Tag: Winston S. Churchill

D-day
Model of the Mulberry harbor on Gold Beach in the library at Chartwell.
Lectures at Sea (1): Churchill and the Myths of D-Day

Lectures at Sea (1): Churchill and the Myths of D-Day

“Churchill and the Myths of D-Day is excerpt­ed from a lec­ture on the 2019 Hills­dale Col­lege Round-Britain cruise. Hills­dale cruis­es with “lec­tures at sea” are an annu­al event, usu­al­ly occur­ring in May or June. For infor­ma­tion on the 2020 cruise to Jerusalem and Athens, click here.

I’m here to talk about Win­ston Churchill. I know this audi­ence knows who he was! Did you know a sur­vey of British school­child­ren reveals that one in five think he was a fic­tion­al char­ac­ter? And bet­ter than half think Sher­lock Holmes was a real person?

My book is about the non-fic­tion­al Churchill.…

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drunk
“He seems to tolerate this cocktail night.” (Lustige Blätter, Berlin, 23 April 1942; the bottles are marked “Blood” and “Tears”). The Nazis were fond of the bar room image—and no more accurate than modern-day writers. The attitude of the British lion, however, nicely represents British attitudes about the endless Brexit debate.
Memo to Peggy Noonan and the WSJ: Churchill was NOT a drunk

Memo to Peggy Noonan and the WSJ: Churchill was NOT a drunk

On 15 June in the Wall Street Jour­nal opin­ion colum­nist Peg­gy Noo­nan wrote a per­cep­tive piece about the prospects and chal­lenges for Boris John­son as Britain’s new Prime Min­is­ter: “Eng­land Needs a Slap, and So Does Chi­na” (sor­ry, that link car­ries a paywall).

It was a good col­umn, say­ing essen­tial­ly what Britons of all stripes were say­ing to me on a recent visit.

“Talk to me about any­thing, except Brex­it.” “Right, we vot­ed, so let’s get on with it.” “We’re tired of plat­i­tudes and use­less debates.”  “Keep did­dling and we end up with Cor­byn.” “Just do it.”…

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Portland
“Like giants bowed in anxious thought….”
Churchill Remembered on the Hillsdale College Cruise (3): Portland, 1914

Churchill Remembered on the Hillsdale College Cruise (3): Portland, 1914

The King’s Ships: “We may now pic­ture this great Fleet, with its flotil­las and cruis­ers, steam­ing slow­ly out of Port­land Har­bour, squadron by squadron, scores of gigan­tic cas­tles of steel wend­ing their way across the misty, shin­ing sea, like giants bowed in anx­ious thought. We may pic­ture them again as dark­ness fell, eigh­teen miles of war­ships run­ning at high speed and in absolute black­ness through the nar­row Straits, bear­ing with them into the broad waters of the North the safe­guard of con­sid­er­able affairs.”

Irish Sea to Portland: Churchill Connections, 8-12 June 2019

The 2019 Hills­dale Col­lege Cruise around Britain was a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to recall the Churchill saga by pass­ing or vis­it­ing key places.…

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Scotland
WSC with his daughter Mary on a later visit to Scapa Flow. (Orkney Library)
Churchill Remembered on the Hillsdale College Cruise (2): Scotland, 1939

Churchill Remembered on the Hillsdale College Cruise (2): Scotland, 1939

“It was like the oth­ers a love­ly day….On every side rose the pur­ple hills of Scot­land in all their splen­dour…. I felt odd­ly oppressed with my mem­o­ries…. No one had ever been over the same ter­ri­ble course twice with such an inter­val between. No one had felt its dan­gers and respon­si­bil­i­ties from the sum­mit as I had, or, to descend to a small point, under­stood how First Lords of the Admi­ral­ty are treat­ed when great ships are sunk and things go wrong.”

Northern Britain: Churchill Connections, June 4th to 7th

The 2019 Hills­dale Col­lege Cruise around Britain offered a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to recall the Churchill saga by pass­ing or vis­it­ing key places, start­ing with Eng­lish Chan­nel and North Sea venues from Southamp­ton to York­shire to Edin­burgh and the north of Scot­land.…

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Yorkshire
The German High Seas Fleet at Kiel. From Southampton to Norfolk, Yorkshire to the Firth of Forth and Scapa Flow, the enemy’s powerful navy focused Churchill’s strategic planning in the First World War.
Churchill Remembered on the Hillsdale College Cruise (1): Yorkshire, 1914

Churchill Remembered on the Hillsdale College Cruise (1): Yorkshire, 1914

"Outrage in Yorkshire fell hard against Churchill, who vowed to force the Germans back out if he had to dig them out “like rats in a hole.” There was indignation, he wrote, "at the failure of the Navy to prevent, or at least to avenge, such an attack upon our shores. What was the Admiralty doing? Were they all asleep?... We had to bear in silence the censures of our countrymen."

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contentions
Astronaut Scott Kelly who, when attacked by furious trolls on Twitter, folded like a five dollar suitcase. Really?!
Current Churchill Contentions: “The Invasion of the Idiots”

Current Churchill Contentions: “The Invasion of the Idiots”

“Cur­rent Con­tentions” was deliv­ered at Hills­dale College’s Cen­ter for Con­struc­tive Alter­na­tives sem­i­nar on “Churchill and the Movies,” 27 March 2019. For the video, please click here.

