May 9, 2013

AROUND AND ABOUT: FINEST HOUR 144, AUTUMN 2009

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Dennis Berman in the Wall Street Journal wrote: “As Churchill might put it, GMAC is a financial black hole stuffed into a governance black box.” Jonathan Hayes writes: “He couldn’t have stretched or twisted that one much more! Poor Sir Winston—the things said in his name.”

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From Earl Baker, heard on Philadelphia radio station: English composer William Walton was honored to be asked to provide music for the 1953 Coronation. After his piece was first heard in practice he wrote a friend: “The Royal Family seems to like it, and we hope He approves as well.” It was unclear to the friend whether the capitalized “He” was the Deity or Churchill.

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David Boler sent us this from David Niven’s autobiography, The Moon’s a Balloon. Niven and his first wife Primmie were frequently
invited to Ditchley by the Ronald Trees, whom they knew socially. The Trees also hosted Churchill when the moon was high and Chequers vulnerable to air attack. Niven met Churchill there several times, and on more than one occasion walked round the walled garden with the Prime Minister. Recalling an evening in 1941, Niven wrote:

“Churchill bade me take another walk….’Do you think, sir,’ I asked, ‘that the Americans will ever come into the war?’ He fixed me with that rather intimidating gaze and unloosed the famous jaw-jutting bulldog growl. ‘Mark my words—something cataclysmic will occur!’ Four weeks later the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

“Months later, when we were once more at Ditchley, I asked if the Prime Minister remembered what he had said so long ago. His reply gave me goose pimples.

“‘Certainly I remember.’
“‘What made you say it, sir?’
“‘Because, young man, I study history.'”

In “Action This Day” in Finest Hour 25, Summer 1972, editor Dal Newfield published another excerpt from The Moon’s a Balloon:
“Guy Gibson, the master bomber, spent a weekend with us just after he had been awarded the Victoria Cross for blowing up the Eder and Mohne dams. He was in a rare state of excitement because Winston Churchill had invited him to dinner at Ten Downing Street on the Monday. Guy made a date with us for luncheon at one o’clock on the following day so he could report everything the great man said. Primmie and I were at the Berkeley sharp at one. No Gibson. Two o’clock. No Gibson. We were just finishing our ersatz coffee around three o’clock when he came tottering in, looking ghastly.

“‘How was it?’ we asked.
“‘Marvelous! Fabulous!’ he croaked. ‘God! I’m tired. That was the best yet!’
“‘What did he say?’
“‘Who?’ said Gibson.
“‘Churchill,’ I said with a touch of asperity.
“Gibson looked stricken, then he clutched his head. 

 

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