What kind of a People do they think we are? - Winston Churchill

More documents

Recommendations

Info

KEEPING THE MEMORY GREEN.LEADING CHURCHILL MYTHS(2) "An actor read Churchill's wartime speeches over the wireless.'SIR ROBERT RHODES JAMESIn "Ampersand, "Finest Hour 110:47, ToddRonnei listed18 common Churchill myths, while in the letters columnWilliam Roeder suggested we undertake a booklet, WinstonChurchill: Setting the Record Straight. We continue hackingaway at the weed growth. This article is adapted fromFH 92, including later information in FH 109.On June 4th, 1940 in the House of Commons, atthe darkest moment in British history, WinstonChurchill made one of the greatest speeches inthe annals of oratory. It galvanised a hitherto skepticalCommons, and its superb use of language and spirit ofdefiance affected not only his fellow-countrymen butechoed around the world, not least in the United States.Wars are not won by speeches, but they are by leadership,and that speech gave the authentic voice of a confidentleader who wanted to lead.It was his fourth speech as Prime Minister. Hisaccession to the position had been controversial, and infact was by default. He was viewed with hostility in boththe principal political parties.It opened prosaically enough with a factualaccount of the French collapse, the evacuation atDunkirk, and preparations for home defence. But he thensaid his government was determined to "ride out thestorm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessaryfor years, if necessary alone."This single sentence hushed the Commons. Hewent on:Even though large tracts of Europe and many old andfamous States have fallen or may fall into the grip ofthe Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule,we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, weshall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas andoceans, we shall fight with growing confidence andgrowing strength in the air, we shall defend our island,whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on thebeaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, weshall fight in the fields, and in the streets; we shallnever surrender, and even if, which I do not for a mo-The late Sir Robert Rhodes James contributed to The ChurchillCenter's first Churchill Symposium, resulting in the book Churchill asPeacemaker. His Churchill: A Study in Failure 1900-1939 remains astandard work on Churchill's pre-World War II parliamentary career.ment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugatedand starving, then our Empire beyond the seas,armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carryon the struggle, until, in God's good time, the newworld, with all its power and might, steps forth to therescue and the liberation of the old.Churchill had made, and was to make, muchgreater speeches; but none of them had the impact of thisbrief peroration. His immediate audience was stunned,and then erupted into a prolonged ovation.From this great event a remarkable mythologyhas developed and prospered. Its origins came from DavidIrving in his malevolent Churchill's War, Volume I, publishedin 1987, p. 313:That evening the BBC broadcast his speech after theNews. The whole nation thrilled, not knowing thatChurchill had refused to repeat it before the microphone.A BBC actor — "Larry the Lamb" of the Children'sHour — had agreed to mimic the prime minister beforethe microphone, and nobody was any the wiser.The actor who claimed to have read the speechwas Norman Shelley. Irving's sole authority was Shelleyhimself, although, as it will be seen, under curious circumstances.It was a very dramatic allegation, particularlyfrom that source, and intrinsically deeply suspect, butsomehow it became an established fact, accepted unthinkinglyby later biographers and historians, including JohnCharmley, Clive Ponting and, astonishingly, even PhilipZiegler, who is in an entirely different league. In 1991Irving went even further, claiming that "several times in1940 millions of radio listeners were tricked into believingthat they were hearing Churchill's voice"; Pontingrepeated Irving's apparently authoritative statement thatthis happened on several occasions.The sheer improbability of this story in itselfshould have alerted serious historians, but it was my lateAll Souls colleague D.J. Wenden who spotted the firstclues to this falsehood. For one thing, there was noChurchill broadcast on June 4th; the newsreader readextracts on the evening radio news.Then there was the interesting point that Irvingclaimed he had interviewed Shelley in December 1981;but Shelley had died on 22 August 1980! Also, althoughFINEST HOUR 112/52
AND THE RECORD ACCURATEa minor point, Shelley had not been "Larry the Lamb" in"Toytown," but "Dennis the Dachshund," as those of mygeneration could have told Irving.Problems then arise from the records, HaroldNicolson lamenting that it was necessary to bullyChurchill into broadcasting, and, referring to a June 18thbroadcast, "he just sulked and read his House ofCommons speech over again." Nicolson was InformationMinister at the time. Churchill never liked broadcasting,but there is no evidence whatever that he was replaced byanyone, and speech researchers have confirmed this.But Shelley consistently claimed that he hadmimicked Churchill's voice for radio. The unlikelihood ofthe BBC's employing an actor to replace its outstandingteam of newsreaders was grotesquely improbable in itself.As Vita Sackville-West wrote to Nicolson of the June 4thspeech on the radio, "Even repeated by the announcer itsent shivers (not of fear) down my spine."Iwas immensely fortunate in getting to know C.H.Rolph, by correspondence only, alas, in the last year ofhis life. His wife