April 29, 2013

Finest Hour 155, Summer 2012

Page 5

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Quotation of the Season

“Our Island no longer holds the same authority or power that did in the days of Queen Victoria.. (But) I regard it as the most direct mark of god’s favour (that our) Commonwealth has been linked and illuminated by a sparkling presence at its summit.

60 Years On: God Save the Queen

London, June 5th We may think of Churchill as an amiable or even reverent agnostic, who conceived of himself not as a pillar of the church but perhaps as a flying buttress. He did not invoke the Deity casually or cynically, a fact which confers its own interest upon his touching and heartfelt reply to the Queen’s letter following his retirement as prime minister (excerpt, right).

The monarchy signified for Churchill something of infinite value, at once numinous and luminous; and if you will allow the remark in parenthesis, ladies and gentlemen, do you not sometimes long for someone at the summit of our public life who can think and write at that level?
—David Dilks, FH 135

Waiting on Nessie

London, June 1st—The BBC aired an hour-long documentary, “A Jubilee Tribute to the Queen by the Prince of Wales,” comprising home movies never before seen, covering the lives of the Royal Family. Of note to FH readers are about three minutes with Sir Winston and Lady Churchill at Balmoral with Prince Charles commenting on Churchill’s greatness and impact.

Any depiction of Churchill would be lacking were it without humor and this documentary does not disappoint. It shows WSC sitting on the shore of a loch with a large piece of driftwood, raised high in hand. Prince Charles says that he remembers distinctly hearing Sir Winston say he was “waiting on the Loch Ness Monster.”

Viewing BBC TV rebroadcasts from the U.S. can only be done with a VPN network with a UK IP address, but a color still of Churchill with his Nessie club (along with many other evocative Royal photos from this show) can be seen on the accompanying web page: http://xrl.us/bm974w.
—Brent McIver, Phoenix

Key Phrase Index

New Hampshire, May 21st—FH 153:8 advised that the Churchill quotations book, Churchill By Himself, is being updated and corrected for a new edition called Churchill in His Own Words, with an e-book version as well.

The present index is good but not comprehensive. In order to help make finding quotes easier in the new volume, we replaced Appendix IV (“The Biblical Churchill”) with a new Key Phrase Index that will lead readers to the many familiar lines. There are over 400 entries from “Abdullah is in Transjordania where I put him” to “Zionism, my heart is full of sympathy for….”

Since the pagination will not change (we have found only one non-quote which had to be removed), the new Phrase Index can also be used by owners of Churchill By Himself. For a copy please email the editor. If, even with this, you still can’t find what you are looking for, send me a Tweet (@rmlangworth) or email (page 4).

“The Biblical Churchill” is not lost either. It has been posted in three parts on my website, starting at: http://xrl.us/bm55xk. —RML

Arthur Bray Honoured

Toronto, April 10th—Arthur Bray has long had an appreciation for Churchill, starting from the time he was in High School in the UK. His admiration was reinforced when he became a pilot during World War II. After the war ended, Arthur started to build a collection based on books given to him by his father, who felt the same about Sir Winston—a collection which has now become considerable. He has visited Chartwell and Bladon Churchyard on more than one occasion and it was on a visit to Chartwell that he met Lady Soames and had the good fortune to have tea with her.

In 1988, purchasing books to augment his collection, he found a shop specializing in Churchilliana. The owner put him on to the Society and he has been a member ever since. The first Finest Hour he received was #62.

A charter member of The Churchill Centre, Mr. Bray continues to hold Sir Winston the greatest man of the 20th century and supported ICS, Canada for almost a quarter of a century. In recognition of this achievement the ICSC Board of Directors was pleased to award him with a life membership.

WSC Goes Digital

New York, June 18th—Churchill’s body of published work will soon be fully digital. RosettaBooks, an e-book publisher, has agreed to publish nearly all of his writings, including his speeches, the first time most have been available digitally. Forty titles will be available by next year at £5-6 each, says RosettaBooks CEO Arthur Klebanoff.

The e-books will be available in English globally, a shift for the industry. Digital publishing makes it much easier now for a book to be offered worldwide.

