1999: Lady Soames at the home of Celia Sandys,€¦ · good times and in bad; it has been like a talisman— and will continue to be so. “I have of course been gripped by the first

1999: Lady Soames at the home of Celia Sandys,

Savernake Forest, Wiltshire, during a garden party

hosted by Celia for the Tenth Churchill Tour, 1999.

Chartwell, the hard winter of1980-81: all round theChurchill house the roads were

icy; snow was thick across the Wealdof Kent. The house was full of action,with a large film crew, actors, noise,equipment, lights, cables, slushturning to mud, as we worked on theeight-hour script of Southern Films’sThe Wilderness Years, in which I wasstriving, against the odds, to be the RtHon Winston Churchill.

Mary Soames suddenly arrived to see whatwas happening in the house where she grew up,laying bricks with her father, loving himabsolutely. We met among the chaos and cables inthe hall, between Churchill’s painting of flowers ina silver vase and the stand of his canes and sticks.She looked bewildered, regarded me and said:“The suit is about right—goodness, what a mess!” I asked if she would like to come to my trailerin the snow on the lawn and ease her shock with a

whisky. Once inside she examined me moreclosely: “That bow tie arrangement is very good.Papa seldom got it really neat.” Suddenly she tookmy hand, gazed at the ring I wore and said,“What’s that? Where did you get it?” I took the ring from the third finger of myright hand, where Churchill wore his, and gave itto her. I explained that I had this copy made byGarrards, who told me they knew all about theChurchill ring. I think they had made the original,certainly repaired it. On the almost square bezelthe Spencer and Churchill crests were cut deep. Mary was astonished: “Oh my goodness, weused to tease Papa, as children—slip it off hisfinger while he snoozed and hide it. He wouldfeign rage, in the end find it, and play ‘Bear’ withus under the table.” After her visit I sent her a telegram: “A brightgleam has caught the hopes of our enterprise, andwarmed and cheered all our hearts.” From then onwe kept in touch, and when the filming finished,realising I could no longer wear the ring, I won-dered if I dared, and finally did dare, to offer it toMary. I told her I would leave it at Garrards, whereif she cared to have it she might go one day andcollect it for herself. Not really expecting a response,in two days I got a wondrous letter from her, fromwhich I quote:

“16th September 1981 “My dear Mr Hardy [a touching mixture of for-mality and friendliness]: I called upon Mr Argles atGarrards last Friday and—do you know—the ringfits my (rather large) finger perfectly—so I hope Idid right. I wore it away from the shop and it hasnot left my finger (3rd right hand) since. >>

FINEST HOUR 164 / 3

We Will Treasure Her All Our Days

ROBERT HARDY

________________________________________________________________________________________________Timothy Sydney Robert Hardy CBE, for thirty years an Honorary Member of The Churchill Centre and Societies, is broadlyacknowledged as the most accomplished actor ever to play the role of Winston Churchill, beginning with The WildernessYears (1981), for which he received a BAFTA award. He has frequently participated in conferences and events, makingnotable addresses at the Reform Club during the Second Churchill Tour in 1985 and at the 1992 Churchill Conference inSan Francisco. We last honored him (Finest Hour 148: 9) on his 85th birthday in 2010. His presence among us honors usmuch more. RML • PHOTOGRAPH AND ARTWORK BY WOOTTON VILLAGE TALKS WWW.WOOTTONTALKS.CO.UK

“I find it very difficult to thank you at all adequatelyfor a really heartwarming thought. I am deeplymoved. In these rather difficult days for us it hasgiven me courage to wear the replica of the ring mybeloved father wore for all the years I knew him, ingood times and in bad; it has been like a talisman—and will continue to be so. “I have of course been gripped by the first twoepisodes of The Wilderness Years and I think it is verygood. It is such a relief to feel one is watching some-thing which strives at every turn to be near the truth.”

What she in her kindness said of my ownattempt made me feel I was forgiven for all pre-sumptions. She continued:

“It is of course very hard for the generations whoknew them all, and hardest for those who knew themwell, to be detached....But I say to people, these arenot reflections in a glass, these are images and howtrue and real the imagery is should be the test. So farI find it wonderfully interpreted, and I can see howyou have studied him and got inside him. I was ter-ribly tensed up before the first episode, and now Ilook forward with a confident interest to the nextones....my sister Sarah with whom I compare notesshares my views. Thank you with all my heart foryour wonderful gift which will be a constantly wornand treasured possession to me all my days.”

