Winston Churchill: An Informal Study of Greatness

by Taylor, Robert Lewis

  Since the divorce, Oliver has refused to capitalize on his association with Britain’s foremost figure. England is no less keen than America about books and magazines of the stripe of I Shook Down the White House Furnace and My Three Years with Capone, but Oliver has turned a deaf ear to all such offers. It must be said in fairness that Churchill, on his side, has never produced a book about Oliver, although he has written volubly about others of his family whose popularity scarcely comes up to that of the comedian. Only recently Oliver declined to be interviewed by the highly rated British researchist, Ruth Phillips, who was helping collect notes for an American biography of Churchill. In a letter of explanation, Oliver said that he was very sorry not to be able to comply with her wishes as he had made it a strict personal rule never to speak about his ex-father-in-law. He went on to give this added poignancy by disclosing that he had been offered ten thousand dollars from an American publishing company to write five thousand words for a story about Churchill and had flatly refused this offer. He could not, he said, betray confidences of which he had happened to partake during his personal association with the Churchill family. Though separated from Oliver, Sarah has not separated herself from the theater. She has appeared in several plays and movies, both in England and America, and has lately become available by the week to American followers of the jangling new medium of video.

  Associates of Churchill say that he has issued a kind of papal bull to the effect that members of the family are not to discuss him for literary purposes. Captain Soames once wrote a biographer that “nearly every event in Mr. Churchill’s life has been made public, and all that we [Soames and his wife, Mary] could add would be purely private matters, which we would certainly not take it upon ourselves to do.” This prohibition even extends to Mrs. Churchill and their son Randolph. The wartime Prime Minister has let it be known emphatically that whatever writing about him is done for pecuniary gain he intends to do himself, if possible. Randolph has collected his father’s speeches but has thus far resisted any desire to write the definitive biography, as Churchill himself immortalized Lord Randolph.

  It is common knowledge in England that Churchill remains hopeful about his son, who, at forty-one, has not come up to the exhausting standards of accomplishment set by the brilliant parent. Randolph is an affable, prematurely gray man with an exceptional agility at club life and a capacity for continuous labor that his father might call indifferent. “Randy has inherited the old man’s gift for frequent celebration,” one of his fellow club members puts it. However, another feels that “A juxtaposition to Winston for so many years could be quite sapping to a chap’s energies, particularly without a decent allowance and all that sort of thing.” Churchill has never believed in setting his children up with financial recklessness. Diana once explained to a group at a country house that she was an inexpert equestrienne because she had “never been able to afford a thorough course of riding lessons.” Randolph has earned considerable money from journalistic efforts on general subjects and in 1940 won a seat in Parliament. (He lost a contest in the recent general election.) Churchill construed his son’s maiden address as lacking in force and gave him a mild tongue-lashing about it, crying, “Haven’t you learned yet that I put something more than whiskey into my speeches?” In the course of numberless conversations with Churchill, an English publisher has heard him mention Randolph only once. On that occasion, apropos of some remark or other about his son, Churchill said, “Oh, yes, he’s gone to New Zealand to fight a libel action. I rather think that he will lose it.”

