Tag: USS Winston S. Churchill

Oldest Vessel Named for Churchill

Oldest Vessel Named for Churchill

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

Winston S. Churchill 1940-2010

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

Jack French Kemp 1935-2009

“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?

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

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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