Tag: Clementine Churchill

Hyde Park Gate: Churchill’s London Home, 1945-1965

Hyde Park Gate: Churchill’s London Home, 1945-1965

Ques­tion: “Churchill owned both 27 and 28 Hyde Park Gate. Which one did he live in?” Answer: both.

1945-51

The Churchills pur­chased 28 Hyde Park Gate in Sep­tem­ber 1945. The fine attached brick house stands in a qui­et cul-de-sac, close to Hyde Park and Kens­ing­ton Gar­dens. They acquired the abut­ting num­ber 27 in March 1946. Accord­ing to Ste­fan Buczacki’s excel­lent book, Churchill and Chartwell, the gar­den wall between the two res­i­dences was knocked out to pro­vide a sin­gle gar­den. Num­ber 27 was ini­tial­ly acquired for need­ed office space, though Clemen­tine Churchill thought it an extrav­a­gance.…

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Nashville (3). Churchill and Women’s Rights

Nashville (3). Churchill and Women’s Rights

Votes for Women, Yeas and Nays

Among the more per­ni­cious dis­tor­tions of Churchill’s record is that he was a life­time oppo­nent of rights for women, includ­ing their right to vote. Remarks to the Churchill Soci­ety of Ten­nessee, Nashville, 14 Octo­ber 2017. Con­tin­ued from part 2….

In 1999 Time mag­a­zine explained that Churchill could not be “Per­son of the Cen­tu­ry” because he “bull­dogged­ly opposed women’s rights.” In 2012 London’s Dai­ly Tele­graph wrote: “Churchill believed that women shouldn’t vote, telling the House of Com­mons that they are ‘well rep­re­sent­ed by their fathers, broth­ers and husbands.’”

As I show in my book, Win­ston Churchill, Myth and Real­i­ty, Churchill nev­er said those words, in or out of Par­lia­ment.…

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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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Fateful Questions: World War II Microcosm (2)

Fateful Questions: World War II Microcosm (2)

Fateful Questions

Fate­ful Ques­tions, Sep­tem­ber 1943-April 1944, nine­teenth of a pro­ject­ed twen­ty-three doc­u­ment vol­umes in the offi­cial biog­ra­phy, Win­ston S. Churchill, is reviewed by his­to­ri­an Andrew Roberts in Com­men­tary. 

These vol­umes com­prise “every impor­tant doc­u­ment of any kind that con­cerns Churchill.” The present vol­ume sets the size record. Fate­ful Ques­tions is 2,752 pages long, rep­re­sent­ing an aver­age of more than eleven pages per day. Yet at $60, it is a tremen­dous bar­gain. Order your copy from the Hills­dale Col­lege Book­store.

Here is an excerpt from my account, “Fresh His­to­ry,” which can be read in its entire­ty at the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project.

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“Churchill’s Secret”: Worth a Look

“Churchill’s Secret”: Worth a Look

Churchill’s Secret, co-pro­duced by PBS Mas­ter­piece and ITV (UK). Direct­ed by Charles Stur­ridge, star­ring Michael Gam­bon as Sir Win­ston and Lind­say Dun­can as Lady Churchill. To watch, click here. 

Excerpt­ed from a review for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project.

PBS and ITV have suc­ceed­ed where many failed. They offer a Churchill doc­u­men­tary with a min­i­mum of dra­mat­ic license, rea­son­ably faith­ful to his­to­ry (as much as we know of it). Churchill’s Secret limns the pathos, humor, hope and trau­ma of a lit­tle-known episode: Churchill’s stroke on 23 June 1953, and his mirac­u­lous recov­ery. For weeks after­ward, his faith­ful lieu­tenants in secret ran the gov­ern­ment.…

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Cars & Churchill: Blood, Sweat & Gears (2) Daimlers…

Cars & Churchill: Blood, Sweat & Gears (2) Daimlers…

Hav­ing writ­ten about cars and Win­ston Churchill for fifty years, I final­ly pro­duced a piece on them both. From exot­i­ca like Daim­ler, Napi­er and Rolls-Royce to more pro­sa­ic makes like Austin, Hum­ber and Wolse­ley, the sto­ry was three decades in com­ing. I am sat­is­fied that it is now complete.

