|
|
Tom Brokaw's "Their Finest Hour" on NBC |
 |
 |
August 13, 2012
In their lead up to the Olympics on Saturday, 11 August, NBC ran a special "Their Finest Hour," reprising what heroes the British were during the Blitz (which they were). But a commentator and author named Jon Meacham used the following terms in describing Sir Winston: "Failed politician...Not trusted by the Royal Family" He also trotted out a supposed quote by FDR in which he said, "Well, I suppose he's the best man England has, even if he is drunk half of the time." Is there even one small modicum of truth in this, or is it just the standard bashing of a great historical figure by a news network? I was incensed
--J.S., New York
Editor's response:
I thought it was superb, and I am usually the worst critic of these productions. The only thing they had wrong was where Churchill heard about Pearl Harbor—and removing "and its Commonwealth" from the Finest Hour speech.
I wouldn't hold that against Jon Meacham (whose book, Franklin and Winston, is a standard work). Churchill was, in 1939, a "failed politician" by most yardsticks (see Robert Rhodes James's Churchill: A Study in Failure 1900-1939). The Royal Family didn't trust him. Roosevelt did think and say he was "drunk half the time." His private secretary John Colville, who came over from Chamberlain, wrote on May 13th 1940: "I spent the day in a bright blue new suit from the Fifty-Shilling Tailors, cheap and sensational looking, which I felt was appropriate to the new Government."
|
|
Last Updated on Sunday, 16 September 2012 22:15 |
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Churchill Proceedings |
|
|
May 2012
Last night I pulled Churchill Proceedings* 1988-1989 off the bookshelf and read the entire volume before the retiring for the evening. I don't recall ever having read Maurice Ashley's address, "The Churchill I Knew". To make up for it, I read it twice! I am going to have to re-read all of the Proceedings. I had forgotten how valuable they are to the "living history" that was so central to the International Churchill Society in those still-formative years. And to think that all of that "meeting and publishing" were done on shoestring budgets. It's unbelievable. What a great record...What great memories.
-Richard H. Knight, Nashville, Tennessee
*Churchill Proceedings are the speeches given at our annual International Churchill Conferences. You can find the Proceedings section of our website here.
|
|
Last Updated on Sunday, 03 June 2012 19:42 |
|
A Canadian Anglophile Comments on the Recent Riots in London |
|
|
By John Plumpton
August 14, 2011
As an Anglophile (much to the chagrin of my Scottish grandmother if she is looking down on me), I have been very concerned about recent events in Jolly Olde England.
As sad as the situation is, I am somewhat amused by the determination of the Mayor of London, (one Boris Johnson), and the Prime Minister (one David Cameron), and the Chancellor of the Exchequer (one George Osborne) to make people responsible and thus "pay" for their own behaviour, etc., etc., etc.
Unfortunately, the guilty miscreants might have some difficulty making the requisite payments. Unlike the aforesaid gentlemen, the citizens of Tottenham and elsewhere are not members of the Bullington Club.
What is the Bullington Club you ask? Founded in the late 18th century, it is an exclusive (by invitation only) group of "gentlemen" at Oxford University known for their wealth and 'destructive binges'.
Even the party boy, the Prince of Wales (future Edward VIII), had difficulty getting his parents permission to accept an invitation because of the reputation of the Club.
Visit the BBC News page for details on the London riots
A biographer of Boris Johnson writes about his membership in the Club in the 1980s: "I don't think an evening would have ended without a restaurant being trashed and being paid for in full, very often in cash. A night in the cells would be regarded as being par for a Buller man and so would debagging anyone who really attracted the irritation of the Buller men."
(debagging was the jolly act of taking down a man's pants in public.)
|
|
Last Updated on Wednesday, 12 September 2012 17:47 |
|
Read more...
|
|
|
|
|
|