  On the whole, Churchill has been very fortunate as a family man. The peccadilloes of offspring in the public eye are of course given heightened conspicuousness. In addition, it is unhappily true that the twigs often tend to bend in a direction opposite to that of the parent tree. Churchill’s children have been neither more saintly nor more damned than the average, and Randolph’s career is a source of inspiration when set against the colorful moneygrubbing of several political progeny in America. And, finally, in Mrs. Churchill the statesman has been blessed with a wife of perfect quality for a man of his temperament. Mrs. Churchill manages to perform the difficult task of providing a handsome and efficient backdrop for her husband’s career without effacing her own individuality. She is an intelligent, athletic, still beautiful woman whose political tastes, some feel, are not necessarily identical to Churchill’s at this point. Her excitement was only moderate when he returned to the Conservative Party. Her leaning is Liberal, but it is perhaps a clubwoman’s affection for charitable causes rather than any profound devotion to the ideals of strictly political liberalism. Indeed, a few newspapermen in London believe that Mrs. Churchill has only a cloudy grasp of what her energetic husband is up to professionally at any time, and that she is concerned principally with seeing that he gets his daily staple of roast beef. During the war, she occupied herself in campaigning for the Y.W.C.A. and serving as chairman of the Aid to Russia Appeal Fund, which drummed up medicine and other supplies for Moscow. Also, she founded and promoted into a successful enterprise the Fulmer Chase Maternity Home, a sizable establishment in Buckinghamshire whose resources were meant in the beginning for the pregnant wives of low-salaried junior officers. In connection with these activities, she scurried around with a bustle that matched her husband’s, dropping into canteens, inspecting, making talks at rallies, and keeping her eye on the smallest details of operation. She had a special preference for appearing suddenly in some kitchen or other and tasting everything. If a dish seemed out of joint, she never hesitated to say so.

  To Mrs. Churchill is imputed the admirable thrift that is characteristic of her Scottish countrymen. She has never been considered a lavish tipper; also, she believes in paying servants what they are worth. She plays a cautious, rather Hibernian game of croquet, strategically sound and skillful enough in its execution to inflict occasional defeats on Noel Coward, one of her frequent adversaries, whose game ranks among the best in England. Her tennis has always been in the expert class, and she acquits herself creditably, but not greedily, in sessions of six-pack bezique with Churchill, who likes to win. Mrs. Churchill speaks French flawlessly, and, with a wonderfully straight face, encourages her husband when he insists on conversing in that language. There has never been any doubt as to who is the leading spirit in the Churchill home. Notwithstanding the Y.W.C.A., the Maternity Home, and her other interests, Mrs. Churchill never allows anything to interfere with the progress of Winston Churchill the statesman. Persons are to be found in England who think, with some justification, that both she and Randolph are better extemporaneous speakers than the Premier. But she is his most faithful audience and is always to be found in the Ladies’ Gallery when he arises for a set address in the House of Commons. It is his custom to look up briefly before he starts, at which time she gives him a little wave and a smile of encouragement.

  In an age of increasing moral decay, when it is considered backward in a few circles to be steadfastly married, it is heartening to know that Churchill, in his backward way, has never as much as lifted an eyebrow at any woman besides his wife. He is undoubtedly the least flirtatious of history’s important men. The fact is that his anger over any kind of moral laxness borders on a complex. An anecdote from the days when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer has to do with Lady Houston’s going to him with a voluntary payment of a million and a half pounds as death duties on her husband’s estate. When she had written the check, she offered her cheek and said, “Now that I’ve done it don’t you think that I deserve a —”

  “A pat on the back?” cried Churchill with alarm, and giving her a masculine whack, he beat a hasty retreat.

  The Churchills seldom see each other before luncheon. “... my wife and I tried two or three times in the last forty years to have breakfast together, but it was so disagreeable we had to stop, or our marriage would have been wrecked,” he once wrote in a letter to an acquaintance. Nevertheless there has been an abundance of pleasant and even exhilarated famil
y life. Visitors present at gatherings of the clan just before the war tell of the three girls ragging Churchill with a sort of guessing game about his political opponents. “Who is it that’s tall and stringy, carries an umbrella and has an Adam’s apple like a turkey?” one of them would say, and the others would seek further clues in a mock-serious effort to identify Chamberlain: “Is he just a little dried up, or am I on the wrong track?” etc. Occasionally Churchill would complain that they were being disrespectful; later, at the radio in the library, as they all listened to a Chamberlain speech, he would keep up a rumbling chorus of criticism. “Ah, ha, another split infinitive!” he said at one point, and again, “That remark meant absolutely nothing at all.”

