Letters for the Ages Winston Churchill

Sir Winston S. Churchill (1874-1965) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on two occasions, from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Celebrated as one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century, he was also a gifted orator, statesman and historian. The author of more than 40 books, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953 and in 1963 was made an honorary citizen of the United States. Allen Packwood is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge and the Director of the Churchill Archives Centre. He has co-curated exhibitions at the Library of Congress and the Morgan Library and has written extensively on the life of Winston Churchill. James Drake is a serial entrepreneur, philanthropist, and Founder at Of Lost Time, an innovative literary unit which uncovers the hidden stories of the past through the power of personal correspondence. When James is not trawling through historical letters, he is seeking to improve the health and welfare of people impacted by head injuries through his Drake Foundation, and supporting the next generation of exceptional musicians through his Drake Calleja Trust.

Acknowledgements
Editorial Conventions
Preface by Lord (Michael) Dobbs

INTRODUCTION: THE CHURCHILL LETTERS by Allen Packwood

CHAPTER ONE: THE EARLY YEARS (1883–94)
‘I hope you will come and see me soon’
1: from Winston to his mother, Lady Randolph Churchill, 17 June 1883
‘My dear Oom’
2: from Winston to Mrs Everest, October 1884
‘You must be happy without me’
3: from Winston to Lady Randolph, 21 January 1885
‘I know that you are very busy indeed’
4: from Winston to his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, 5 April 1885
‘I feel as if I could cry at every thing’
5: from Winston to Mrs Everest, 1886
‘I can think of nothing else but the Jubilee’
6: from Winston to Lady Randolph, 11 June 1887
7: from the same, 12 June 1887
‘It is that thoughtlessness of yours which is your greatest enemy’
8: from Lady Randolph to her son, Winston, 12 June 1890
9: from Winston to Lady Randolph, 19 June 1890
‘Capital girl – good old hero – splendid villain’
10: from Winston to Lady Randolph, 19 September 1890
‘I will venture to further ventilate my grievances’
11: from Winston writing as ‘De Profundis’ to the editor of The Harrovian, November 1891
‘A mere social wastrel’
12: from Lady Randolph to Winston, 7 August 1893
13: from Lord Randolph to Winston, 9 August 1893
14: from Winston to Lady Randolph, 17 September 1893
‘Papa wrote me a long letter about the watch and seems to be very cross’
15: from Lord Randolph to Winston, 21 April 1894
16: from Winston to Lady Randolph, 24 April 1894
‘I had never realised how ill Papa had been’
17: from Winston to Lady Randolph, 2 November 1894

CHAPTER TWO: THOUGHTS AND ADVENTURES (1895–99)
‘It is a fine game to play – the game of politics’
1: from Winston to Lady Randolph, 16 August 1895
‘What an extraordinary people the Americans are’
2: from Winston to his brother, Jack Churchill, 15 November 1895
‘Burn this Jack without showing to anyone’
3: from Winston to the Reverend James Welldon, Headteacher at Harrow, 16 December 1896 (draft)
‘To beat my sword into a paper cutter’
4: from Winston to Lady Randolph, 23 December 1896
‘You cannot but feel ashamed of yourself’
5: from Lady Randolph to Winston, 26 February 1897
‘I am a Liberal in all but name’
6: from Winston to Lady Randolph, 6 April 1897
‘I have faith in my star’
7: from Winston to Lady Randolph, 5 September 1897
8: from the same, 19 September 1897
‘It is not so much a question of brains as of character & originality’
9: from Winston to Lady Randolph, 26 January 1898
10: from the same, 15 July 1898
‘We both know what is good – and we both like to have it’
11: from Winston to Lady Randolph, 28 January 1898
‘All this in 120 seconds’
12: from Winston to Colonel Sir Ian Hamilton, 16 September 1898
‘I do not consider that your Government was justified in holding me’
13: from Winston to Louis de Souza, 11 December 1899

CHAPTER THREE: PUTTING DOWN ROOTS (1900–1914)
‘My place is here’
1: from Winston to Pamela Plowden, 28 January 1900 (James Drake Collection)
‘I do not feel I would be breaking up our home’
2: from Lady Randolph to Winston, 26 May 1900
‘I hate the Tory party – their men, their words, & their methods’
3: from Winston to Hugh Cecil, 24 October 1903 (draft)
‘A frank & clear-eyed friendship’
4: from Winston to Clementine Hozier, 16 April 1908
5: from the same, 27 April 1908
‘I do not love & will never love any woman in the world but you’
6: from Winston to his wife Clementine, 10 November 1909
‘We are getting into v[ery] g[rea]t peril over Female Suffrage’
7: from Winston to Alexander Murray, 18 December 1911
‘The strict observance of the great traditions of the sea towards women & children reflects nothing but honour upon our civilization’
8: from Winston to Clementine, 18 April 1912
‘I will not fly any more’
9: from Winston to Clementine, 6 June 1914

CHAPTER FOUR: THE WORLD CRISIS (1914–18)
‘Everything trends towards catastrophe and collapse’
1: from Winston to Clementine, 28 July 1914
2: from the same, 31 July 1914
‘The caterpillar system would enable trenches to be crossed quite easily’
3: from Winston to Herbert Asquith, 5 January 1915
‘D-mn the Dardanelles! They’ll be our grave!’
4: from Admiral Fisher to Winston, 5 April 1915
5: from Winston to Admiral Fisher, 8 April 1915
‘The Dardanelles has run on like a Greek tragedy’
6: from Winston to Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, 1 June 1915
‘I am a spirit confident of my rights’
7: from Winston to Clementine, 17 July 1915
‘I have found happiness & content such as I have not known for many months’
8: from Winston to Clementine, 23 November 1915
9: from the same, 25 November 1915
‘The cruel politics of today’
10: from Winston to Clementine, 10 January 1916
11: from the same, 13 January 1916
‘The War is a terrible searcher of character’
12: from Clementine to Winston, 16 March 1916
13: from the same, 24 March 1916
‘The party of the future might be formed’
14: from Winston to Frederick (F. E.) Smith, 6 April 1916
15: from the same, 8 April 1916
‘Death seems as commonplace & as little alarming as the undertaker’
16: from Winston to Clementine, 23 February 1918

