Churchill was not a guy who got down on himself

Charles Moore:

...

So strong was his sense of entitlement that he suffered from no serious self-questioning about any role that fell to him. In his memoirs, he says that his reaction to becoming prime minister in May 1940 was "a profound sense of relief". That is an extraordinary phrase to use about taking up the most difficult job ever performed by any Englishman, but it fits.

When Churchill was buried 40 years ago tomorrow, he received the only non-royal state funeral of the century. Big Ben was hushed. A gun in Hyde Park fired once a minute for 90 minutes – one for each year of his life. The Dockland cranes dipped in salute. Churchill's only instruction for his funeral was that there be "plenty of bands" (there were), but there can be no doubt that he would have been quite unembarrassed by the fuss. Nicholas Soames told me that, when a boy, he once entered the study at Chartwell and said to Churchill: "Grandpapa, is it true that you are the greatest man in the world?" "Yes, now bugger off."



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains