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Articles
Classic Letters Bracket the Churchill Saga, 1883 to 1964
- By WILLIAM JOHN SHEPHERD
- | November 21, 2023
- Category: Books
James Drake and Allen Packwood, eds., Letters for the Ages: The Private and Personal Letters of Sir Winston Churchill. London: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2023, 256 pages, $26, Amazon $23.40, paperback $18, Kindle $9.99, audiobook $5.95.
This wonderfully organized volume contains one hundred of Churchill’s private letters. They span his life from an 1883 missive to his mother at age 8, to one of his last to his youngest daughter in 1964. These are expertly curated by Allen Packwood, the archivist of The Churchill Papers at Cambridge University, and James Drake, entrepreneur and aficionado of historical personal correspondence.
Lord Dobbs, author of House of Cards and four outstanding Churchill historical novels, contributes an impressive forward. Dobbs reflects on the profound affect Churchill had on his life, beginning as a teenager in 1965, observing his mother’s grief as they watched Churchill’s funeral. Dobbs believes these personal letters reveal the unvarnished thought of the authentic and complex Churchill. He was utterly devoid of the artifice of modern media manipulators.
Packwood and Drake compose the text in seven chapters dividing Churchill’s life into time periods of five to nineteen years. Each contains from nine to seventeen representative entries. Included are attractive facsimiles of key letters with contemporary photographs skillfully interspersed throughout the text.
An unsteady youth
Packwood and Drake see Churchill as an iconic and controversial figure. Long celebrated for warnings against fascism and communism, and his heroic wartime leadership, he has lately been criticized for alleged views on empire and race. Here is the eccentric figure with stock cigar, bowler hat, and V for Victory sign, instantly recognizable. Churchill is among the most widely quoted (or misquoted) humans who ever walked the earth. He had a deep understanding of the power of words. His writings supplemented his income and his epic political career.
With over fifty books and a Nobel Prize for Literature, he was an active participant and articulate observer of history. Letters for the Ages include family, friends and colleagues. In no way do the authors seek to encapsulate the official eight-volume Official Biography, or the twenty-three volumes of Churchill Documents.
The first chapter covers 1883-1894, with seventeen letters, mostly by Winston aged 8-19. Most were sent from school, especially Harrow, and generally to his parents. His father at least was neglectful. Winston’s letters reveal precocious boy unhappy with his somewhat isolated existence. Some are quite fun though. His excitement shines through his anticipation of seeing Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show or Queen Victoria’s 1887 Golden Jubilee. He displays a developing literary skill, and doodles that foreshadow the future artist.
The most notable or infamous is his father’s harshly critical letter of 9 August 1893. Unhappy with his school performance, Lord Randolph warns that his 18-year-old-son might become a “social wastrel” with a shabby unhappy & futile existence. There is a bitter irony here. That is more a description of Lord Randolph Churchill’s life, which ended after a debilitating illness eighteen months later.
Soldier to statesman
The second and third chapters comprise thirteen letters from 1895-1899 and nine letters from 1900-1914, respectively. They chronicle the young soldier and journalist, writing primarily to his mother, rising to early fame. Gradually he transitions to maverick politician, now writing mostly to his new wife Clementine. Letters from the field in Cuba, India, Sudan, and South Africa cover his first “Crowded Hour,” as Theodore Roosevelt would say. They show a contrasting mix of reformer and reactionary. Young Winston espoused his father’s “Tory Democracy,” emphasizing reforms benefitting the working classes. Abroad he favored Imperialism and non-intervention in Europe, protected by the powerful Royal Navy (48).
Letters to and fro show both son and mother as often living above their means even as Winston self-educated himself. Realizing his lack of higher education, he voraciously read history and Parliamentary debates. In the center of several battles, he assures his mother he has “faith in my star” (52). The famous charge at Omdurman was “the most dangerous 2 minutes I shall live to see” (64). “Shot at without result,” he enters Parliament and is shot at figurately. There he observes to Clemmie: “I am a solitary creature in the midst of crowds” (85).
The letters include his interesting observations about the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, and his fascination with war as First Lord of the Admiralty from 1911. The editors observe the tension between his faith in old values and interest in new technologies (89).
War and peace
The fourth and fifth chapters cover the First World War and its aftermath, with sixteen letters each. In the great war, the editors observe how much Churchill loved being in center of affairs during the world cataclysm of 1914-18. Just before war began, on 28 July 1914, he wrote to Clementine: “Everything tends toward catastrophe & collapse. I am interested, geared-up & happy. Is it not horrible to be built like that?” (95)
Scapegoated for the Gallipoli Disaster Churchill was sacked from Admiralty in 1915. He was soon serving in the trenches of Western Front. A letter of 23 November 1915 recounts a near-miraculous escape from death.
Churchill finished the war with a political comeback as Minister of Munitions. He went on to serve in the cabinets of both Liberal and Conservative prime ministers, David Lloyd George and Stanely Baldwin. As Chancellor of the Exchequer (1924-29) the editors state he faced down the 1926 Great Strike. There he coined a resolution that encapsulated his approach a greater battle to come: “In War: Resolution; In Defeat: Defiance; In Victory: Magnanimity; In Peace: Good Will.” He later used this as the theme of his monumental six volume memoir of the Secord World War.
“We shall go on to the end”
The 1930s were called his “Wilderness Years,” though they were anything but bleak for Churchill the writer. In Parliament, though, he vainly warned of the rise of Hitler. He wrote many letters to contact with family, friends, and colleagues, including Lloyd George and Anthony Eden.
The lasts two chapters cover the Second World War (seventeen letters) and Churchill’s last years (twelve). Wartime letters include President Franklin Roosevelt, King George V, Neville Chamberlain, Clement Attlee, and Charles de Gaule. Perhaps the most famous is that of 27 June 1940, under the most appalling wartime stress any modern leader has ever faced. Written by Clementine, it warns him to rein in gruff behavior and treat his subordinates kindlier.
The last letter is the most poignant, written 8 June 1964, from his youngest daughter, Mary Soames. Quite famous, it could not be left out: “I owe you what every Englishman, woman, and child does, liberty itself” (230).
Allen Packwood and James Drake are to be commended for a job well done, a very worthy COVID lock-down project and a fine addition to the Churchill Canon.
The author
William John Shepherd, archivist and historian, is a frequent contributor to The Churchill Project as well as several academic journals and popular magazines.