USS Winston S. Churchill Archives - Richard M. Langworth

Oldest Vessel Named for Churchill

4 January 2012 Comments 0 Comments

The 15-meter sloop Winston Churchill is one of several Churchill namesake vessels to have carried an heroic crew. The venerable sailboat, the oldest vessel named for Sir Winston, sank during the challenging Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race in 1998, and three of her crew, James Lawler, Michael Bannister and John Dean, drowned. The heroism of her crew matches that of the USS Winston S. Churchill, the most famous bearer of the name afloat.

The story of their survival, writes Paul Kalina in the Sydney Morning Herald, is part of a new film by Graham McNeice on Australians who defied narrow brushes with death.…

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Winston S. Churchill 1940-2010

10 March 2010 Comments 3 Comments

You can read about Winston Churchill’s career elsewhere. I’d like rather to indulge in the remembrance of a friend.

We met through the post forty-two years ago, when he became the third honorary member of the Churchill Study Unit, after his grandmother and his father. The latter had only just sent a letter of encouragement to our little group of stamp collectors when he himself died. It was June, 1968. In sending condolences, I asked Winston to take his father’s place. He accepted, adding, “It is consoling to know so many share my loss.”…

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Jack French Kemp 1935-2009

21 May 2009 Comments 2 Comments

“Dash of greyhound, slipping thongs…”

On Eleuthera, where we spent many winters, there was fascination with U.S. Presidential elections. A virtue of island is that racism, in the sense we all know it, doesn’t really exist. Our easy-going tropical strand features smiles of welcoming locals and friends who have known each other for years. It just doesn’t seem to matter whether the face in front of you is black or white.

So it was perfectly natural for the wife of our local grocer to ask me in 2008: “Is it possible for a non-white to be elected President?”……

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“Never give in”: Was this a three-word speech?

5 March 2009 Comments 2 Comments

Did Churchill ever make a three word speech, “Never Give Up,” and then just sit down? —A.S., Riga, Latvia

That story is all over the web, constantly repeated. But it is entirely wrong. I think it springs from the many inaccurate “wit and wisdom” quote books.

“Never give in” (not “up”)

The three words (“in” not “up”) were part of Churchill’s 20-minute speech to the boys at Harrow, his old school, when he visited Harrow for their annual songfest (“Songs”) on 29 October 1941. The full speech is published in Robert Rhodes James, ed.,…

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