Tag: Diana Cooper

nicknames
“Make Britain Great Again”? Attacking the opposition on behalf of the Tory candidate Anthony Fell (seated), Hammersmith, London, 23 February 1949. Labour won the safe seat, but by under five points, ominous in a usually reliable constituency. Sir Anthony eventually sat for Yarmouth, 1958-83. (Crown copyright expired, public domain)
Churchill’s Potent Political Nicknames: Adm. Row-Back to Wuthering Height

Churchill’s Potent Political Nicknames: Adm. Row-Back to Wuthering Height

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Spo­rad­i­cal­ly, pun­dits com­pare Don­ald Trump with Win­ston Churchill. There’s even a book com­ing out on the sub­ject. I dep­re­cate all this by instinct and will avoid that book like the Coro­n­avirus. Sur­face sim­i­lar­i­ties may exist: both said or say main­ly what they thought or think, unfil­tered by polls (and some­times good advice). But Churchill’s lan­guage and thought were on a high­er plane. Still, when a friend said that Churchill nev­er stooped to deri­sive nick­names like Trump, I had to disagree.

Whether invent­ed by the Pres­i­dent or his scriptwrit­ers, some of Trump’s nick­names were very effec­tive.…

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Brendon
WSC greets “Rommel,” General Montgomery’s cocker spaniel, at Monty’s HQ, Chateau Cruelly, France, 7 August 1944. Churchill is in his uniform as an Honorary Air Commodore, 615 (County of Surrey) Squadron. (Wikimedia Commons)
The Brendon Bestiary: Churchill’s Animal Friends and Analogies

The Brendon Bestiary: Churchill’s Animal Friends and Analogies

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Piers Bren­don, Churchill’s Bes­tiary: His Life Through Ani­mals. Lon­don, Michael O’Mara Books, 2018, 320 pages, Ama­zon $18.96. Excerpt­ed from a review for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the full text, click here.

“An enor­mous­ly agree­able side of his char­ac­ter was his atti­tude toward ani­mals,” Sir Antho­ny Mon­tague Browne, his last pri­vate sec­re­tary, said of Win­ston Churchill. “Although a Victorian—and they were not notably aware of ani­mal suffering—he had a sen­si­tiv­i­ty well in advance of his time.” Ever since Sir Antho­ny said that we’ve been wait­ing for a good book on the sub­ject, and his­to­ri­an Piers Bren­don has oblig­ed.…

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Cooper
Diana (in the driver’s seat as usual) and Duff Cooper, who preferred American cars and drove the best of them, in this case a UK-market 1937 Packard. So I can almost forgive them for misfolding the top and using it for a pooch-perch.
“Darling Monster”: Diana Cooper and Her Remembrances of Churchill

“Darling Monster”: Diana Cooper and Her Remembrances of Churchill

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Dar­ling Mon­ster: The Let­ters of Lady Diana Coop­er to her Son John Julius Nor­wich 1939-1952, Chat­to & Win­dus, 2013, 520pp.

Lady Diana Duff Coop­er had a pen­e­trat­ing mind and bril­liant pen, capa­ble of cap­tur­ing a time when women con­sid­ered the world laden with oppor­tu­ni­ty for fulfillment.

She proved this with her famous sev­en-year per­for­mance in Max Rein­hardt’s “The Mir­a­cle.” Her “Win­ston and Clemen­tine,” first pub­lished in The Atlantic just after Sir Winston’s death, was as fine a trib­ute to the Churchill mar­riage as we are like­ly to encounter.Her col­lab­o­ra­tion with her husband’s ambas­sador­ship to France was notable.…

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Roberts
Admiring but not uncritical, Roberts’ book is a masterpiece. To paraphrase Simon Schama, it is a Churchilliad, and Andrew Roberts is its Bard. (Cartoon by David Low on WSC’s 80th birthday.)
“No Cutlet Uncooked”: Andrew Roberts’ Superb Churchill Biography

“No Cutlet Uncooked”: Andrew Roberts’ Superb Churchill Biography

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Andrew Roberts, Churchill: Walk­ing with Des­tiny. New York, Viking, 2018, 1152 pages, $40, Ama­zon $25.47, Kin­dle $17.99. Also pub­lished by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For Hills­dale reviews of Churchill works since 2014, click here. For a list of and notes on books about Churchill from 1905 cur­rent­ly through 1995, vis­it Hillsdale’s anno­tat­ed bibliography.

“No Cutlet Uncooked”

He lies at Bladon in Eng­lish earth, “which in his finest hour he held invi­o­late.” He would enjoy the con­tro­ver­sy he still stirs today, in media he nev­er dreamed of. He would rev­el in the assaults of his detrac­tors, the ripostes of his defend­ers.…

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Darkest
With the dockworkers, 1 August 1940. “I never gave them courage. I was able to focus theirs.”
Darkest Hour: Queries and Comments with “Total Film” Magazine

Darkest Hour: Queries and Comments with “Total Film” Magazine

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Jane Crowther, edi­tor-in-chief of Britain’s Total Film mag­a­zine, had per­ti­nent ques­tions about the new film Dark­est Hour. They were for­ward­ed by Lady Gilbert from the web­site of offi­cial biog­ra­ph­er Sir Mar­tin Gilbert. Alas he is gone, but Sir Martin’s inspi­ra­tion con­tin­ues to guide every­one, as he said, “who labours in the Churchill vineyard.”

Q: Did Win­ston Churchill ever use pub­lic trans­port while PM, par­tic­u­lar­ly the tube?

​Not to my knowl­edge. His daugh­ter Lady Soames told me he only used the Under­ground once, and became so lost that he had to be res­cued.…

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Fateful Questions: World War II Microcosm (2)

Fateful Questions: World War II Microcosm (2)

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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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