April 5, 2013

AROUND AND ABOUT: FINEST HOUR 154, SPRING 2012

==================

Churchill features twice in the popular British soap classic “Downton Abbey,” which boasts more plot twists than an Ian Fleming thriller. As World War I breaks out, Lord Grantham, Downton’s master, declares he will join his regiment: “Churchill went back to the front after the Gallipoli business, why shouldn’t I?” (Saner heads prevail.) In Season 2 is another Churchill reference, to the 1912 Marconi scandal (FH 153:35 footnote).The best lines are assigned to actress Maggie Smith, the redoubtable Dowager Countess. She shields her eyes from an electrified chandelier like a vampire exposed to sunlight; greets the arrival of a telephone “as if we are living in an H.G.Wells novel.” Shocked by floral arrangements, she exclaims: “These are more suitable for a communion—in, oh, some place like southern Italy.” For the top ten Maggie Moments, see here.

*****
On December 9th Sir Winston Churchill was named the greatest British gentleman in a poll of 4000 people. Runner-up was Sir David Attenborough, the natural history filmmaker.Television’s Stephen Fry was third, just ahead of Prince William.The next four slots went to Colin Firth (George VI in “The King’s Speech“), David Niven, Sir Roger Moore and Sir Michael Caine. Clothiers Austin Reed, who carried out the poll, said: “Sir Winston Churchill showed unprecedented courage and strength to lead this country and is a worthy choice as the greatest British gentleman.” Reed’s made Churchill’s famous siren suits during the war. WSC also handily beat off modern figures including David Beckham, Jenson Button and David Tennant, who “epitomise effortless style and have a
real flair for fashion—an essential trait for any gentleman.”

2024 International Churchill Conference

Join us for the 41st International Churchill Conference. London | October 2024
More

*****

“Between Christmas and the New Year, the 70th anniversary of an event which changed history passed almost unnoticed. On December 26, 1941, less than three weeks after Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor, Churchill addressed both branches of the U.S. Congress.The Prime Minister, who was in Washington to settle military strategy with Roosevelt, excoriated the Axis powers with the question: ‘What kind of a people do they think we are?’ It wasn’t his finest oratorical effort, but it was clever. As well as denouncing the forces of darkness and the enormity of their aggression, it was an invitation to Britons, suffering the horrors of war at home, to reflect on the challenge ahead. He was, in effect, asking fellow citizens: ‘Of what are we made?’

“Seven decades later, one wonders how the great man would view the kind of people we have become.What has happened to the freedoms and independence for which he urged us to fight? It’s hard to imagine our wartime chief- tain being anything other than dismayed by the erosion of sovereignty, capitulation to the ‘equalities industry’ and enslavement by debt.We have lost control of domestic borders, ceded legal primacy to Europe and allowed the Storm Troopers of political correctness to stamp their corrosive version of right and wrong on British law.”

—This opinion piece by Jeff Randall, in the Daily Telegraph, 30 January 2012 (the full text may be found here), drew 800 comments in the first twenty-four hours. Opinions, anyone?

A tribute, join us

#thinkchurchill

Subscribe

WANT MORE?

Get the Churchill Bulletin delivered to your inbox once a month.