Winston S. Churchill - Thoughts and Adventures

T HOUGHTS AND A DVENTURES

T HOUGHTS AND A DVENTURES

Churchill Reflects on Spies, Cartoons,
Flying, and the Future

Winston S. Churchill

Edited by
James W. Muller
with
Paul H. Courtenay and Alana L. Barton

Copyright Estate of Winston S. Churchill, 2009. Editorial matter James W. Muller, 2009.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

Churchill, Winston, 18741965.

Thoughts and adventures / by Winston Churchill ; edited by James W. Muller with Paul H. Courtenay and Alana L. Barton. 1st American ed.Wilmington, Del. : ISI Books, c2009.

p. ; cm.
ISBN: 978-1-935191-46-9
ISBN (EPUB): 9780795349652
ISBN (Kindle): 9780795349669
Originally published: London : Thornton Butterworth, 1932.
Includes bibliographical references and index

1. Churchill, Winston, 18741965. 2. Great BritainPolitics and government19011936. 3. Great BritainHistory, Military20th century. 4. Prime ministersGreat BritainBiography. I. Muller, James W., 1953 II. Courtenay, Paul H. III. Barton, Alana L. IV. Title.

DA566.9.C5 A3 2009 2008943221

941.084/092dc22 0906

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for the illustrations used in this book:
Cover image: Sir David Low, Winston, published in the New Statesman (May 1, 1926) and reproduced by permission of Solo Syndication; frontispiece: The Rt. Hon. Winston S. Churchill, C.H., M.P., c. 1932, showing the view from the stone terrace at Lympne Castle in Kent, former home of the Archdeacon of Canterbury (this photograph served as frontispiece in the 1932 British and American first editions of Thoughts and Adventures, facing 3)for the painting on Churchills easel, which belongs to the National Trust studio collection at Chartwell, see David Coombs with Minnie Churchill, Sir Winston Churchills Life Through His Paintings (Delray Beach, FL: Levenger Press, 2003), 88 (reproduction as figure 156), 253 (catalogue description, C 282); p. ix: Sir Edward Marsh, sketch by V. R. (not identified), Churchill Archives Centre, The Papers of Clementine Ogilvy Spencer-Churchill, Baroness Spencer-Churchill of Chartwell, CSCT 5/2/15; p. xii: Winston and Clementine Churchill at Southport in 1910, published in the Strand Magazine, 81:486 (June 1931), 590; p. xiv: Churchill electioneering, BRDW 1/1/24, reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Ltd., London on behalf of The Broadwater Collection; p. xviii: Churchill in 1916 with the Grenadiers in France, BRDW 1/2/56, reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Ltd., London on behalf of The Broadwater Collection; p. xxiv: One of Churchills early flying lessons, BRDW 1/2/49, reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Ltd., London on behalf of The Broadwater Collection; p. 21: Sir John Tenniel, The American Civil War, published in Punch (early 1860s); p. 23: Percy Fearon (known as Poy), Imagine Being Caught Like This, published in the Evening News (1921), reproduced by permission of Solo Syndication; p. 25: Sir David Low, The Recruiting Parade, published in the Evening Standard (October 7, 1924), reproduced by permission of Solo Syndication; p. 27: Sir David Low, On the Spot, published in the Evening Standard (c. 1932), reproduced by permission of Solo Syndication; p. 28: Sidney Conrad Strube, The Little Man, published in the Daily Express (c. 1925), reproduced by permission of the Daily Express; pp. 2829: Percy Fearon (known as Poy), A Rare Fragment from the Medes and Persians Exhibition, published in the Evening News (January 1931), reproduced by permission of Solo Syndication; p. 29: Sidney Conrad Strube, Derby Fever, published in the Daily Express (1927), reproduced by permission of the Daily Express; p. 69: Sidney Street, published in NashsPall Mall, 72:371 (March 1924), 17, BRDW 1/1/50, reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Ltd., London on behalf of The Broadwater Collection; p. 81: The Kaiser explaining military maneuvers to Mr. Churchill, published in Cosmopolitan, 77:2 (August 1924), 91, Hearst Corporation; p. 96: A butler appeared, published in Cosmopolitan, 77:3 (September 1924), 77, Hearst Corporation; p. 160: maps, reproduced from first editions of Thoughts and Adventures. Every effort was made to obtain permission for all illustrations reproduced in this book.

Electronic edition published 2016 by RosettaBooks
Cover design by Alexia Garaventa
Cover image by Sir David Low, Winston, published in the New Statesman (May 1, 1926) and reproduced by permission of Solo Syndication
www.RosettaBooks.com

Winston Churchills friend F. E. Smith, the First Earl of Birkenhead, famously remarked that Mr. Churchill is easily satisfied with the best, but it was not so easy for him to afford it. He had little inherited property to support himself and his family. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, the second son of the Duke of Marlborough, had neither his fathers title nor his wealth to pass on to his son. When Lord Randolph died in 1895 in Winstons twenty-first year, it fell to the young man to provide for himself. As a cavalry subaltern, he discovered he could earn more by writing books and articles for the press than by his service to the Queen. Thus began his career as a writer, which lasted longer even than his career as a statesman. Churchill wrote a shelfful of books and hundreds of articles; he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953 for his historical and biographical works.

On his eightieth birthday in 1954, Churchill told Parliament, I have always earned my living by my pen and by my tongue. Because income from his writing was important and he had a close and prudent regard for his literary rights and royalties, many biographers have ascribed Churchills life in letters chiefly to a pecuniary motive. But one could hardly suppose that he composed his greatest worksThe World Crisis; his biography of his great ancestor, Marlborough: His Life and Times; and his account of his finest hour, The Second World Warsimply to keep the wolf from the door. It would be better to say that for Churchill, writing was a labor of love, which incidentally afforded him his livelihood.

Some of Churchills reputation as a writer for pay derives from his hundreds of short pieces for newspapers and magazines, which he frankly called potboilers. They were usually rehearsed during dinner at Chartwell, his country seat, where he liked to surround himself with stimulating company. He relied on knowledgeable friends for ideas: his scientific adviser, Oxford professor Frederick Lindemann, who wrote letters and papers that contributed to the articles, was a frequent guest. After dinner, working into the wee hours, Churchill composed aloud while indefatigable secretaries took dictation. Then he went to bed, and they stayed up even later to type his article so it could be printed in the morning. Churchills imperfect punctuation was polished by his former secretary Edward Marsh, who also did research to supplement his chiefs wide reading and capacious, but not flawless, memory. Occasionally, when Churchill had little expertise in a subject, articles were ghostwritten by talented Oxford graduate students.