“When we started, you could sell an e-book basically in the U.S. Now, we’re selling around the world,” Klebanoff said. About Churchill he added:

“There are only two American figures who have done something comparable: Theodore Roosevelt, who wrote fifty books; and Richard Nixon, who wrote ten. “It’s wildly unusual to have a world leader who is also a writer, especially when he was such an important figure for sixty years. And Churchill was an extraordinary writer. You could open one of his books at a random chapter and read it aloud and you’ll find it’s beautifully written. He didn’t just win the Nobel Prize for Literature, he won it for a good reason.”

Retailers of e-books that operate internationally include Amazon.com, which sells Kindles and Kindle apps in more than 175 countries. Kobo, a digital books retailer and device maker owned by Tokyo-based Rakuten, also operates globally, selling digital books in more than 190 countries.

Among the few Churchill titles previously available digitally was his six-volume memoir, The Second World War, which RosettaBooks published in 2001, paving the way for the new agreement. Other well-known Churchill works that will be available electronically as a result of this deal include the four-volume A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Marlborough and My Early Life.

Gordon Wise, senior agent at Curtis Brown Group in London, declined to discuss terms. In some digital rights publishing deals, publishers pay steep royalty rates of as much as 60 percent for sales in excess of 2500 copies and cover all related digital publishing costs.

Ronald Cohen and the editor helped steer RosettaBooks to the right editions containing the true texts as Churchill last signed off on them—not edited reprints. Churchill book dealer Mark Weber provided inexpensive copies for scanning. We cannot underestimate the importance of this step forward. Thanks to Gordon Wise at Curtis Brown who drove the effort.

Hitler,WSC Both Pranged

New York, April 2nd—Churchill’s near-death accident when he was hit by a car in New York City in 1931 is well known, not least through his own writing (“My New York Misadventure,” FH 136, Autumn 2007). Far less known is that Hitler was also nearly killed by a car the very same year in Munich. On what slender threads the fate of nations turns!

Ed Smith, in his book Luck, quotes the late baron and racehorse owner John Scott-Ellis, whose red Fiat almost mowed down the future Führer in the Bavarian capital: “For a few seconds, perhaps, I held the history of Europe in my rather clumsy hands….[Hitler] was only shaken up, but had I killed him, it would have changed the history of the world.”
—Simon Kennedy, S.F. Chronicle

We Can Still Learn

On 4 June 1940, Winston Churchill delivered a radio speech, as families all over England gathered around to listen. Within the speech were these words— perhaps his most famous:

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…

From Churchill, leaders can learn how to give others hope in a time of hardship or fear. Churchill gave the British a hopeful vision of surviving despite the odds, by appealing to their hearts. He evoked heroes and their values. And he spoke to people as if they were adults, capable of comprehending the dangers. Most of all, he used declarations about the future.

Leaders often don’t understand declarations, but using them in your communication is a powerful tool. Here’s what they sound like:

• They must be lofty but realistic.
• They must be delivered with confident words and body language.
• They must contain an emotional appeal that appeals to the spirit.
• They should include specific actions that lead to the desired outcome.
• They must be spoken by a leader with real and perceived authority.

Don’t feel daunted. After all, Churchill rose to the occasion despite having a speech impediment that led him to rehearse his speeches for hours. Like most things, powerful declarations require practice.
—Adapted from “The Power of Declarations: Winston Churchill and Leaders Today,” by Lyn Boyer provided by Business Management Daily.com (http://xrl.us/bmz638)

And He Sank the Titanic!

London, March 30th—Robert Strange, a British investigative journalist, in his book Who Sank The Titanic?, holds Churchill responsible for the century-old dis- aster, The Sun reports. (This makes a nice bookend with the old canard that he also sank the Lusitania.)

On 10 April 1912, the world’s largest pas- senger ship set out on her maiden voyage from Southampton, Cherbourg and Queenstown to New York. Four days later, Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in under three hours, killing 1514 people. Mr. Strange, who says he spent three years researching documents in the National Archives, levels chief blame on Churchill:

“As a newly-promoted government minister, Churchill had final responsibility for all marine safety when the Titanic was being planned, designed and built [but was] fatally distracted by a combination of burning political ambition, wounded pride and the pursuit of his future wife Clementine. I believe he bears a heavy burden of responsibility…. From the start, he seems to have washed his hands of the [BoT] Marine Division. Supervision of Titanic‘s construction was passed to Francis Carruthers, a poorly-trained and underpaid Board of Trade engineer who failed to spot flaws in the ship’s construction….