Edit­ed tran­script: The orig­i­nal speech includ­ed cer­tain sub­jects cov­ered ear­li­er and else­where. These are sum­ma­rized below, and pro­vid­ed with links to the orig­i­nal texts. The video, which is unabridged, includes ques­tions and answers with the audience.

Churchill’s World of 1932

Eighty-sev­en years ago, Churchill was here in Michi­gan, in Detroit, Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor, on a U.S. lec­ture tour. East, west, north, and south he rode the rails, “liv­ing all day on my back in a rail­way com­part­ment and address­ing in the evening large audi­ences.”…

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white
“In durance vile”: Churchill (right), captured in South Africa, 1899, argued for native equality with his jailers: “British government is associated in the Boer farmer’s mind with violent social revolution. Black is to be proclaimed the same as white,” he wrote. “…nor is a tigress robbed of her cubs more furious than is the Boer at this prospect.”
Revealed Wisdom on the Campus: Churchill was a White Supremacist

Revealed Wisdom on the Campus: Churchill was a White Supremacist

why­Be­gin­ning ten years ago with a flawed account of the 1943 Ben­gal Famine, and fanned by a small cadre of influ­en­tial writ­ers, Churchill has been slan­dered with the label of white suprema­cist. A col­league to whom I often turn for wis­dom has a thought­ful judg­ment on this and oth­er dubi­ous accu­sa­tions. “In a con­tro­ver­sial time, an under­stand­ing of Churchill is very dif­fi­cult to achieve. That is because the life of Churchill is an impor­tant thing. And every impor­tant thing is high­ly con­tro­ver­sial today.”

Excerpt­ed from an arti­cle for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the com­plete text, click here.…

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butterflies
Gardener Stephen Humphrey at the butterfly house at Chartwell. Mr. Humphrey took charge of the reinvigorated butterflies in 2009 and reported they were soon flourishing. (BBC)
Churchill’s Butterflies Continue to Flourish at Chartwell

Churchill’s Butterflies Continue to Flourish at Chartwell

But­ter­flies are back in force at Sir Win­ston Churchill’s Chartwell. In 2009, the Nation­al Trust rebuilt the but­ter­fly hut and gar­den­er Stephen Humphrey took charge of rais­ing but­ter­flies. Nigel Guest, a Chartwell vol­un­teer, imme­di­ate­ly report­ed “a ter­rif­ic year for but­ter­flies.” For his report and col­or pho­tos of Churchill’s favorite species see BBC Radio Kent, “Churchill’s But­ter­fly House at Chartwell.”

David Rid­dle, a Nation­al Trust vol­un­teer at Chartwell, gave me the back­ground of the “But­ter­fly House” Churchill estab­lished to prop­a­gate the insects on the grounds of his home:

The But­ter­fly House was first used as a game larder between 1869 and 1889 by the Colquhoun fam­i­ly, who owned Chartwell between 1830 and 1922, when Churchill bought the estate.…

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Trade
Fishing for a shilling: Churchill, President of the Board of Trade, the ardent free trader in 1908, when different countries produced vastly different stuff—like the taxi, which I think is a Renault.
Churchill and Free Trade: That was Then, This is Now

Churchill and Free Trade: That was Then, This is Now

On Free Trade and tariffs

The Hud­son Insti­tute  econ­o­mist Irwin Stelz­er penned an inter­est­ing arti­cle on trade: “Trump girds for War with EU.” I sent it around to col­leagues, prais­ing it for prop­er­ly attribut­ing an alleged Churchill quote:

No one doubts that Trump is gear­ing up to launch a tar­iff bat­tle with the Euro­pean Union. For one thing, he is set to sign a deal end­ing the trade bat­tle with Chi­na, and would not be fight­ing a two-front war should he take on Europe which, he tweet­ed last week, “has tak­en advan­tage of the U.S.…

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jargon
Churchill at Chartwell, early 1950s.
Churchill on Jargon: The Language as We Mangle It

Churchill on Jargon: The Language as We Mangle It

Jargon and Monkey Motion

A friend sends a let­ter from a plan­ning firm, “reach­ing out” to his home­own­ers asso­ci­a­tion. The plan­ners seek a con­sul­tant con­tract. They promise “awe­some” results. Their pro­pos­als are so full of jar­gon that my friend won­dered what Churchill would make of it. The let­ter con­tains many sen­tences Churchill would have deplored:

“The com­mit­tee tasked us with the plan­ning and com­ple­tion of an inclu­sive and pro­duc­tive process.”

“Gen­er­al under­stand­ing offers guid­ance for the imple­men­ta­tion committee.”

And: “An out­ward and hon­est mar­ket­ing posi­tion achieves awe­some goals…”

“Tasked,” of course, is a new verb, con­vert­ed from the noun “task” by mod­ern Newspeak.…

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RML Books

Richard Langworth’s Most Popular Books & eBooks


Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

Churchill in His Own Words

Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

Triumph Cars - The Complete Story
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