Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill Read online

  “Waiter—please listen . . . story.” Lady Violet Bonham-Carter, Winston Churchill: An Intimate Portrait (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965), 269, asterisked note.

  Only nine years later . . . death. John Mather, “Lord Randolph Churchill: Maladies et Mort,” Finest Hour: The Journal of the Churchill Center and International Churchill Societies 93 (winter 1996–1997): 23–28.

  “This is a letter which . . . style.” Keith Alldritt, Churchill the Writer: His Life as a Man of Letters (London: Hutchinson, 1992), 2.

  “What fun it would be . . . Foot.” Winston Churchill, My Early Life: A Roving Commission (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930), 35.

  [In failing to qualify . . . existence. Randolph Churchill, Winston S. Churchill, companion vol. 1, part 1 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1967), 390–391. Randolph Churchill, letter to Winston Churchill, August 9, 1893.

  “He seemed to own . . . stone.” Churchill, My Early Life, 46.

  “All my dreams . . . memory.” Ibid., 62.

  “incessant complaints . . . application.” Randolph Churchill, Churchill, companion vol. 1, part 1, 390.

  He spent twenty minutes . . . the Bar. Churchill, My Early Life, 19.

  “I cannot sit down . . . preserve.” James C. Humes, Churchill: Speaker of the Century (New York: Stein and Day, 1980), 80.

  “This fulfils my ambition . . . Chancellor.” Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1991), 465.

  In 1947, during a family . . . course.” Martin Gilbert, In Search of Churchill (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994), 315.

  At the end of his life . . . father. Lord Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1966), 814.

  16: Churchill as Father

  He often read . . . stories. Martin Gilbert, In Search of Churchill (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994), 205.

  “I pass through again . . . life.” Mary Soames, Clementine Churchill: The Biography of a Marriage (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1979), 269. Winston Churchill, letter to Clementine Churchill, August 14, 1922.

  “You are the best . . . stand.” Gilbert, In Search, 207–8.

  “We soon became aware . . . trivial.” Soames, Clementine Churchill, 313.

  “great guns but no ammunition.” Norman Rose, Churchill: The Unruly Giant (New York: Free Press, 1994), 257.

  Randolph bellowed at his . . . whiskey. Winston S. Churchill, His Father’s Son: The Life of Randolph Churchill (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996), 389.

  17: Churchill the Painter

  “To be really happy . . . hobbies.” Winston Churchill, Painting as a Pastime (New York: Cornerstone, 1950), 8.

  Many remedies are suggested . . . coat. Ibid., 7.

  Churchill painted only one picture . . . Roosevelt. David Coombs, Churchill: His Paintings (catalog) (New York: World Publishing Company, 1967), plate 54 (381), Tower of Katoubia Mosque, 1943.

  “In this position . . . pressure.” Churchill, Painting as a Pastime, 16.

  “Every ambition I’ve ever had . . . painter.” Walter Graebner, My Dear Mr. Churchill (Boston: Riverside Press, 1965), 83.

  Churchill loved his own . . . museums. William Manchester, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874–1932 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1983), 761.

  “the horrors of war . . . the sun.” Martin Gilbert, In Search of Churchill (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994), 76.

  (“I rejoice with . . . browns”) Churchill, Painting as a Pastime, 24.

  (“Now I am learning . . . sunshine”) Ibid., 32.

  “The colours are lovely . . . absorbing.” Ibid., 19.

  “[h]e would have eaten . . . of it so.” Gilbert, In Search, 76.

  “Happy are the painters . . . the day.” Churchill, Painting as a Pastime, 13.

  18: Churchill the Spendthrift

  “If I had not been . . . now.” Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill, companion vol. 1, part 1 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1967), 672.

  “throughout his life . . . answered” Lady Violet Bonham-Carter, Winston Churchill: An Intimate Portrait (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965), 107.

  In the early days . . . skin. Ibid., 173.

