Watched a film Young Winston on TV. It reminded me that when he was a youngster Winston Churchill's father (Lord Randolph Churchill) thought he was not clever enough to go to university, after being considered dim at Harrow School, let alone being able to sustain a career in politics. So it was thought he had better go into the army, and he took the entrance for Sandhurst - which he just scraped through at the third attempt. Turned out he was a late developer. He reached the peak of his powers at age 65. Maybe there's hope for me yet!
keep at it, you will get there son. :smile:. watching that clip with fry on the quantum thread, how cool would it be to be able to talk with that depth of knowledge on a subject. probably any subject he chose.
He didn't have it easy, that's probably one of the explanations what drove him. I read yrs ago about the time he was at Harrow, seriously I'll and in hospital at the school, his family had been notified. He later learned that his mother had visited a relative very comes to his school, bit never visited him, he was aware of her visit. Yet he worshiped her.
Cigars and booze is the answer. He used to drink a pint of Champagne for breakfast. The Gathering Storm is a fine film as well. Albert Finney's Churchill is a master class.
He was sat on the loo when his secretary came to tell him that the American ambassador needed to speak with him urgently. Churchill replied. "He`ll have to wait. I can only deal with one shit at a time."
Churchill had that way upper class people have of assuming others exist to serve them. Being surrounded by teams of secretaries and chauffeurs, cooks and butlers meant he was free to concentrate on more elevated concerns.
He also had a powerful sense of duty, tempered with a little self-doubt. Though maybe a sense of duty is easier to acquire when you don't have to worry about money or everyday banalities. And he was a Victorian.
Lady Astor: "If I were your wife I'd put poison in your coffee". Winston Churchill: "Nancy, if I were your husband I'd drink it".
One of Churchill's quotes that seems even more true today: “If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.”
"The Americans can always be relied upon to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all other possibilities."
Apparently after discovering him after one too many Brandies, a woman said, "Sir you are drunk" to which Churchill replied, "Madame, and you are ugly but I'll be sober in the morning." I also understand that when the allies and the Russians reached Berlin, he was all for turning on the reds while they were stretched out across Europe, and it was the Americans who vetoed the idea.
That's not strictly true about the money, from what I remember (read a couple of books on Churchill but of course have forgotten most of it). There were periods where he was living way above his means. He had times out of Parliament and was only earning some money from a few newspaper articles. I can't remember the stories about Chartwell, his home in Kent precisely, but I think it was bought for him, or at least friends had to give him money to keep him afloat. The thing about Churchill was that he was an eternal optimist, even if he could be prone to depression. I think he thought that if he applied himself, something would work out, so he did. Let's not forget he was also a Nobel laureate for literature. Apart from governing a country, doing some painting, he also wrote a huge amount. The energy of the guy was just astonishing.
The story usually involves the Lord Privy Seal, and is therefore a bit wittier: "Tell the Lord Privy Seal that I am sealed to my privy, and can only deal with one shit at a time."