From that time on I have so many memoriesof times spent with this great lady: aristo-cratic, straightforward, generous, open-

hearted, gentle, able to be sharp—I have been toldon occasions “don’t be so silly!”—humorous, witty,poised, loyal, with an extraordinary ability to getpeople to meet others with whom she thought theywould become friends. I felt her courage very soon after the death ofChristopher, her husband, in 1987. I was drivingher round Hyde Park Corner, and asked if she feltup to all that was on her plate that day. “Yes, if Iconcentrate on what I have to do, and on other

people, all is pretty well, but you’re right, it’s mis-erable.” We flew together to the 1990 ChurchillConference in San Francisco. At Heathrow wesplashed out and bought expensive caviar for thejourney; at the gate, after one look at Mary, theyupgraded us to first class. The fun and conversa-tion only ceased when Mary’s eyes closed and sleepcame, as it did often in restaurants, increasingly asthe years passed, withdrawals abruptly ended whenMary rejoined the conversation as if she hadmissed no part of it. Many times we would be together with CeliaSandys, her niece, and their family at their housein the depths of Savernake Forest. Celia is a truefriend and her youngest son Alexander is mygodson. There were dog walks there and inLondon, visits to exhibitions…at one, as I arrived,she held out her arms and said “Papa!” I remember her seventieth birthday party whereher son Nicholas gave the best family tribute Ihave ever heard, and the wittiest; and my eightiethbirthday party nine years ago, where her cigarsastonished a few. There was a weekend in Yorkshire with thePeels, her son-in-law and her daughter Charlotte:Mary said to me, “Let’s go for a walk”; soon shestopped and said: “I want to tell you a secret, avery exciting secret. The Queen has given me theOrder of the Garter, just like Papa. Isn’t that won-derful? I’m so excited!” I asked if she was now a Knight of the Garter, aKG: “Goodness I don’t know, I simply must findout!” Her son-in-law knew: she would be a Ladyof the Garter, an LG. I was honoured beyondmeasure she had told me, and the awe I alwaysheld her in deepened. Now she has left us. She and her Papa used tohave quite emulous cigar competitions, to seewhose ash could be kept unbroken longest. I havehad a feeling that when her ash truly outlasted hisshe would slip away to join those she loved andmissed. I wish she had not decided to go, but it iswhat she needed. We who are left will treasure herall our days. ,

FINEST HOUR 164 / 4

ROBERT HARDY...

Her Father, 32

Her Story, 7

FINEST HOUR®

SPECIAL EDITION • NUMBER 164 • SEPTEMBER 2014

cover

Lady of the Garter, 2006,from a photograph byElizabeth Vickers on thecover of Finest Hour 129,Winter 2005-06. Designby Charlotte Thibault.

3 We Will Treasure Her All Our Days • Robert Hardy6 Foreword: What We Have Lost • Laurence Geller

7 Mary Soames: Her Story • David Reynolds32 Churchill Proceedings: “Let Us Command the Moment to Remain”:

Winston Churchill as Father and Family Man • Mary Soames36 A Friend Who Was Here • Richard M. Langworth

the lady soaMes lg dBe 1922-2014

living history

reMeMBrances

14 My Dear Mama • Emma Soames15 Without Reserve: Lady Soames and the Royal National Theatre • Richard Eyre

16 The End of an Era • Celia Sandys18 Her Ladyship: A Bookman’s Memoir • Barry Singer19 She Created Her Own Sunshine • Minnie Churchill

10 HMS Renown, 1943 • Vic Humphries11 Potsdam, 1945-2006 • Judith Kambestad

13 Copenhagen, 2000 • Niels Bjerre

Her Family, 14

Her Friends, 26, 36

FINEST HOUR 164 / 5

Books, arts & accoMplishMents

20 Wife and Family: Clementine Churchill,Family Album • Christopher H. Sterling

21 A Journey Worth the Taking: The Profligate Duke • Richard M. Langworth

22 Lady Soames Takes on the Brush: Winston Churchill: His Life as a Painter• Merry N. Alberigi

23 Highly Professional Skills, GracefullyWorn: Speaking for Themselves: The Personal Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill • Paul Addison

24 Thriving in the Shade: A Daughter’s Tale:The Memoir of Winston Churchill’sYoungest Child • John G. Plumpton

Messages froM friends

26 Larry Arnn, James Balfour, Barbara Higgins, Andrew Roberts, Daniel Artagaveytia,Cyril Mazansky, John Plumpton, Fred Sheehan, Katherine Barnett, David Freeman,