  Since the war, overnight guests at Chartwell have been few. Neither do the Churchills visit much in other houses. Once a year he went for a short stay with the King and Queen, but one of his admirers feels that he probably did this “chiefly in the interest of picking up copy for his works.” Churchill’s labors have increased in recent years. Luncheon and dinner guests at Chartwell are mostly members of his writing staff or persons connected in some other way with his publications. Walter Graebner, who has acted with great diplomacy as liaison man between Life magazine and Churchill since 1937, has seldom known Anthony Eden, for example, to stop overnight at Churchill’s farm home. When Graebner, who lives in London, makes one of his frequent business trips down to the estate, he drives back the same day, or night, a total distance of about fifty miles. Churchill’s staff say that he is fond of Graebner; not long ago, he gave him a handsome set of his books, expensively bound in red leather.

  Mrs. Churchill is much closer to her children than are most English mothers. Mollie Panter-Downes, the English correspondent, once commented, in an article on Mrs. Churchill for Collier’s, that “The children have always been her companions, even at an age when most English families at a corresponding social level keep them well apart in the nursery or the schoolroom. The hairdresser who used to do her hair for many years recollects that her room was pretty certain to be full of babies crawling between his legs as he got to work.” Churchill, who is not the most accommodating man in the world, sometimes puts himself out surprisingly for his daughters or his son. Once, several years ago, Diana unexpectedly found herself alone for the evening and felt very downcast. When her father asked what she would like to do, she brightened up in normal feminine style and said she’d greatly enjoy dropping into a night club. Churchill recoiled slightly; then, with the kind of fortitude that had made him a standout in debate and battle, he put on his evening clothes and took her into London. As might be expected, he saluted the occasion with full honors, dancing nearly every dance and staying until just before the place closed.

  Churchill is at his best at dinner, conversationally fluent, able to trace the large course of human events and capable, at the same time, of turning aside to explore topics of surprising obscurity. Just as, long ago at the French front, he entertained his officers with an erudite sermon on lice, he is posted on a bewildering variety of other small concerns. Churchill has adequate weapons for repelling competition at dinner. Being slightly deaf, he uses the blessed infirmity as one tunes a radio, weeding out the rot and admitting the infrequent gems. While bores have shouted in his ear with embarrassing clamor and found him immovable, a whisper from the other side about one of his books will engage his instant attention. For bumptious youngsters, Churchill leans on his special technique, which is very efficacious. He will listen to a sentence or two of immature babble, then bawl out, “How’s that? Speak up!” The talker is usually so rattled that he subsides. A mysterious fact is that, once in a long while, Churchill will sit huddled in apparent deep dejection, neither speaking nor replying. It is a Hamlet-like brooding, not brought on by alcohol but rather the result, a few think, of getting one of his intuitive glimpses of the probable future and mourning the human follies to come.

  After-dinner entertainment is apt to consist of television or movies. These are Churchill’s staples. With his wife he goes occasionally to the theater, but it is apparent that he prefers to sit down in his own house, with a glass at hand, and be amused without the fuss of dressing up. Also, he has never pretended to the dubious eminence of intellectualism. On the contrary, he has often described himself as merely a hard worker and a man with common sense rather than an exquisite brain. The theater’s affectations, its fopperies, its flimsy and continuous bleating about social inequality, have perhaps made him wary. He likes films of sprightly tone. He wants to be entertained and not instructed. His favorite theme still is the extolling of England; his favorite actor was the late Leslie Howard, whose death in an airplane accident Churchill publicly deplored. There was some talk that Howard, smoking a cigar, had been mistaken for the Prime Minister when climbing aboard the plane and that the Germans had marked the craft for destruction. Both Chartwell and the London house are equipped with television; the former has a comfortably heated projection room for movies in the basement, with seats for forty persons. Each week the newest releases are flown down from London, and on Sunday evening the best of these are shown as a regular ritual. The audience is made up of family, domestics, other employees, Churchill’s writing assistants, and dinner guests. A local projectionist comes in for the showing. Upstairs, the lord of the manor waits until everyone else is seated. Then, with his glass and his cigar, he makes an entrance, going down to an upholstered seat in the front. The servants rise, and even the others make a rustling gesture of courtesy. Marlborough at his peak, movieless, in an unheated castle, lacking even a small-screen television set, never lived half so well.