  [D]o not worry . . . trifles. Mary Soames: Clementine Churchill: The Biography of a Marriage (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1979), 304.

  “I have always had . . . friend.” Bonham-Carter, An Intimate Portrait, 107.

  From youth until . . . debt. David Cannadine, Aspects of Aristocracy (New York: Penguin Books, 1994), 144.

  19: Conflicting Views of Churchill

  One of the . . . forthcoming. Clementine Churchill, letter to Winston Churchill, June 27, 1940, Churchill Archives Centre, Baroness Spencer-Churchill Papers, CSCT 1-24.

  20: Churchill in Tears

  “Then Lloyd George gets up . . . eyes.” Harold Nicolson, Diaries and Letters, vol. 2, The War Years, 1939–1945, ed. Nigel Nicolson (New York: Atheneum, 1967), 85. Diary entry of May 13, 1940.

  “The grand finale . . . cheeks.” Ibid., 100. Diary entry of July 4, 1940.

  “We had two lovely films . . . comedy.” Diana Cooper, Trumpets from the Steep (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1960), 69.

  “Churchill was affected . . . pocket.” Brian Gardner, Churchill in Power: As Seen by His Contemporaries (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1970), 130, quoting journalist H. V. Morton, writing about the Atlantic Meeting.

  “[H]e quotes Kipling’s lines . . . continue.” Nicolson, Diaries and Letters, September 9, 1941.

  “We then find him . . . face!” Lord Alanbrooke, War Diaries: 1939–1945, eds. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 324. Note accompanying entry of September 24, 1942.

  “Not for one moment . . . Paris.” Nicolson, Diaries and Letters, November 14, 1944.

  “Before [a speaker] can . . . flow.” Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill, companion vol. 1, part 2 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1967), 818. Quoting Churchill’s unpublished 1897 essay “The Scaffolding of Rhetoric.”

  Already little pathetic Union Jacks . . . admiration. Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, Their Finest Hour (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1949), 348.

  “There had been heavy fighting . . . so moved.” Lord Ismay, The Memoirs of General Lord Ismay (New York: Viking Press, 1960), 179–80.

  “would break my heart.” David Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 574.

  “I do not think . . . House.” Andrew Barrow, Gossip: A History of High Society from 1920 to 1970 (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1978), 130.

  “Sweet cat—I kiss . . . love—W.” Mary Soames, ed., Winston and Clementine: The Personal Letters of the Churchills (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999), 30. Winston Churchill, letter to Clementine Churchill, September 15, 1909.

  “I have nothing to offer . . . sweat,” Roy Jenkins, Churchill (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001), 591.

  21: Churchill the Drinker

  In the space of . . . as well. Clive Ponting, Churchill (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994), 726.

  “A tumbler was brought . . . 7:30 A.M.” Lord Alanbrooke, War Diaries: 1939–1945, eds. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 370. Note accompanying entry of January 26, 1943.

  “We had to consider . . . dictated it.” Ibid., 683. Diary entry of April 12, 1945.

  With the Grenadier Guards . . . headquarters. Winston Churchill, Amid These Storms (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932), 104–5.

  “This is to certify . . . times.” William Manchester, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874–1932 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1983), 880–81.

  “The glass of weak whisky . . . hours.” Martin Gilbert, In Search of Churchill (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994), 209, quoting John Peck.
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  “He was never the worse . . . morning.” Essay by Sir Ian Jacob, in Action This Day: Working with Churchill, ed. John Wheeler-Bennett (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1969), 183.

  “My rule of life . . . them.” Brian Gardner, Churchill in Power: As Seen by His Contemporaries (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1970), 277.

  “When I was younger . . . breakfast.” Kay Halle, Irrepressible Churchill (New York: World Publishing Company, 1966), 268.

  22: Churchill in Context

  “because he was . . . conquerors.” Virginia Cowles, Winston Churchill: The Era and the Man (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1953), 8.

  For while the tired waves . . . bright. Arthur Hugh Clough, The Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), 63.