Neville Bullock, The Scotsman, Barbara Langworth, Zoë Colbeck, Carol Breckenridge, Raymond Callahan, Allen Packwood, Paul Courtenay, Bill Ives, Phil & Sue Larson,

R. Emmett Tyrell, Paul Addison, Jacqueline, Olivia & Charlotte Dean Witter, Douglas Russell,Judith Kambestad, Richard Knight, Jonah Triebwasser, Christopher Hebb,

James W. Muller, Bartlett Cocke, Jr., David Boler, A. Wendell Musser, Randy Barber

THE CHURCHIll CENTRE • www.wINSTONCHURCHIll.ORg

The Churchill Centre was founded in 1968 to inspire leadership, statesmanship, vision and courage through thethoughts, words, works and deeds of Winston Spencer Churchill. Global membership numbers over 2500, including

affiliated societies in many nations. (A complete listing is on our website.) The Churchill Centre is devoted to scholarship and welcomes both critics and admirers. Its academic advisers and editorial board include leading writerson Churchill’s life and times. The Centre publishes the quarterly Finest Hour and a monthly e-newsletter, the Chartwell

Bulletin; sponsors international and national conferences; and answers research queries from students and scholarsworldwide, guiding them to sources they need in their quest for knowledge of Winston Churchill’s life and times.

For the first time in its history FinestHour has broken its regular scheduleto produce a special edition in

memory of Lady Soames, our Patronfrom 1983 until May 31st last.

It is hard for me to put intowords the sense of generational losswe all feel. As I watched the so-recent images of those remainingveterans who made it back toNormandy on the 70th anniversaryof Operation Overlord, I was sad-dened to reflect that they will soon havepassed too, and the live and vivid memo-

ries of those tumultuous and terrible timeswill have gone with them. Mary Soames’s passing less than a fortnight

before that anniversary is also a cause for grief, despite theknowledge of an amazing life, so well and fully lived. All who have had theprivilege of knowing her share the pain of her loss and the loss of all she repre-sented so well. Over the past decade and a half I had the immense pleasure ofspending increasing amounts of time with her, and always enjoyed and learnedfrom her company. Mary was the most amazing link with history. We are blessed that her sixthand final book, A Daughter’s Tale, published so presciently, paints a vivid andpersonal picture of those times which no historian could match. So fewtenuous links to Sir Winston now remain. It is very worrying and thus itremains vital for Churchillians “to keep the memory green and the recordaccurate,” as she put it, objectively and without hagiography. It is very clear to me that we at The Churchill Centre and as Churchilliansmust work increasingly hard to ensure that his life, times and legacy remainwell known, despite the loss of such strong links as Mary Soames. As I readthe newspapers and watch the onslaught of information from around theworld, it is equally clear to me that the lessons learned from Churchill areincredibly important and it is our duty to find ways and means of translatingthem into daily relevance, ensuring that leadership everywhere will at leasthave the opportunity to learn the lessons he taught us, the good to be gainedfrom knowing of his experiences. Lady Soames will be missed not only by her family, not only by all whoremember her, but by all who knew of her as her parents’ much-loveddaughter. Her life will be admired, respected, celebrated and never forgotten. Ishall miss my friend, and shall do everything I can always to ensure that hermemory is fresh, vibrant and much feted—as indeed she was. ,

Produced by Dragonwyck Publishing Inc.

Special Edition • September 2014

Number 164 • ISSN 0882-3715

www.winstonchurchill.org____________________________

Barbara F. Langworth, Publisher

[email protected]

Richard M. Langworth, Editor

[email protected]

Post Office Box 740

Moultonborough, NH 03254 USA

Tel. (603) 253-8900

__________________________

Editorial Board

Paul H. Courtenay, David Dilks,

David Freeman, Sir Martin Gilbert,

Edward Hutchinson, Warren F. Kimball,

Richard M. Langworth, Michael McMenamin,

James W. Muller, Allen Packwood,

Terry Reardon, Suzanne Sigman,

Manfred Weidhorn

Associate Editor

David Freeman

Senior Editors

Paul H. Courtenay, Warren F. Kimball,

James W. Muller, John G. Plumpton

Design Director

Charlotte Thibault

Contributors

Alfred James, Australia

Terry Reardon, Dana Cook,

Gordon Walker, Canada

Mike Groves, New Zealand

Antoine Capet, France

Paul Addison, David Dilks, Martin Gilbert,

Allen Packwood, United Kingdom

Erica L. Chenoweth, Fred Glueckstein,

Ted Hutchinson, Justin Lyons,

Michael McMenamin, Robert Pilpel,

Christopher Sterling, Suzanne Sigman,

Manfred Weidhorn, USA

______________________________Address changes: Please advise membership

offices: USA, inside back cover; worldwide

affiliates, back cover of the previous issue #163.

