Tag: Lady Diana Cooper

Clementine Churchill as Literary Critic

Clementine Churchill as Literary Critic

Q: Clementine as Editor

Your book Churchill By Him­self is a trea­sure to which I fre­quent­ly refer. I am a retired pro­fes­sor who recent­ly lost his wife. I am prepar­ing a memo­r­i­al to her and found Churchill’s words as quot­ed in Andrew Roberts’ recent biog­ra­phy to be per­fect. The sense of his words is that his wife Clemen­tine was was a fre­quent, strong and fair crit­ic of his writ­ings, always help­ful. I know that is not much to go on but I would appre­ci­ate cor­rob­o­rat­ing infor­ma­tion.  —M.S., via email

A: “Here firm, though all be drifting”

I will have to pon­der your ques­tion, because his remarks about Lady Churchill are main­ly trib­utes to her as wife, friend and advi­sor, not lit­er­ary critic–although of course she was that too.…

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Lady Diana Cooper on Winston and Clementine Churchill

Lady Diana Cooper on Winston and Clementine Churchill

Excerpt*

Famed for her beau­ty and the “durable fire” of her mar­riage to Alfred Duff Coop­er, First Vis­count Nor­wich, The Lady Diana Coop­er was ear­ly admit­ted to  friend­ship with Win­ston and Clemen­tine Churchill. A stun­ning beau­ty and an accom­plished actress, she was a glit­ter­ing writer. Her tril­o­gy of mem­oirs is redo­lent of that van­ished Eng­land the Coop­ers and Churchills loved. Her books are worth seek­ing out: The Light of Com­mon Day, Trum­pets from the Steep and The Rain­bow Comes and Goes (1958-60).

In anoth­er age, when even Churchill’s mar­riage is ques­tioned by the igno­rant, Lady Diana offers words worth remem­ber­ing.…

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Lady Randolph & Winston Churchill on Blenheim

Lady Randolph & Winston Churchill on Blenheim

I am asked what Churchill wrote and thought about his birth­place, Blenheim Palace, Wood­stock, Oxford­shire. The first words I recall are those of his moth­er Jen­nie: “with par­don­able pride.” They occur ear­ly in The Rem­i­nis­cences of Lady Ran­dolph Churchill (1908). I always loved her descrip­tion. One regrets the decline of peo­ple who can write like Jen­nie. She ranked with Lady Diana Coop­er, and I think her son’s writ­ing tal­ent was inher­it­ed from her.…

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Black Swans Return to Chartwell

Black Swans Return to Chartwell

 

“All the black swans are mat­ing, not only the father and moth­er, but both broth­ers and both sis­ters have paired off. The Ptole­mys always did this and Cleopa­tra was the result. At any rate I have not thought it my duty to inter­fere.”  —Churchill to his wife, Chartwell, 21 Jan­u­ary 1935

Sev­en­ty-five years ago Lady Diana Coop­er observed that Chartwell’s birds “con­sist of five fool­ish geese, five furi­ous black swans, two rud­dy shel­drakes, two white swans—Mr. Juno and Mrs. Jupiter, so called because they got the sex­es wrong to begin with, two Cana­di­an geese (‘Lord and Lady Beaver­brook’) and some mis­cel­la­neous ducks.”…

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