Read Online The Last Lion Box Set: Winston Spencer Churchill, 1874 - 1965 by William Manchester, Paul Reid - Free Book Online Page A

Britain ever had.” He never tried to hold back the teardrops because he never knew any inhibitions. In the middle of a 3:00 A.M . wartime conference at Chequers, the prime minister’s country home, his generals took a smoking break. One started playing “The Blue Danube” on a piano, and to their amazement their host, all alone, started waltzing dreamily around the floor. His feelings about his family were laced with sentimentality. His home was an independent kingdom, with its own laws, its own customs, even its own language. “Wow!” one of them would say in greeting another. When Churchill entered the front door he would cry: “Wow! Wow!” and his wife would call back an answering “Wow!” Then the children would rush into his arms and his eyes would mist over. Except when they lived at Chequers, their closest moments were at Chartwell. He tried never to miss a weekend there. It says much for his belief in privilege, and for his staff’s unquestioning acceptance of it, that No. 10 observed two distinct standards at Christmas, 1940. He was asked if the staff would have any time off. He said, “Yes, an hour for divine services.” Then they all applauded as he flourished his V sign and left to spend a working holiday with his family. 51
    The Churchill children were never spanked. The worst that could happen to them, according to Sarah, was banishment from his presence. Like many another great captain who has sent thousands of men to their deaths, he shrank from personal violence. This was most striking in his treatment of animals, even of insects. Since he detested fresh air—he had his bedroom windows sealed with putty—it was hard for bugs to get at him. But sometimes a bee, wasp, or moth flew in from another part of the house. “Don’t kill him,” he would tell his valet. “Make sure you put him out the window.” Once, during a division in the House, Anthony Head, the first man out of the chamber, spied a ladybug on the carpet. Realizing that a thunder of MP feet would soon pass this way, he bent down to rescue it. At that moment the prime minister arrived and instantly grasped the situation. Taking charge, he said, “Put her out the window.” But since the introduction of air conditioning the windows had been permanently locked. “Use the Chancellor’s office,” he said, “and report back to me.” Head did, but when he returned Churchill was in conference with the French foreign minister. The secretary told him he could look in for a moment. Head did and told Churchill: “She escaped. I let her out through Macmillan’s window. Nobody touched her.” “Good, good!” the prime minister boomed. To this day Head wonders what must have passed through the foreign minister’s mind. 52
    “Poor fox,” Churchill said brokenly when an MFH presented him with a mounted fox head. En route to Chartwell one night, his car ran over a badger. He ordered the car stopped, picked up the shattered animal, and carried the dead, bleeding body home in the lap of his striped pants. He would cry over the death of a swan or a cat; would leave the House chamber to telephone Chartwell, asking about the health of his goldfish. But his favorite pet was his little poodle Rufus. More accurately, there were two of them, Rufus I and Rufus II; the first was run down when a maid left him off his leash. (Churchill never spoke to her again.) Sometimes the Rufuses slept with him. After taking dictation—it might be 3:00 or 4:00 A.M .—his secretary would take the dog for his nightly walk. As Winston was about to drift off he would ask, “Did Rufus do his business?” and, assured that he had, would sleepily congratulate him. The poodle ate in the dining room with the rest of the family. A cloth was laid for him on the Persian carpet beside the head of the household, and no one else ate until the butler had served Rufus’s meal. One evening at Chequers the film was
Oliver Twist.
Rufus, as usual, had the best seat in the