had been a script-writer in the BBC'sFeatures and Drama Department, and, through her,Rolph had come to know Shelley well; indeed, Shelley wasRolph's best man at the latter's wedding in 1947.Shelley, whom Rolph regarded, but with someaffection, as something of a mountebank, fancied hisChurchill impersonation, although Rolph thought itcompared poorly with the real thing. But a commercialcompany wanted a recording of the "fight on the beaches"speech, and asked Shelley to do it. Churchill was consulted:"He wasn't much interested," Rolph recalled, "butsaid he would raise no objection."The problem was compounded by the fact thatthe BBC bought the Shelley spoof. Rolph was astoundedto hear it when Robin Day chose it for one of his DesertIsland Discs. "I heard that," Rolph wrote, "and I know itwas Norman Shelley's voice. His Churchill impersonationwas never quite as good as he thought it was, and I recognised(for the umpteenth time) the spots where he failed.""This is the true version about the Shelley-Churchill thing," Rolph wrote. "Not very important, Isuppose, but it could well go down as yet another boguslittle version unexposed."The story surfaced again in 2000 in a column byunrepentant Communist Alexander Cockburn, and TheObserver reported that Shelley's son had uncovered an actual78 rpm BBC recording. The recording bore a homemadelabel dated 7 September 1942, but this did not stop TheObserver. "Proof that some of Winston Churchill's mostfamous radio speeches of the war were delivered by a standinhas emerged with the discovery of a 78 rpm record...."Allen Packwood of the Churchill Archives Centrereplied that "there is simply nothing in our collections toprove it. But if Shelley recorded the speech on 7 September1942, as the record label says, why did he do it? Churchilloriginally delivered the speech over two years earlier, and didnot broadcast it (portions were read by a BBC announcer).Churchill did record the speech himself—at Chartwell afterthe war—and it was ultimately released by Decca Records....the time lag makes it clear that Shelley did not record thespeech to be broadcast when German invasion was imminent....Itis a huge leap to say, just because there is evidencehe recorded this Churchill speech in 1942, that he deliveredBBC broadcasts in the summer of 1940."Even this turned out to be the reddest of red herrings,as Mr. Packwood later related: "It now emerges thatthe [Shelley] recording is not the 'fight on the beaches'speech, but is concerned with events in North Africa in1942. I have tried, using Rhodes James's Complete Speeches,to match the text to an actual speech by Churchill, but havebeen unable to do so."Did Norman Shelley ever record the "fight on thebeaches" speech? In this issue (page 27) Stephen Bungaynotes that "Churchill was asked by the British Council laterin the war to make a recording for the U.S., and havingrather a lot on his plate, he suggested they use an actor instead.Shelley did the recording, Churchill heard it, wasmuch amused and gave his approval. Its subsequent fate isunknown, but there is no evidence of its having been used inBritain." Or anywhere else, as far as we can determine.C. H. Rolph was wrong in thinking that the storywas "not very important," because it has becomepart of the ugly tapestry of denigration ofChurchill, of which Irving was the first practitioner, hislead followed by others who also claim to be reputable historians.Some of this so-called "revisionism" is subtle,much of it less so, like the malicious and ludicrous exaggerationof his drinking, which ignores all the testimonyto the contrary by those who worked closely with him.Witnesses to the truth include a secretary who was withhim for 30 years; and Desmond Morton, whose associationwith Churchill went back to the First World War,during the inter-war years, and throughout the Second.Churchill was indeed fallible, and part of his fascinationfor historians and biographers lies in this very fact. Itwas true that he hated broadcasting, and, except on rareoccasions, was not very good at it. A great actor needs anaudience; sitting alone in a studio in front of a microphonedid not inspire him. But the fact is that he did it,and no one else did it for him. $FINEST HOUR 112/53
Page 1 and 2: 0mAUTUMN 2001 • NUMBER 112IBWhat
Page 3 and 4: "Our qualities and deeds must burn
Page 5 and 6: DATELINESQUOTATION OF THE SEASON"I
Page 7 and 8: We are thinking of you all in Hopki
Page 9 and 10: IMMORTAL WORDSnew barbarians. Unlik
Page 11 and 12: DATELINES"Churchill in a Yankees Ca
Page 13 and 14: Charles Granville Rob MCBERLIN, VER
Page 15 and 16: Institute, J. Willard Marriott, Lau
Page 17 and 18: RIDDLES,MYSTERIES,ENIGMASSend your
Page 19 and 20: OK,osmvof STATE !Sail ott f O Union
Page 21 and 22: eappear in compliance withclocks an
Page 23 and 24: Left: Sunday services aboard HMS Pr
Page 25 and 26: Second, Churchill managed to embody
Page 27 and 28: many Conservative MPs who would hav
Page 29 and 30: long continuity of our institutions
Page 31 and 32: holding down conquered countries wh
Page 33 and 34: 125-100-75-50 YEARS AGOWells wrote,
Page 35 and 36: stead he will "hedge and defer deci
Page 37 and 38: Reviewing plans for the invasion of
Page 39 and 40: eader thus moves with incredulity f
Page 41 and 42: EMINENT CHURCHILLIANSCnurcnill Cent
Page 43 and 44: tion of the State in almost every a
Page 45 and 46: Heritage Fund Sponsors ($100-199)MR
Page 47 and 48: CHURCHILL CENTER BOOKCLUB MEMBER DI
Page 49 and 50: INSIDE THE JOURNALSChurchill and th
Page 51: Recipes ixom No. 10:Creme Doria (Cu
Page 55 and 56: AMPERSANDA compendium of facts even

What kind of a People do they think we are? - Winston Churchill

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?