________________________________

Finest Hour is made possible in part through the

generous support of members of The Churchill

Centre and an endowment provided by the

Churchill Centre Associates.________________________________

Published quarterly by The Churchill Centre

with subscriptions from offices on inside front

and back covers. Permission to mail at nonprofit

rates in USA granted by the United States Postal

Service, Concord, NH, permit no. 1524.

Copyright 2014. All rights reserved.

FINEST HOUR

® What We Have Lost

FINEST HOUR 164 / 6

1989: Fourth

Churchill Tour

F O R E WO R D

LAURENCE GELLER

_________________________________________________________Mr. Geller is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Churchill Centre.

month that her fatherbought Chartwell, hisbeloved country houseon the edge of theKentish Weald. Shewas by far the mostjunior of the survivingChurchill children(the infant Marigoldhaving died in1921)—eight yearsyounger than Sarah,the next oldest. Shewas therefore broughtup almost as an onlychild.

Her older sib-lings, Diana,Randolph and Sarah,had known a succes-sion of homes, butMary’s formativeyears were spententirely at Chartwell.There she revelled incountry life, particu-larly horses, anddeveloped a lifelonglove of gardening.And, whereas herbrother and sistershad suffered a series

of governesses, she was raised largely by Clementine’syoung cousin, Maryott Whyte, who joined theChurchill household as a nanny at Mary’s birth andstayed for over twenty years. “Nana” became the centreof Mary’s youth and the nurturer of her lifelongChristian faith. Relations with her parents were at this stage admiringrather than intimate. If Clementine made a suggestion,Mary’s instinctive reaction was: “I must ask Nana.” Butin the winter of 1935-36, conscious of the distance >>

FINEST HOUR 164 / 7

Mary Soames was the last surviving child ofWinston and Clementine Churchill, and theonly one of their five children who really came

to terms with bearing that distinguished family name.She enjoyed a fulfilled life as daughter, wife and motherbefore blossoming into an accomplished writer. Sheinherited her father’s energy and determination, whilealso displaying her mother’s charm and poise. But theempathy, ebullience and sense of fun were all her own. Mary was born on 15 September 1922, the same

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Dr. Reynolds is the author of the seminal work, In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War (2007) and is Professor of

International History and a Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge. This text is slightly amended from an obituary first published in The Guardian on 2 June 2014.

Mary Soames: Her Story

DAVID REYNOLDS

FINEST HOUR 164 / 8

for the final summit of World War II with PresidentTruman and Marshal Stalin. On 25 July, during a break in the conference, fatherand daughter flew back to London for the results of thegeneral election. The Conservative Central Officeremained confident of victory; Mary even left half herluggage behind at Potsdam. But the election proved aLabour landslide and for a while, Winston andClementine were close to a nervous collapse as theystruggled to construct a new life in the vacuum followingthe fall from power—the sudden absence of red boxes, ofthe sense of urgency and purpose. Mary, demobbed inApril 1946, was particularly helpful to her mother as theyreopened Chartwell and set up a new home in London. Her personal life blossomed. After a whirlwindromance, she and Christopher Soames (later BaronSoames), a Coldstream Guards officer, were married inFebruary 1947 in St. Margaret’s, Westminster, the samechurch as her parents thirty-nine years before.Clementine took some persuading—she had talked Maryout of a rash engagement in 1941. But on their honey-moon Christopher was taken ill with a duodenal ulcer,whereupon Clementine proposed that he retire from theArmy, live in the farmhouse down the hill fromChartwell, and take over running the estate. So Maryreturned to her Kentish roots, this time with a home andfamily of her own.

