reflections onhumanity – we glimpse not just the titanic figure but the
human being.
Reflecting on mankind in 1949, when he was seventy-four,
Churchill quoted Alexander Pope:
“A being darkly wise and rudely great
Created half to rise and half to fall
Great lord of everything, yet a prey to all
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled
the glory, jest and riddle of the world.”
These pictures of Churchill show us a man long since raised
into the pantheon of great men, but also a man whose
greatness rests on the fact that, despite all his faults and
failings, almost despite his very humanity, he achieved the
stature of one who will never fade and never be forgotten.
This book will, I hope, enable us to amble through the life
and character of this great man, enjoying him, analysing
him and, perhaps, forming our own personal views of
him – not just of the man of history but of the man within.
YOUTH
C
hurchill’s youth was a typical upper-class Victorian
one, and he attended boarding school from an early
age. A willful and often rebellious child, with parents
who were too busy to pay him the attention he craved,
he found succour in his beloved nurse, Mrs Everest,
whom he nicknamed ‘Womany’ or ‘Woomie’. Some
of his father’s letters suggest he believed his son would never amount to
much, and a short inspection of Churchill’s school reports might make one
wonder how anything could have come of this seemingly underperforming
boy. The punishment book from Harrow and letters from the headmaster
to Churchill’s mother, trying to recruit her help in getting her somewhat-
irregular son to attend classes, would seem to confirm this view, one
which – helped by Churchill himself – has since taken on the status of myth.
In fact, Churchill excelled at the subjects he enjoyed – English literature and
history – even if maths and classics puzzled and bored him. His astonishing
memory, his indefatigable energy and, above all, his unflagging belief in
the dictum that he gave in his speech to Harrow schoolboys in the Second
World War – “Never, never, never, never give in”– ensured that sooner or
later he would realise his full potential.
Lady Randolph Churchill and
young Winston, aged two, in
Ireland, 1876.
“My mother always seemed to me a fairy princess: a
radiant being possessed of limitless riches and power.”
“[A]s a child my nursemaid could never prevent me from taking
a walk in the park when I wanted to do so. And as a man, Adolf
Hitler certainly won’t.”
“A woman is as old as she
looks; a man is as old as
he feels; and a boy is as
old as he is treated.”
Winston in a sailor suit, 1881.
A young Churchill with his
younger brother, Jack, and a
friend, circa 1882.
“I shall believe I am to be
preserved for future things.”
A debonair Harrow schoolboy,
aged fourteen, 1889.
Opposite left: Though an
extraordinary wit, he never played
the clown on the world stage.
Sandhurst, May 1894.
Opposite right: Lady Randolph
Churchill, born Jeanette Jerome
in Brooklyn, New York, on 9
January 1854 and known as
Jennie. Pictured here with her
two sons, Winston (on the right),
aged thirteen, and Jack, seven.
After Lord Randolph’s death, she
married twice more. She died in
1921, aged sixty-seven.
“We are all worms. But I do
believe that I am a glow-worm.”
“My mother made the same brilliant impression upon
my childhood’s eye. She shone for me like an evening
