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

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