Tag: Winston S. Churchill

Randolph Churchill
The White House, 9 April 1963. President John F. Kennedy declares Sir Winston Churchill an honorary citizen of the United States. On steps, front row (L-R): Undersecretary of State, George Ball, British Ambassador Sir David Ormsby-Gore, President Kennedy, Randolph Churchill. Back rows (L-R): Deputy Chief of Protocol William J. Tonesk (mostly behind Ball), Sylvia Ormsby-Gore, Randolph’s son Winston, President’s naval aide Tazewell Shepard. Secret Service agent Art Godfrey is at far right. (Photograph by White House photographer Cecil Stoughton. presented to Richard Langworth, 1988, public domain)
Present at the Creation: Randolph Churchill and the Official Biography (3)

Present at the Creation: Randolph Churchill and the Official Biography (3)

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“Ran­dolph Churchill: Present at the Cre­ation,” is from a lec­ture aboard the Regent Sev­en Seas Explor­er on the 2019 Hills­dale Col­lege Cruise around Britain, 8 June 2019. Con­clud­ed from Part 2.

“The Great Work” —Randolph S.C.

After the war, Churchill willed his archive to Ran­dolph. In 1959, impressed by his son’s  biog­ra­phy of Lord Der­by, he invit­ed Ran­dolph to be his biog­ra­ph­er. Ran­dolph devot­ed him­self to the job, know­ing by then that he had wrecked his body, that the process of dis­in­te­gra­tion was advanced. Could he fin­ish in time? Ran­dolph wondered.

He housed the archives in a fire­proof strong room at Stour, his home in Suf­folk.…

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Don
Don Cline’s outstanding collection of Churchill press photos was given by Don and Lorraine to the Hillsdale College Churchill Project, where they live on in Churchill’s memory, and Don’s. This example was taken at Dover, 28 August 1940. “…we saw a smoldering aircraft in a field, and Churchill asked the driver to pull off the road and get as close to the wreckage as he could….though I warned Mr Churchill about the dangers of being out in the open during an air raid, he said that he must have a look, and when he saw the tangled mess he said ‘Dear God, I hope it isn’t a British plane.’ He was reassured that it was not.” —Detective Inspector Walter Thompason, in dark suit to WSC’s left. (Public domain, Crown copyright expired)
Don Cline 1949-2019: The Woof of Churchill and the Warp of Scotland

Don Cline 1949-2019: The Woof of Churchill and the Warp of Scotland

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Churchill: Walk­ing with Des­tiny, Andrew Roberts’s out­stand­ing biog­ra­phy was at Don Cline’s bed­side, and he almost made it through. I opened his copy to where the last book­mark fell. It was Jan­u­ary 1944, a scene redo­lent of the fas­ci­na­tion we shared.  The writer was Lady Diana Coop­er: “There was our old baby in his rompers, ten-gal­lon cow­boy hat and very ragged ori­en­tal dress­ing gown, health, vigour and excel­lent spir­its. Nev­er have I seen him spin more fan­tas­tic stuff, the woof of Eng­lish and the warp of slang.”

That pas­sage will now always remind me of Don, who him­self spun fan­tas­tic stuff.…

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Europe
Churchill and Eden, 29 June 1954. With by Canada Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent (L) and External Affairs Minister Lester Pearson (R). Rockcliffe Airport, Ottawa. (Library & Archives Canada, reproduced with permission)
Churchill Red Herrings: On a Federal Europe and “Keep England White”

Churchill Red Herrings: On a Federal Europe and “Keep England White”

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"Keep England White" is not a direct quote, nor did the words ever appear in public. Also, Macmillan followed it with an exclamation mark, which could mean that Churchill said it in jest. Ask yourself: Would any astute politician, even then, seriously propose this as a campaign slogan?

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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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Stelzer
From Cita Stelzer’s book cover.
Secretarial Masterpiece: A Churchillian Reader by Cita Stelzer

Secretarial Masterpiece: A Churchillian Reader by Cita Stelzer

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Cita Stelz­er, Work­ing with Win­ston: The Unsung Women Behind Britain’s Great­est States­man. New York, Pega­sus Books, 2019, 400 pages, $28.95, Ama­zon $19.35, Kin­dle $14.99. Excerpt­ed from a review for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the full text, click here.

Grace Ham­blin came to Chartwell in 1932 and served as sec­re­tary to both Churchills. After Sir Winston’s death she became Chartwell’s first Nation­al Trust admin­is­tra­tor. Through all those years she nev­er “wrote.” Nor, with one excep­tion, did his oth­er office sec­re­taries. The excep­tion was Eliz­a­beth Lay­ton Nel. Her love­ly book, orig­i­nal­ly  Mr.…

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Garfield
From the dust jacket of the First English Edition, Macmillan, 1980.
Garfield, “The Paladin” (or: Christoper Creighton’s Excellent Adventure)

Garfield, “The Paladin” (or: Christoper Creighton’s Excellent Adventure)

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The Pal­adin, by Bri­an Garfield. New York: Simon & Schus­ter, 1979; Lon­don, Macmil­lan 1980; Book Club Asso­ciates 1981, sev­er­al tarns­la­tions, 350 pages. (Review updat­ed 2019.)

