Short Notes on Winston Churchill

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From my California education I remember no history lessons on World War 2. If asked about it at graduation, I might have said: Hitler conquered France, and Europe; Japan bombed Pearl Harbor; America saved the day. I also knew Poland was involved, from a remark Woody Allen made in Annie Hall. Nothing about Winston Churchill. Yet, Paul Johnson asserts, in Churchill’s time no man did more to preserve freedom and democracy.

Johnson is certainly a Churchill apologist, more so even than Andrew Roberts, who wrote a much longer—but still, in a distinction that matters in this case, a “one-volume”—biography. (Johnson: Did Churchill personally save Britain? … Yes, no one else could have done it.) But I am not here to test Johnson’s arguments, only to toss out fun facts other ignoranti might enjoy.

1: Between the wars Churchill bought Chartwell, a country house, and

he built most of the cottage and a large proportion of the kitchen garden wall, having learned to lay bricks in a rough-and-ready manner.

The best part of the Churchill-as-bricklayer story:

He applied for membership in the bricklayers’ trade union, but was eventually turned down.

2: Churchill of course is famous for speeches that inspired a nation to fight. But did you know that, when giving them, he was sometimes high himself? In the 1920s,

Churchill often took several whiffs of pure oxygen to “lift” him before a bout of oratory.

Indeed, “he traveled with up to two canisters.”

3: In 1931 Churchill was hit by a car, and seriously injured. He’d been crossing Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and had looked the wrong way. In the hospital he wrote an article about the experience, saying

live dangerously, take things as they come. Fear naught, all will be well.

4: If Churchill wasn’t a warmonger, as his enemies claimed (Johnson argues he wasn’t), he was no pacifist either. Yet between the wars pacifism became a thing. In the 1930s the Oxford Union debated the resolution this House refuses in any circumstances to fight for King and Country, and the yeas won. Churchill said some nasty things about this at first; but then, in a calmer mood, “When it comes to the crunch those young men will fight just as their fathers did.” I’m not interested here in the politics, but in the language: when it comes to the crunch. Churchill invented the phrase. He also coined “punch above my weight.”

5: Churchill “had a propensity to collect unusual uniforms.” Throughout the war he also often wore his “rompers”:

I’d like to see an American President dress like that.

6: Great Churchill quotes are a dime a dozen, plenty of them biting and funny. Here are some:

* Churchill was a life-long anti-communist. But when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Churchill immediately allied with Stalin, saying:

If Hitler invaded Hell, at least I would ensure that in the House of Commons I made a favourable reference to the Devil.

* About Clement Attlee, Labor Party leader:

Yes, he is a modest man. But then he has so much to be modest about.

* In 1940 Britain was the lone power standing against Hitler. Then, when America and the Soviet Union entered the war, Britain become the junior partner in the alliance, and Churchill focused on influencing American policy and diplomacy through his friendship with FDR. This required knowing Roosevelt well, and knowing what might change his mind, and so

No lover ever studied every whim of his mistress as I did those of President Roosevelt.

* At war’s end Churchill’s party was voted out of power, and he therefore out of the Prime Minster’s office. His wife Clementine remarked that this might be a “blessing in disguse.” He replied

It appears to be very effectively disguised.

7: Johnson ends his book with five lessons we might take from Churchill’s life. Just before the list is a statistic:

How many bottles of champagne Churchill consumed [in his lifetime] is not recorded, but it may be close to twenty-thousand.

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See also: On Balance.