“By the time the Titanic was finally launched, Churchill had achieved his aim of promotion to Home Secretary and thereby escaped public examination about his role in the Titanic debacle. [But] the ship was first proposed, designed and had its keel laid down on his watch. It is inconceivable that the minister responsible for safety at sea would not have been fully briefed about the construction of what was to be the biggest ship afloat. And he was very aware of the lack of lifeboats. He had been warned again and again but failed to take action.”

Churchill was President of the Board of Trade from 12 April 1908 to18 February 1910. RMS Titanic, and her sister ship the RMS Olympic, were conceived in mid-1907 and the plans drawn in late 1907 and early 1908. It is therefore incorrect to say that Churchill was in charge when they were planned ordesigned.

Churchill was at the Board of Trade when the final plans were approved (July 1908) and the hulls laid down (December 1908, March 1909). But Titanic complied with all current Board of Trade regulations. Her lifeboat capacity (1178) actually exceeded the requirement (990). And if Francis Carruthers, the engineer assigned, “failed to spot flaws” in the ship’s construction, how was it possible for Churchill to spot them?

Earlier researchers have suggested weaknesses in Titanic‘s steel plates and rivets contributed to her rapid sinking. This begs the question of how her sister the Olympic managed an illustrious 24-year career, including troop transport during World War I, and several collisions, earning the nickname “Old Reliable,” with faulty rivets and plates.

True, Olympic was refitted with a double hull after the Titanic disaster. Yet oil tankers up to five times her tonnage and 100 feet or more longer remained single hulled until the Exxon Valdez episode in 1989. To blame Churchill for design defects reminds us of the author who criticized Churchill’s urgent despatch of tanks to North Africa in 1941 before they’d been fully tested. A reviewer commented: “The Prime Minister must also be a mechanic!”

What about the “burning ambition, wounded pride and pursuit of his future wife”? Churchill was offered the Board of Trade in April 1908, achieving Cabinet rank. While he lost the mandatory re-election for new ministers in Manchester in April, he won handily at Dundee in May. His “pursuit” of Clementine was nearing its successful end by July. These proud accomplishments were before the Titanic plans were submitted to the Board of Trade. Neither was it Churchill’s responsibility personally to review ship plans.

WSC saw his personal role, the official biography records, “as responsible for the direct defence of Free Trade,” and fostering “the commercial interests of our country, within the limits of state intervention.”* It is certainly true that he found those tasks more interesting than rivets and steel plate, which he quite properly assigned to underlings.

The charge that Churchill was warned and ignored the lifeboat question awaits our review of the book and the sources he offers for this conclusion.

*Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill vol. 2, Young Statesman 1901-1914 (London: 1967), 254.

Churchill-Nimoy Charity

Somerville, Mass., March 31st—Actor Leonard Nimoy and Sir Winston Churchill never met, but both were connected to a Boston-area children’s non-profit that has been doing work among immigrant families for more than a century.

The Elizabeth Peabody House (www.teph.org), which Nimoy attended and Churchill supported with a cash donation, is asking the public’s help in submitting the names of individuals who have done outstanding work among children and immigrant families in Greater Boston over the last year.

“We are looking to find the inspiring stories of four local champions of children and immigrant families, and give credit where credit’s due,” said Selvin L. Chambers, III, executive director. “Immigrant children have been the focus of our work for 115 years.”

Peabody House already has a “Winston Churchill Award” because on 10 March 1932, Churchill donated all proceeds from a speech delivered at Boston Symphony Hall to the organization. It is now presented by the business community to persons who have done outstanding work among children and immigrant families in Greater Boston.
—Somerville Journal :http://xrl.uc/bmz377)

What Next? Earplugs!

London, March 19th—The beeswax earplugs once worn by Winston Churchill during his famous afternoon naps were auctioned for charity, along with the original plaster casts of his ears.

WSC often said that regular naps were the only way he could cope. Andrew Bullock, head of Keys auction house, said: “It’s something that could be met with not great enthusiasm or totally the opposite. During the war years in the cabinet office or war office, there would be no end of bustle of activity so the earplugs would have been important to block out any extraneous noise. Churchill was a great person for napping and he said by having these short little naps he could actually work more hours in a day than if following the normal sleep cycle.”