  23: Churchill and Sex

  “strong sexual desires.” John Colville, Winston Churchill and His Inner Circle (New York: Wyndham Books, 1981), 143.

  “the reason I can write . . . in bed.” Norman Rose, Churchill: The Unruly Giant (New York: Free Press, 1994), 254.

  Historians William Manchester . . . development. William Manchester, The Last Lion: William Spencer Churchill: Alone, 1932–1940 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1988), 15.

  “acts of gross immorality . . . type.” William Manchester, The Last Lion: William Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874–1932 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1983), 212.

  “with a divorced . . . his.” Manchester, Alone, 15.

  “absolutely obsessed with a senile passion . . . walk.” Noël Coward, The Noël Coward Diaries, eds. Graham Payn and Sheridan Morley (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1982), 323. Diary entry of June 9, 1956.

  24: Churchill as Husband

  Oh my darling . . . romances. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. 3, The Challenge of War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1971), 744–45.

  “at least until September 1908 . . . afterwards.” Winston Churchill, My Early Life (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930), 372.

  “Breakfast should be had . . . alone,” Walter Graebner, My Dear Mr. Churchill (Boston: Riverside Press, 1965), 46.

  “it was almost incredible . . . life.” Roy Jenkins, Churchill (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001), 786, asterisked note.

  25: Churchill’s Island Story

  “that she thought [Winston] . . . was not.” Essay by John Colville, in Action This Day: Working with Churchill, ed. John Wheeler-Bennett (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1969), 75–76.

  He adopted a . . . parts.” Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 6, Triumph and Tragedy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1953), 752–53.

  “on waking up . . . the day.” Essay by Lord Normanbrook, in Action This Day, 41.

  This royal throne . . . England. William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King Richard II, 2.1.40–45.

  26: Churchill in Photographs

  September 1940. Winston and Clementine . . . favorites. Mary Soames, Family Album (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1982), photograph 262.

  “In all our long . . . than this.” Winston Churchill, War Speeches, vol. 5, Victory (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946), 167.

  27: Churchill as the Hero of a Novel

  “A human life is . . . force.” André Maurois, Aspects of Biography (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1929), 71.

  At age seventy . . . fringe. William Manchester, The Last Lion: William Spencer Churchill: Alone, 1932–1940 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1988), 24.

  “My career is a failure . . . offer” A.J.P. Taylor, The Warlords (New York: Atheneum, 1978), 72.

  “Winston won’t last . . . beginning.” Andrew Roberts, Eminent Churchillians (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), 159, quoting Robert Bruce Lockhart’s diary, May 21, 1940, recording that MP Peter Eckersley said, “Winston won’t last five months! Opposition from Tories is already beginning.”

  “He is a man who leads . . . leadership” Raymond Callahan, Churchill: Retreat from Empire (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1984), 11, quoting Harold Nicolson, 1931, Vanity Fair.

  “No, unless some . . . for that” Mary Soames, Clementine Churchill: The Biography of a Marriage (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1979), 361.

  “I represent to them . . . cheer me,” John Colville, The Fringes of Power: 10 Downing Street Diaries, 1939–1955 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1985), 275. Diary entry of October 24, 1940.

  “There is one thing . . . ready.” Richard Hough, Winston and Clementine (New York: Bantam Books, 1988), 285.

  “His Majesty the King . . . six P.M.” Ibid., 407.

  Churchill loved champagne . . . scalps. Lord Alanbrooke, War Diaries: 1939–1945, eds. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 667–68, note accompanying March 3, 1945; Kay Halle, Irrepressible Churchill (New York: World Publishing Company, 1966), 108.

  “most overworked word” . . . “prod.” Phyllis Moir, I Was Winston Churchill’s Private Secretary (New York: Wilfred Funk, Inc., 1941), 121.

  28: Churchill’s Destiny

  Asked why he expected . . . forty-six. Lady Violet Bonham-Carter, Winston Churchill: An Intimate Portrait (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965), 10.

