Journal of the International Churchill Society - Winston Churchill

Action This Day
BY JOHN PLUMPTON
130 Collingsbrook Blvd.
Agincourt, Ontario M1W 1M7
SPRING 1885: Age 10
Winston's term report from Brighton indicated that he was
making very satisfactory progress. In most of his subjects he
stood in the middle of his class, but in conduct he ranked last
out of 29 students.
He continued to plead with his father for autographs to
show friends, noting that he was willing to settle fora scribbled
signature at the end of a letter. There was no parental response.
But Lord Randolph's letters to the rest of his family were a
delight. After observing Hindu cremations, he wrote that any
Hindu whose ashes are thrown into the Ganges "goes right up
to heaven without stopping, no matter how great a rascal he
may have been. I think the G.O.M. [Gladstone] ought to come
here; it is his best chance!"
On his return from India Winston's father addressed a Primrose
League Banquet. After fulminating against Gladstone's
Liberals, he described England's role in India as "a sheet of oil
spread over a surface of, and keeping calm and quiet and unruffled
by storms, an immense and profound ocean of humanity
... to give peace, individual security and general prosperity to
250 million people ... to weld them by the influence of our
knowledge, our law and our higher civilization . . . and to offer
the West the advantages of tranquility and progress in the
East."
Many years later, Winston could subscribe to Lord Roseberry's
response to Lord Randolph's remarks: "The diction is
by no means perfect, but the idea is little less than sublime."
SPRING 1910: Age 35
As Secretary of State for the Home Office, Churchill was a
senior official in the Asquith Government. Only one predecessor
in that office had been younger —Sir Robert Peel.
A transport workers strike in South Wales, called while
Churchill was holidaying in Switzerland, nearly provoked the
use of troops and London Police, but it was settled without
violence. His support of the activities of a non-party Conciliation
Committee on female suffrage was conditional on the
support of other leaders and did not commit him to any
specific legislation.
He assumed a traditional task of the Prime Minister in
writing a nightly letter to the King on the affairs of the House.
In two years, he would write 138 letters to his sovereigns,
Edward VII and George V. The letters were factual but also
replete with personal comments. For example, on the issue of
precedents for the extraordinary use of the Royal Prerogative
in creating Peers, he informed the King that Lord High Cecil
had cited the creation of 12 new Peers to destroy the Whig
Majority in 1711. This was, Churchill wrote, "a singularly unsatisfactory
example from the history of the past."
King Edward, resentful that the Liberals were using him
against the Lords, informed his secretary that he would be
pleased if Asquith, Lloyd George and Churchill did not meet
him on his return to England from Europe.
SPRING 1935: Age 60
Aboard the same yacht which took Clementine on a journey
to the Dutch East Indies was Terence Philip, a bachelor who
was much sought-after by London hostesses. In the heady and
romantic atmosphere of the tropic islands, Clementine fell in
love. On their return to England, he visited her several times at
Chart well but their relationship, writes her daughter Mary
Soames, "was like a fragile tropical flower which cannot survive
in greyer, colder climes."
While his wife was away, Churchill sent her numbered
'Chartwell Bulletins' as domestic reports on family doings: redecorating
the house, replanting of orchard, the building of a
new wall. Often, after late debates in the House, a tired Winston
declined to drive to Chartwell and stayed in a flat they
owned in Morpeth Mansions, near Westminster Cathedral.
Despite the acrimony of the India Bill debate, WSC attempted
to make peace with Tory leaders in the hope that
Stanley Baldwin would invite him to join the Government
upon the retirement of Ramsey Macdonald. Against a German
situation which Churchill found "increasingly sombre," he
advocated collective European security as the best guarantee
of peace. Others began to heed his warnings. The Daily Express
apologized for ignoring his comments and Desmond
Morton told him that "you alone seem to have galvanized the
House."
He did not work on Marlborough but he wrote a weekly
column for the Daily Mail and a daily series in the Evening
Standard, on The King's 25 Years (Woods C266) to celebrate
the Silver Jubilee. Following the fatal accident to T. E. Lawrence,
he remembered his friend with "Lawrence of Arabia's
Name Will Live," published in the Daily Mail (C269) and reprinted
in Great Contemporaries.
SPRING 1960: Age 85
Some of Sir Winston's favorite vacations were spent aboard
Aristotle Onassis' yacht, Christina. On this occasion they
cruised the Caribbean. The plan was to meet Onassis at Gibraltar,
but as they approached the rock they encountered
gale-force winds which caused the pilot to overshoot the
runway twice. Roy Howells, Sir Winston's valet, describes the
frightened state of the passengers, "but the calmest man on
board was Sir Winston, who quietly puffed away at his seveninch-long
cigar, gazing out of the window as if nothing were
wrong." Churchill's physician, Lord Moran, ascribes other
causes to WSC's placid behavior: "The blanching of his brain
has wiped out his fears." Moran's account relates the story of
an octogenerian with only sporadic touches —and those were
usually unhappy—of reality.
Yet according to Howells, Churchill was so active exploring
even the most inaccessible parts of the yacht and the small
ports in the Caribbean that it was a constant challenge for a
well-trained crew to facilitate those wishes.
Onassis was determined to be a perfect host for his idol and
guest and even learned Churchill's favorite card game, bezique,
in order to play with him. Great crowds welcomed them at
every port. Often the flotillas of private boats endangered the
passage of Christina in the harbors.
Nelson had a dockyard and the Duke of Clarence had a
house at Antigua. When a tour of these facilities had not left
time for a visit to the dockyard, Sir Winston was very disappointed
because, after Napoleon, Nelson was his idol. Another
disappointment was the failure to sail up the coast of Florida;
but General de Gaulle was paying a state visit to Britain and
Churchill had to fly home from Puerto Rico.