Wniston Churchill

[Keith Lane]

Remember this?

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

Gotta love that last line.

I just finished an audio book of about the friendship between Churchill and FDR and was looking around the web for a little stuff on Churchill, and found a pretty interesting site.

http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=393

Like him or not, he was certainly one of the great orators of the last few hundred years. It was kinda sad to see how the British electorate turned him out of office as soon as the war was over.

Just thought it was interesting. You may now resume your normally scheduled lives.

 

[woodstock]

I really admire him. Such a character. Have you ever visited the Cabinet War Rooms in London?

One funny anecdote about him I remember - when making a martini, instead of adding vermouth he merely turned in the direction of France and saluted. (you know, dry martini) hahaha

 

[AdamZ]

Yea he sure was a qoutable guy. Very on target with a lot of his assesments and statements a well. On of the funniest things I heard attributed to him was that a woman called him a drunk to which Churchill replied " Madam I am am indeed drunk but you are ugly and I shall be sober in the moringing but you shall still be ugly" That just cracked me up.

 

[Skip Miller]

Yea he sure was a qoutable guy.

George Bernard Shaw once sent two tickets to the opening night of one of his plays to Winston Churchill with the following note:
Bring a friend, if you have one.

Churchill wrote back, returning the two tickets and excused himself as he had a previous engagement. He also attached the following:
Please send me two tickets for the next night, if there is one.

-Skip

 

[NC Pilot]

Lady Nancy Astor: Winston, if you were my husband, I'd poison your tea.
Churchill: Nancy, if I were your husband, I'd drink it.

 

[jshawley]

If y'all ever get a chance, stop by Fulton, MO (KFTT), and visit Westminster College's Saint Mary the Virgin Aldermanbury Church and the Churchill Memorial and Museum...

http://www.westminster-mo.edu/explore/index.html

I've visited once, and ought to visit again before retiring and moving permanently down to Bolivar.

Jim

 

[gprellwitz]

He had nothing to hide.

The first wartime visit contributed much to the Churchillian folklore that has been preserved over the decades. One of the best and most often told stories is how Churchill appeared "stark naked and gleaming pink" before the president.32 Walter Thompson, Churchill's personal body guard, recalled that shortly after Churchill arrived at the White House, he went upstairs to his suite to unpack and bathe. While Churchill was splashing about in the tub and inspector Thompson was checking over the room, there was a knock at the door. Thompson opened the door and was surprised to find President Roosevelt in his wheelchair all alone. Thompson remembered the President looking "curiously beyond me, not with fright but with something very unlike approval." Thompson turned around to see Churchill standing in man's most natural state, smiling cordially, a drink in one hand, a cigar in the other. When Roosevelt tried to excuse himself, Churchill insisted that he come in. In Thompson's words, "the Prime Minister posed briefly and ludicrously before the President," then said, "you see, Mr. President, I have nothing to hide."33
32 Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948), pp. 442-443.

33 Walter Henry Thompson, Assignment Churchill (New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1955), p. 248.

 

[SkyHog]

I will go out on a limb and say he was the last respectable leader of Great Britain.

That is to say, he was the last leader that was capable of making decisions without watching to see what America would do first.

 

[ScottM]

Remember he was half American but all British.

 

[Ghery]

I really admire him. Such a character. Have you ever visited the Cabinet War Rooms in London?

Yes. Most interesting. Lot's of interesting things to see in London. I don't typically like cities, but I have a good time there.

 

[JasonCT]

Well read, a great speaker, and a Cigar Afficionado -- My kinda guy