  “I am so conceited . . . ending.” Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill, companion vol. 1, part 2 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1967), 839.

  “Above all don’t be . . . surely.” Mary Soames, ed., Winston and Clementine: The Personal Letters of the Churchills (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999), 120. Winston Churchill, letter to Clementine Churchill, November 27, 1915.

  “Death in Revelation . . . me!” Winston Churchill, My Early Life: A Roving Commission (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930), 340.

  “Cheek!” Andrew Barrow, Gossip: A History of High Society from 1920 to 1970 (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1978), 129.

  “I was conscious of . . . trial.” Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 1, The Gathering Storm (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company 1948), 667.

  “It certainly was odd . . . plan.” Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3, The Grand Alliance (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1950), 671.

  You never can tell . . . decision. Churchill, My Early Life, 102.

  “I could not be reproached . . . invisible wings.” Churchill, Gathering Storm, 667, 181.

  By the end of the meeting . . . inevitable. For lengthier discussion of the choice of Churchill over Halifax to succeed Chamberlain, see Andrew Roberts, “The Holy Fox”: The Life of Lord Halifax (London: Phoenix Giant, 1991), 197–209; Roy Jenkins, Churchill (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001), 583–87.

  Perhaps he believed . . . Foreign Secretary, Roberts, Holy Fox, 199.

  or perhaps he predicted . . . removed. Jenkins, Churchill, 585.

  This was a man who . . . appointment. Roberts, Holy Fox, 208.

  “might well have succeeded . . . fanatic.” Keith Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain (Hamden: Archon Books, 1970), 452.

  “Chance, Fortune, Luck . . . power.” Winston Churchill, Amid These Storms (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932), 106.

  29: Churchill the Imperialist

  “I was brought up . . . unequal.” Lord Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1966), 576.

  I am sure . . . today. Raymond Callahan, Churchill: Retreat from Empire (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1984), 28.

  He wrote the Secretary . . . subject.” Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 6, Triumph and Tragedy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1953), 692.

  “Why be apologetic . . . superior.” Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), xxiii.

  “When you learn to think . . . white man.” Moran, Diaries, 394. Diary entry of January 19, 1952.

  “far above anything . . . maintain” Andrew Roberts, Eminent Churchillians (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), 214.

  “It is alarming .
. . exposed.” David Cannadine, ed., Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat: The Speeches of Winston Churchill (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1989), 103.

  “No lover,” Churchill said . . . Roosevelt.” Roy Jenkins, Churchill (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001), 784.

  “Mr. President, with . . . now.” Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, Their Finest Hour (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1949), 402.

  The United States stands . . . in war. Cannadine, Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat, 296–97.

  The answer might also . . . independence. Callahan, Retreat from Empire, 255.

  The United States stand . . . history. Winston Churchill, War Speeches, vol. 5, Victory (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946), 295.

  “The [United States’s] Constitution . . . American.” Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, vol. 3, The Age of Revolution (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1957), 256.

  “I have not become . . . Empire.” Winston Churchill, War Speeches, vol. 2, The End of the Beginning (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1943), 268. Winston Churchill’s Guildhall speech of November 10, 1942.

  “It is with deep grief . . . herself.” Clive Ponting, Churchill (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994), 741.

  “Of course he was depressed . . . Empire.” Anita Leslie, Clare Sheridan (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, 1977), 299.

  “In the end . . . gone.” Ibid., 304–5.

  31: Churchill and Roosevelt

  “It is fun . . . as you.” John Lukacs, Churchill: Visionary. Statesman. Historian. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 56.

  “the most unsordid . . . nation.” David Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 475.

  “we are not only . . . bone.” Clive Ponting, Churchill (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994), 510.

  32: Churchill’s Imagination

  “The fortunate generations . . . unlucky.” Lytton Strachey, Biographical Essays (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1949), “Charles Greville,” 243.

  “the hero of five wars . . . Britain.” John Pearson, The Private Lives of Winston Churchill (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991), 105.