is that you? The Gen­er­al told me to ask you if the war is over.”

Peck: “I beg your pardon?”

Gault: “Seri­ous­ly, we’ve got a press mes­sage here which says quite clear­ly that it’s all over. If so, nobody has told the Gen­er­al and he thought you would be the most like­ly to know at your end.”

Peck: “Well, if it has end­ed, nobody has told the Prime Min­is­ter either.”

Gault: “Do you think we had bet­ter car­ry on?”

Peck: “Yes, I think so.”…

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Churchill on the Broadcast

Churchill on the Broadcast

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The ques­tion aris­es, has any­thing been writ­ten on Churchill’s radio tech­nique? Did he treat radio dif­fer­ent­ly from oth­er kinds of pub­lic speak­ing? How quick­ly did he take to the broadcast?

“The Art of the Microphone”

An excel­lent piece on this sub­ject was by Richard Dim­ble­by (1913-1965), the BBC’s first war cor­re­spon­dent and lat­er its lead­ing TV news com­men­ta­tor. His “Churchill the Broad­cast­er” is in Charles Eade, ed., Churchill by his Con­tem­po­raries (Lon­don: Hutchin­son, 1953). Old as it is, the book remains a com­pre­hen­sive set of essays of the many spe­cial­ized attrib­ut­es of WSC.

Dim­ble­by offers four areas of dis­cus­sion: the tech­ni­cal back­ground, the dra­ma of World War II, the fac­tu­al mate­r­i­al, and Churchill’s meth­ods of delivery.…

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Churchill and Professor Lindemann, Lord Cherwell

Churchill and Professor Lindemann, Lord Cherwell

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I reviewed the 1940-45 vis­i­tors books at Che­quers. I was struck by how often Lord Cher­well (Fred­er­ick Lin­de­mann) was there—far more than fam­i­ly and staff. He vis­it­ed more than Brack­en and Beaver­brook, or the Chiefs of Staff. What do you make of him? What’s best to read on him? —A.R., London

Most frequent visitor

After the death of the F.E. Smith, the first Lord Birken­head, Fred­er­ick Lin­de­mann, Lord Cher­well (1886-1957) was prob­a­bly Churchill’s clos­est friend. His sig­na­ture is also the most fre­quent in the vis­i­tors book at Chartwell, where it appears 86 times, more than any­one else (Bren­dan Brack­en only 31, although vis­i­tors usu­al­ly signed only when stay­ing overnight, and Brack­en fre­quent­ly returned to Lon­don).…

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Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

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