CHAPTER FIVE: THE EMERGING STATESMAN (1921–39)
‘These last weeks have been cruel’
1: from Winston to Lord Northcliffe, 1 July 1921
‘I cannot stir a yard to defend myself’
2: from Winston to J. C. Robertson, President of the Dundee Liberal Association, 27 October 1922
‘No more champagne is to be bought’
3: from Winston to Clementine, late summer 1926
‘A general strike is a challenge to the State, to the Constitution and to the nation’
4: from Winston to Sir James Hawkey, 16 November 1926
‘Most of … our lives are over now’
5: from Winston to Hugo Baring, 8 February 1931
‘Germany is now the greatest armed power in Europe’
6: from Winston to Clementine, 13 April 1935
‘Luckily I have plenty of things to do to keep me from chewing the cud too much’
7: from Winston to Clementine, 30 December 1935
'How melancholy that we have this helpless Baldwin and his valets in absolute possession of all power!'
8: from Winston to Clementine, 15–17 January 1936
‘A dozen bottles of sunshine’
9: from Winston to Lord Horne of Slamannan, 27 January 1936
‘This Spanish business cuts across my thoughts’
10: from Winston to Anthony Eden, 7 August 1936
‘The combination of public and private stresses is the hardest of all to endure’
11: from Winston to Stanley Baldwin, 5 December 1936
‘I thought y[ou]r remark singularly unkind, offensive, & untrue’
12: from Winston to his son, Randolph Churchill, 14 February 1938
‘I am in no way responsible for what has happened’
13: from Winston to Henry Page Croft, October or November 1938 (draft)
‘Can’t we get at it?’
14: from Winston to Neville Chamberlain, 30 August 1939 (draft)
15: from Winston to Sir Samuel Hoare, 8 October 1939
16: from Winston, to Lord Halifax, 1 November 1939

CHAPTER SIX: THE FINEST HOUR (1940–45)
‘I am under no illusions about what lies ahead’
1: from Winston to Neville Chamberlain, 10 May 1940
‘This honour was deserved by your successful execution of a most difficult task’
2: from Winston to Vice-Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, 17 June 1940
‘There is a danger of your being generally disliked’
3: from Clementine to Winston, 27 June 1940
‘Never surrendering or scuttling her Fleet’
4: from Winston to President Roosevelt, 31 August 1940
‘It’s a grand life, if we don’t weaken’
5: from Winston to Neville Chamberlain, 20 October 1940
‘Sail on, O Ship of State’
6: from President Roosevelt to Winston: 20 January 1941
‘Now or never. “A nation once again”’
7: from Winston to Éamon de Valera, 8 December 1941
‘Burn this letter when you have read it’
8: from Winston to President Roosevelt, 25 February 1942
‘I do not want the lion at the moment’
9: from Winston to the Duke of Devonshire, 13 February 1943
‘A man who has to play an effective part in taking, with the highest responsibility, grave and terrible decisions of war may need the refreshment of adventure’
10: from King George VI to Winston, 2 June 1944
11: from Winston to King George VI, 3 June 1944
‘Ever since 1907, I have in good times and bad times, been a sincere friend of France’
12: from Winston to General Charles de Gaulle, 16 June 1944
‘Thus two-thirds of our forces are being mis-employed for American convenience, and the other third is under American Command’
13: from Winston to Clementine, 17 August 1944
No more let us falter! From Malta to Yalta! Let nobody alter!
14: telegram from Winston to President Roosevelt, 1 January 1945
‘You may be sure I shall always endeavour to profit by your counsels’
15: from Clement Attlee to Winston, 19 January 1945
16: from Winston to Attlee, 20 January 1945 (draft)
17: from Winston to Attlee, 22 January 1945

CHAPTER SEVEN: AFTERMATH AND LEGACY (1945–64)
‘Here is the rock of safety’
1: from Winston to Ernest Bevin, 13 November 1945
‘It will be a great shock to the British nation to find themselves, all of a sudden, stripped of their Empire’
2: from Winston to Clement Attlee, 1 May 1946 (draft)
‘I revived the ancient and glorious conception of a United Europe’
3: from Winston to Léon Blum, 7 April 1948
‘Intervention by a great state in the internal affairs of a small one is always questionable’
4: from Winston to President Truman, 29 June 1949
5: from President Truman to Winston, 2 July 1949
‘For whoever wins there will be nothing but bitterness and strife’
6: from Winston to Clementine, 19 January 1950
‘I am writing to ask if you could consider giving me your kind services so that I may have some puppies by you’
7: from Rufus of Chartwell to Jennifer of Post Green, March 1955
‘To resign is not to retire’
8: from Winston to President Eisenhower, April 1955 (draft)
‘It will be an act of folly, on which our whole civilisation may founder’
9: from Winston to President Eisenhower, 22 November 1956 (draft)
‘Even a joke my in poor taste can be enjoyed’
10: from Francis Crick to Winston, 12 October 1961
‘I shall persevere’
11: from Winston to Clementine, 18 June 1963
‘I owe you what every Englishman, woman & child does – liberty itself’
12: from Mary Soames to her father, Winston, 8 June 1964

About the Editors
Index