Part 2, con­tin­ued from Part 1: Excerpt only. For foot­notes,  all illus­tra­tions and a ros­ter of Churchill’s cars, see The Auto­mo­bile, (UK), August 2016. A pdf of the arti­cle is avail­able upon request: click here.

Wolseley to Austin

In the ear­ly 1930s Churchill switched from Wolse­ley to Austin cars: small fours and big six­es.…

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Last Try to Avoid Hell, 1914

Last Try to Avoid Hell, 1914

“Sav­ing the Nations from Hell”: The “King­ly Con­fer­ence,” 1914 (Excerpt)

(Read more at Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project)

Churchill’s faith in per­son­al diplomacy—solving intractable prob­lems by meet­ings at the high­est level—was famous­ly expressed dur­ing World War II.

Less wide­ly known is Churchill’s 1914 pro­pos­al for a con­fer­ence of heads of state (includ­ing, it seems, French Pres­i­dent Ray­mond Poin­caré) in an effort to head-off World War I. The scheme failed, but not for Churchill’s lack of trying.

There is lit­tle on Churchill’s “king­ly con­fer­ence” in the lit­er­a­ture. There is no ref­er­ence in Churchill’s The World Cri­sis, Asquith’s mem­oirs, or biogra­phies by Man­ches­ter, Jenk­ins, Rose, Charm­ley and Birken­head, though Sir Mar­tin Gilbert includes in the offi­cial biog­ra­phy an excerpt from a cab­i­net mem­ber which records Churchill’s words in the cab­i­net of July 27th:

Churchill said we were now in a bet­ter than aver­age con­di­tion, & the fleet was at war strength….Churchill,…

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Grace Hamblin, Total Churchillian

Grace Hamblin, Total Churchillian

Remem­ber­ing Grace: 1908-2002

Beloved by all Churchills, Grace Ham­blin died at her home in West­er­ham, Kent, aged 94. Aware she was ail­ing, I had just sent her some lit­tle thing in the post; Car­ole Ken­wright at Chartwell said it arrived in time, and she was able to read from it for a few minutes.

Grace Ham­blin was the longest serv­ing and most loy­al­ly devot­ed of Churchill’s inner cir­cle, arriv­ing at Chartwell in 1932 as an assis­tant to then-prin­ci­pal pri­vate sec­re­tary Vio­let Pear­man. She spent vir­tu­al­ly her entire career as pri­vate sec­re­tary, first to Win­ston and from 1939 to Clemen­tine. In 1966 she became the first Admin­is­tra­tor of Chartwell, serv­ing through 1973. In…

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Robert Hardy’s “Wilderness Years”

Robert Hardy’s “Wilderness Years”

5 Octo­ber 2015: Turn­ing 90 this month and as viva­cious as ever, Tim­o­thy Robert Hardy spoke tonight on “My Life with Churchill” at a Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill sem­i­nar, attend­ed by over 500 reg­is­trants and 200 stu­dents, spon­sored by Hillsdale’s Cen­ter for Con­struc­tive Alter­na­tives. That after­noon I had the priv­i­lege to play Alis­tair Cooke, and intro­duce four excerpts from Tim’s inim­itable por­tray­al in the doc­u­men­tary, “Win­ston Churchill: The Wilder­ness Years.” Here is the intro­duc­tion to the first excerpt, which may be viewed on YouTube (first 12 min­utes). All four excerpts will be pub­lished lat­er by The Churchill Project for the Study of Statesmanship.…

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Churchill’s Common Touch (5)

Churchill’s Common Touch (5)

con­clud­ed from part 4…

Part 5: Loyalty 

Churchill had “a rep­u­ta­tion for brusque­ness strength­ened by his han­dling of the com­mon folk,” his post­war body­guard Ronald Gold­ing continued.

He had the habit of sum­ming peo­ple up after two sen­tences of con­ver­sa­tion. They were clas­si­fied, it seemed to me, as either “inter­est­ing” or “unin­ter­est­ing.” With the for­mer, con­ver­sa­tion ensued; with the lat­ter, Churchill would ignore them. On such occa­sions Mrs. Churchill fre­quent­ly came to the res­cue, engag­ing the luck­less in con­ver­sa­tion. If they were tongue-tied she would do most of the talk­ing until it was time for them to leave.…

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