Elizabeth Layton Nel Archives - Richard M. Langworth

Downing Street Annexe and Churchill Secretary Ellizabeth Layton Nel

15 September 2020 Comments 0 Comments

Excerpted from “Downing Street Annexe and War Rooms,” answered in full on the Hillsdale College Churchill Project.

Who were John Evans and Tom Leonard?:

Question: In the 2017 film Darkest Hour, on Churchill in May 1940. I am puzzled by two characters. There is a young man who is seen near Churchill at Chartwell and the underground War Rooms. The Darkest Hour cast names him “John Evans.” The name of another man in the cast, “Tom Leonard,” suggests nothing. He is the driver of Churchill’s car when the PM abruptly bolts and heads for the Underground.…

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.…

Churchill’s Common Touch (3)

19 March 2015 Comments 1 Comment

continued from part 2…

Part 3: Servants and Staff

Winston Churchill was a Victorian, with most of the attitudes of his class and time toward the common folk. “Servants exist to save one trouble,” he told his wife in 1928, “and sh[oul]d never be allowed to disturb one’s inner peace.”

Once before World War II he arrived in a violent rainstorm at his friend Maxine Elliott’s Chateau d’Horizon in the South of France. “My dear Maxine,” he said as she ushered him in, “do you realise I have come all the way from London without my man?”…