Garfield’s gripping novel: fictional biography?

The late, pro­lif­ic Bri­an Garfield wrote this book four decades ago, yet I am still asked about it—and whether it could be true.

The sto­ry Mr. Garfield tells seems impossible—fantastic. An eleven-year-old boy named Christo­pher Creighton leaps a gar­den wall in Kent one day. He finds him­self face to face with the Right Hon­or­able Win­ston Churchill, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment. He will lat­er know the great man by the code-name “Tig­ger.”…

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Randolph Churchill
Stour House, East Bergholt, visited on the 2006 Churchill Tour of England. We were the guests of the present owners, who have maintained its stately beauty. Randolph’s strong room, which once housed the Churchill Archives, is behind the blacked-out windows at left. (Photo by Barbara Langworth)
Present at the Creation: Randolph Churchill and the Official Biography (2)

Present at the Creation: Randolph Churchill and the Official Biography (2)

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“Ran­dolph Churchill: Present at the Cre­ation,” is tak­en from a lec­ture aboard the Regent Sev­en Seas Explor­er on the 2019 Hills­dale Col­lege Cruise around Britain, 8 June 2019. Con­tin­ued from Part 1.

Randolph Churchill Postwar

Out of the Army and Par­lia­ment in 1945, and divorced from Pamela in 1946, Ran­dolph Churchill led a “ram­pag­ing exis­tence,” his sis­ter Mary wrote. “He always had lances to break, and hares to start.” He was loy­al and affec­tion­ate, but he “would pick an argu­ment with a chair.”

In 1948 he mar­ried June Osborne and fathered his sec­ond child, Ara­bel­la.…

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Johnson Trump
A Boris balloon launched outside Parliament during an anti-Brexit protest, 20 July 2019. The “£350m” refers to the amount Mr. Johnson promised to wrest back from the EU to spend on Britain’s National Health Service. (Associated Press, Boston Globe)
Johnson, Trump…can we stop comparing everybody to Churchill?

Johnson, Trump…can we stop comparing everybody to Churchill?

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Politi­cians, like Boris John­son and Don­ald Trump at the moment, are often com­pared to Win­ston Churchill. In a way it’s nice PR for Sir Win­ston. Half a cen­tu­ry since his death, the Great­est Briton still dom­i­nates media. His Google hit count is 100 mil­lion. (Franklin Roo­sevelt, the West’s oth­er great war leader, is at 72 million.)

Right­ly or wrong­ly, every day on the Inter­net, Churchill is praised, lam­pooned, quot­ed and mis­quot­ed. But com­par­isons to mod­ern politi­cians have worn thin. They may emu­late him, but should not be com­pared to him.

Johnson’s Day in the barrel

On 15 June the Wall Street Jour­nal focused on British prime min­is­ter in wait­ing Boris John­son.…

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Randolph Churchill
RSC, ca. 1933 (by kind permission of Mary Soames)
Present at the Creation: Randolph Churchill and the Official Biography (1)

Present at the Creation: Randolph Churchill and the Official Biography (1)

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“Ran­dolph Churchill: Present at the Cre­ation,” is tak­en from a lec­ture aboard the Regent Sev­en Seas Explor­er on the 2019 Hills­dale Col­lege Cruise around Britain, 8 June 2019.

Most every­body has an inkling of who Win­ston Churchill was. But how many know of his son Ran­dolph? How many British school­child­ren do you think have heard of him? Do they know that Arthur Conan Doyle cre­at­ed Sher­lock Holmes, who some think was a real per­son? They should, Sir Arthur was a great writer. Like Ran­dolph Churchill, who found­ed the longest biog­ra­phy ever writ­ten. In the words of Dean Ache­son, he was “present at the creation.”…

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Read Ian Jack’s thoughtful piece in “The Guardian,” http://bit.ly/2SLDPi5. (Illustration by Matt Kenyon)
Boris, Racism, Imperialism, and “The Road to Mandalay”

Boris, Racism, Imperialism, and “The Road to Mandalay”

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If we want to be fair, isn't "The Road to Mandalay" a remarkably progressive 1890 endorsement of interracial harmony? Interpreting it as mere lust after "an exotic object and someone to be 'civilized'" only displays ignorance. Clearly the writer didn't read it well. It contains no expressions of lust, only loneliness. That is what Kipling's soldier is saying. He wants to go back to a land and a girl he loves, and both are Asian.

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