  Chapter 27

  PAINTING may no longer be considered wholly recreational with Churchill. His skill as an artist has reached the point where any word except “professional” would be an unjustified description of his success. In the beginning, however, he hoped only to develop a therapeutic hobby. At one time or another he had tried various outlets. It is not widely known that Churchill, in a period of political crisis, once bought a cheap violin and essayed to prepare himself for the concert stage. The fancy passed. Unlike bricklaying, the musical art was tougher than it looked. About all he got out of it was a witticism from Philip Snowden, a government opponent, who said, “I understand that Winston has taken up a new pastime — fiddling, and very appropriate, too.”

  When, in the First World War, Churchill blossomed out as Charles Morin, at a Parisian exhibit, his work did not go unnoticed. He sold one picture for $150, and a critic, in the inimitable fashion of the guild, wrote that “This man has fugue.” Morin is still trying to figure out what it means; he has asked several artist friends, members of the Royal Academy, but has got little or no satisfaction. As producing workmen, they are not privy to the secret profundities of artistic oracles. In any case, when one has fugue he may expect to retain it indefinitely, for Churchill’s painting has increased in stature through good days and thin.

  Sir John Lavery, the English artist who taught Churchill to take his first small but unhesitant steps, continued to look after the budding pupil. The two remained close friends in after years. Churchill enjoyed getting together with Lavery at somebody’s country house, where they painted each other’s portraits. “I think it appealed to Winnie’s sense of competition, and at the same time there was coming into existence quite a store of Lavery Churchills,” says an acquaintance of both men. Lord Charles Beresford, one of the clique that had repudiated the First Lord after Gallipoli, later came across Churchill and Sir John beneath some trees at Lady Paget’s house, engaged at their usual occupation of exchanging portraits. “Hello, Winston, when did you begin this game?” asked Beresford. Without turning his head, Churchill replied equably, “The day you kicked me out of the Admiralty, my lord.” “Ah, well,” said Beresford, “perhaps I may have saved a great master.” Along the line of competition, Churchill finally jockeyed Lavery into painting a landscape he had just done; then he entered both pictures anonymously in a contest. Churchi
ll’s was adjudged to be superior to that of Lavery, who, when he learned of this extraordinary decision, took it calmly. Churchill did not appear triumphant; neither did he seem downcast. He is sensibly able to absorb all possible tutelage without feeling overweeningly beholden to anybody.

  Soon after the First World War Churchill went on a holiday to Cannes, where several British statesmen were attending a conference with the French over German reparations. Painting at nearby Roquefort and Grasse, he encountered and worked with Sir William Orpen, a member of the Royal Academy, who had been named official artist to the conference. A few days later, Lord Curzon, who fancied himself as an art critic, saw Churchill walking along a street in Cannes carrying a canvas under his arm. “What’s that you’ve got there, Winston?” cried Curzon in a condescending tone.

  “Oh, just a picture,” said Churchill.

  “May I see it?”

  Churchill propped the picture up on the sidewalk and Curzon looked it over through a monocle. “Well,” he said at length, “the landscape part is passable, quite passable indeed, but I don’t much care for the figures in the foreground.”

  Churchill removed a cigar from his mouth and said with concern, “I’m really very sorry to hear that, for I got Orpen to paint them in for me.”

  He has always liked to watch good artists at work, and he has no hesitation in getting them on the job if the occasion warrants it. When, in France, he was visited by Paul Maze, Simon Lavy, and Vuillard Segonzac, three of the country’s best, he was delighted. “I have a rather large canvas under way here and I would be much obliged if you would help me finish it,” he told the visitors. Then he laid out the assignments, giving one man the trees, another the sky, and the third the water, according to the way he saw their gifts. Completing the picture, he asked them to sign their names, and had, as one of his friends says, “A collector’s item worth a great deal of money should any future Churchill find himself pinched for cash.”