Chequers Archives - Page 2 of 4 - Richard M. Langworth

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

24 January 2019 Comments 1 Comment

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.…

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

27 August 2018 Comments 0 Comments

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.

====

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.…

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

22 September 2017 Comments 1 Comment

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.”…