August 2, 2015

Finest Hour 167, Special Issue 2015

Page 08

By the Hon. Edwina Sandys

The National Churchill Museum of the United States on the campus of Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, held a Service of Remembrance for Winston Churchill on 24 January 2015. Churchill’s granddaughter Edwina delivered the following remarks.


Edwina Sandys and Duncan Sandys outside of The National Churchill Musem | Credit: Dak DillonEdwina Sandys and Duncan Sandys outside of The National Churchill Musem
Credit: Dak Dillon
My grandfather Winston Churchill died fifty years ago today. It was a long time ago—part of history. But history is never quite done and dusted. The seeds of the past keep sprouting out in new ways today.

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When the Berlin Wall came down twenty-five years ago we all sighed with relief; the Cold War was over. Since my grandfather’s famous iron curtain speech here in Fulton so many years before, history had come full circle.

Or so we thought.

People ask, “what would your grandfather say about the events of today in 2015?” Well, we cannot say what he would have said or done. He was a law unto himself.

But we can say that he knew his history and he knew his geography. He did not need to consult the map to name the countries of the Middle East or to find out where they were situated. Actually he situated quite a few of them himself.

But I am quite sure of one thing: he would have seen it all coming. In fact he did see it all coming a very long time ago and warned of the many coming problems. But, as with the build-up to World War II, no one was listening. When will we ever learn?

As Winston Churchill said, “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.”


Edwina Sandys is an artist who lives in New York City.

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