News stories say Churchill actually coined the phrase “power nap,” which we doubt, but accurately quote him on his reasons for napping: “Nature has not intended mankind to work from eight in the morning until midnight without that refreshment of blessed oblivion which, even if it only lasts twenty minutes, is sufficient to renew all the vital forces.” —The Grand Alliance, (London: Cassell, 1948), 329.

The earplugs were sold by the Keys auction on 30 March, with a variety of other Churchill memorabilia. The orig- inal story by Metro News is at http://xrl.us/bmz4hk.

Erratum, FH 154

Alfred James (Australia) reminds us that all hands were not rescued when the sailing sloop Winston Churchill (page 11) sank on 28 December 1998: “Unfortunately, three of the crew, James Lawler, Michael Bannister and John Dean, drowned that day. That was a rough Sydney-to-Hobart Race: three others died, five boats sank, and only forty-four of 115 starters reached Hobart.”

Not His Plane

London, May 27th—The Daily Mail reports that “Churchill’s first pre-war seaplane is set to take to the skies in over 100 years….a replica of the Waterbird is being built and the builders want to make twelve tourist flights a year on Windermere in the Lake District. They just need to convince the government to lift a 10 mph speed limit on the lake.” (Waterbird needs to taxi at 30 mph.)

Winston Churchill, the Mail goes on, “even joined creator Edward Wakefield behind the controls when the [original] craft first took flight.”

Churchill did not pilot or fly in this airplane, nor did E.W. Wakefield, for whom it was built. Indeed, neither was even present when Waterbird first flew off the water in November 1911.

Wakefield (1862-1941) had ordered the craft, built by A. V. Roe to designs by American flier Glenn Curtiss. Early in 1912 he formed the Lakes Flying Company with hangars on the shore of Windermere. Waterbird made dozens of flights before being lost when a storm destroyed it in its hangar in 1912.

Waterbird’s early flights induced protests from nearby residents, including author Beatrix Potter, about the noise it made. We asked Dr. Lynsey Darby, archives assistant at the Churchill Archives Centre, whether Churchill, then just become First Lord of the Admiralty, might have interceded to allow its continued flying, but she found no evidence:

“I was asked to find a photograph of Churchill with an early seaplane. We do have one, in the family’s photograph albums which we hold here on loan. It shows him in the cockpit of a seaplane, but Martin Gilbert has dated the occasion to 1914. A search of the online catalogue of the Churchill Papers for the word ‘seaplane’ produces no hits from earlier than 1913.”
—Christopher H. Sterling

Not His Brandy

London, March 23rd—The Evening Standard describes ArArAt Armenian brandy, once reserved for Communist party elite, as “the brandy that Stalin served Churchill” in an article by consumer business editor Jonathan Prynn (http://xrl.us/bm9p22):

“The prime minister developed a taste for ArArAt brandy when it was served by Stalin at the Yalta conference in February 1945. After the Second World War, the Soviet leader arranged for Churchill to be sent 400 bottles every year.”

This seems highly doubtful, since there is no record in the Churchill Archives Centre of even one bottle of the brandy being sent to Churchill— although he did compliment Stalin on an Armenian brandy served at Yalta. Again we are indebted to archivist Lynsey Darby, who writes:

“I’ve looked at a number of files in the Churchill Papers, and at Cita Stelzer’s book, Dinner with Churchill, and it seems as though the evidence points towards Churchill enjoying a range of different (but always high-quality) brandies, not just Armenian cognac. There is one anecdote quoted in Mrs. Stelzer’s book about Churchill picking up a bottle of Armenian cognac during a dinner given by Stalin in 1942. Otherwise, the other brandies men tioned by name in the book are l’Hertier de Jean Fremicourt (which Anthony Montague-Browne says was Churchill’s preferred brandy in his later years) and Prunier (which Churchill served at the Potsdam Conference in 1945).

“In the Churchill Papers, frustratingly, the name of the brandy is often not given. In accounts from his wine merchants, the brandy is usually described simply as ‘fine old liqueur.'”

ArArAt brandy is produced by the Yerevan Company, whose Armine Ghazaryan queried us in February about their brand “Dvin,” asking for the origins of the Churchill story. Ms. Ghazaryan informs us that Dvin is a rare type of ArArAt. But we and the Archives Centre have found no record of either brandy being shipped to Churchill, at his request or Stalin’s.

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