Geoffrey Wheatcroft - Churchills Shadow: An Astonishing Life and a Dangerous Legacy

Geoffrey Wheatcroft is a journalist and author, who has been Literary Editor of the Spectator, Londoners Diary Editor of the Evening Standard, and a columnist for the Sunday Telegraph. He contributes regularly the Guardian, TLS, New York Times and the New York Review of Books, and his books include The Randlords, The Controversy of Zion, which won a American National Book Award, Le Tour, The Strange Death of Tory England, and Yo, Blair! He and his wife Sally Muir, the painter and designer, have two adult children and two ageing whippets. They live in Bath.

To the memory of my father, Stephen Wheatcroft, Sub-Lieutenant Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, Fleet Air Arm pilot in HMS Indomitable 194345;

and of his brother, Albert Wheatcroft, Flight Sergeant, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, 455 Squadron Coastal Command, killed 24 May 1943;

and of my mother, Joy Reed Wheatcroft, personnel manager, Hoover munitions factory 194345;

and of her brothers, Geoffrey Reed, Lieutenant Royal Engineers, Prisoner of War in North Africa, April 1941, and Robert Reed, Lance-Sergeant, Royal Artillery 7 Commando, Prisoner of War in Crete, May 1941;

and of my wifes father, Frank Muir, Aircraftman First Class, Royal Air Force 194045;

and of his wife, Polly McIrvine Muir, Wren, Womens Royal Volunteer Service 194345;

and of her sister, Sister Isabella IBVM, ambulance driver in London, 1940;

and of her brother, Brian McIrvine, Lieutenant, Seaforth Highlanders, Prisoner of War at St Valery, May 1940;

and of all who served in Churchills war.

Integrated illustrations

Drawing by Julie Pannett, National Portrait Gallery, London

Cant ye stand like men! Saturday Herald, 18 November 1899

Book cover of My African Journey, 1908

English Variety What will emerge from Churchills dance of the seven veils? The naked egotist, front page of the German satirical magazine Ulk, 28 November 1913

Winstons Bag by David Low, The Star, 21 January 1920, David Low/dmg media licensing

Our own Mussolini, Weekly Westminster, 16 March 1924

Nazi movement local version by Will Dyson, Daily Herald, 30 March 1933, Mirrorpix/Reach Licensing

The wood-carvings of MBongo MBongo: A Streuthsayer or Prophet of Doom?

Calling Mr. Churchill by Sidney George Strube, Daily Express, 6 July 1939, Mirrorpix/Reach Licensing

All behind you, Winston by David Low, Evening Standard, 14 May 1940, David Low/dmg media licensing

Japanese photo-montage

Westfront Hurricane, Mr. Churchill last night: We are ready to face it by Leslie Gilbert Illingworth, Daily Mail, 20 May 1940, Leslie Gilbert Illingworth/dmg media licensing

Himmel! Its that man again by Bert Thomas, Evening News, 13 November 1939, Bert Thomas/dmg media licensing

Drawing by Oscar Nemon, the Estate of Oscar Nemon

Two Churchills by David Low, Evening Standard, 31 July 1945, David Low/dmg media licensing

Fultons Finest Hour, American cartoon

A man goeth forth unto his work , cartoon in Punch, Punch Cartoon Library/TopFoto

Sketch by Graham Sutherland, National Portrait Gallery, London

A man in his time plays many parts by George Strube, Daily Express, 29 November 1953, Mirrorpix/Reach Licensing

Cartoon by John Minnion on book jacket of Iron Britannia by Anthony Barnett, Allison and Busby, 1982

Cartoon by Ben Heine, Ben Heine

Cartoon by Steve Bell, Guardian, 29 October 2006, Steve Bell

Go to it by Sidney George Strube, Daily Express, 8 June 1940, Sidney George Strube/dmg licensing

The images in the plate section are the following organisations and individuals:

Time Life Pictures/New York Times Paris Bureau Collection/National Archives/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images

Bettmann via Getty Images

Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images

Granger Historical Picture Archive/Alamy Stock Photo

Fremantle/Alamy Stock Photo

Alex Segre via Getty Images

Prisma Bildagentur/Universal Images Group via Getty Image

Andre Jenny/Alamy Stock Photo

courtesy of Sothebys

Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images

public domain (sourced via Reagan Presidential Library)

Tim Sloan/Staff via Getty Images

Stephen Simpson/Shutterstock

Bettmann via Getty Images

Allstar Picture Library Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo

Keystone/Stringer via Getty Images

Landmark Media/Alamy Stock Photo

PA Images/Alamy Stock Photo

PA Images/Alamy Stock Photo

Chris Jackson/Staff via Getty Images

MacConnal-Mason Gallery, London

Solo Syndicate

Isabel Infantes/AFP via Getty Images

The Times/News Licensing

Ingram Pinn/Financial Times.

Every effort has been made to trace and contact copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to correct any mistakes or omissions in future editions.

If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.

Winston Churchill, May 1940

Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.

George Orwell, Nineteen-Eighty-Four, 1949

The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.

Adolf Hitler, September 1939

A hush fell as he entered the chamber in a wheelchair and took his seat, not on the Treasury Bench where he had sat as prime minister at an exalted moment in his countrys history, but in another hallowed place below the gangway, from where he had once delivered his warnings about the threat from Adolf Hitler, and before that about the threat from Mohandas Gandhi. Sir Winston Churchill had sat in the House since the beginning of the century, but hadnt spoken for some years, was visibly frail, and may not have properly followed proceedings: by now more sacred talisman than elder statesman.

That day in the summer of 1963 was the one occasion when I ever saw Churchill plain and close at hand. I was a schoolboy absorbed by politics, and a friends father, a Labour Member of Parliament, had given me a pass to the gallery of the House of Commons. For all that he was aged and infirm, I was glad to have seen him for myself, and to have seen him where I did. This little place, Churchill had once said, is what makes the difference between us and Germany. He was talking to another MP as they left the darkened chamber late one night in 1917, but he might have used the same words still more truly in 1940: This little room is the shrine of the worlds liberties. He left Parliament at last the year after I saw him, and died only months later, in January 1965 aged ninety, as if the last drop of political lifeblood had been drained from him when the initials MP no longer stood after his name.