DAVID REYNOLDS...between them, her mother took Mary skiing in Austria,and this became an annual fixture on the family calendar.“It was chiefly during these lovely skiing holidays,” Marylater wrote, “that I started to know my mother more as aperson than a deity.” With the outbreak of war in September 1939, Maryfollowed her parents to London. Then, during the Blitz,she was packed off to Chequers, the prime minister’scountry retreat in Buckinghamshire. Keen for more ofthe action, she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service inSeptember 1941 and served in one of the new “mixed”anti-aircraft batteries. Life in tents and draughty barrackswas a marked change from her privileged life to date. Atone army dance, she teased an American soldier about hisbig feet, whereupon he put her over his knee and gaveher “about thirty good-natured whacks.” His buddy toldTime magazine: “She’s a regular guy and, like her oldman, can take it.” Mary’s battery served in London and on the coastduring the V-bomb raids of 1944, before moving on toBelgium and Germany. Excitement of a different sortcame from travelling abroad as her father’s aide-de-camp.In the summer of 1943 she went to Quebec andWashington; returning from Quebec on HMS Renown,she was almost washed overboard in a heavy sea. In July1945 she accompanied Winston Churchill to Potsdam

Mary describedherself as a

“child of consolation,”the product of her

parents’ grief at theirdaughter Marigold’s

premature death in 1921.She grew up at Chartwell,revelling in country life,and developed a lifelong

love of gardening.

^ A boisterous arrival, 1922. “With my father ill with appendicitis, my mother campaigned for him in Dundee that year,” she often recalled, “carrying me along on my

first political foray. One savage opposition newspaper pictured the two of us as ‘Mrs.Churchill with her as yet unbaptised daughter’!” > Twenty-one years later, she was with

her father at the steps of Number Ten Downing Street. Photograph: Reuters

FINEST HOUR 164 / 9

an invaluable supporter. At her farewell party in 1995, hesaid how much he would miss her “gossip, guidance,champagne, 7:45 am phone calls, enthusiasm, wisdomand friendship.” She replied: “You go too far, but thenyou often do, dear Richard.” Behind the scenes, she quietly maintained a concernfor former members of the family’s staff and championedmany public Churchill causes, not least the ArchivesCentre at Churchill College, Cambridge, where she waselected an Honorary Fellow. She was also the assiduousPatron of The Churchill Centre, attending its gatheringsand talking freely and informally with all who attended.On one occasion, asked to present a VIP with a pictureof Chartwell that had unfortunately failed to arrive, shecarried off the potential embarrassment with greataplomb, imaginatively recreating the beauties of thepicture with a verve and humour that delighted thewhole audience. Mary described herself as a “child of consolation,”product of Winston and Clementine's grief at theirdaughter Marigold's premature death in 1921. In duetime, she consoled her parents, supported her husbandand nurtured her children. But she also developed a dis-tinctive voice of her own as a woman and an author. ,

Between 1948 and 1959 Mary gave birth to threesons and two daughters. She also supported herhusband’s political career as a Conservative MP forBedford (1950-66), campaigning vigorously on hisbehalf. After he lost his seat, she accompanied him on aseries of foreign appointments, particularly relishing hertime as hostess in the splendid Paris Embassy (1968-72).The couple were in Brussels from 1973 to 1976, whenChristopher was the first British vice-president of theEuropean Commission. Between December 1979 and April 1980, whenChristopher was the last Governor of Southern Rhodesia,the close personal bond forged by the Soameses withRobert Mugabe and his wife was essential for the reason-ably smooth transfer of power. Mary felt the subsequentfate of Zimbabwe almost as a personal betrayal. But another Mary was about to bloom. Sir Winston,who died in 1965, was the subject of a multi-volumebiography, started by his son Randolph and being com-pleted by the historian Martin Gilbert. Christophersuggested that Mary should write a life of her motherClementine, and Mary took up the idea with enthusiasm.Before her death in 1977, Clementine herself had read allthe draft chapters up to the Great War. Mary was touched and delighted with the commis-sion, but also a little daunted, having “never beforewritten so much as a pamphlet,” as she admitted in thepreface. Yet Clementine Churchill was published in 1979to enormous acclaim, winning the Wolfson Prize andplaudits from reviewers. A.J.P. Taylor called it “adelightful book…affectionate and also frank.” It wasindeed this remarkable mixture of feeling and detach-ment that made the book so appealing. Mary showedhow much her mother had done to sustain Winston’scareer—“my life’s work,” as she had put it. But the bookalso revealed the intense strains this imposed onClementine’s highly strung nature. Suddenly Mary was recognised as her father’s as wellas her mother’s daughter, with a good deal of SirWinston’s literary talent. Other books followed,including a notable work on her father’s paintings, awidely read collection of her parents’ letters, and an auto-biography up to 1945, drawing on her extensive diaries.(See book reviews, pages 20-25.) In 1989 Mary was appointed chairman of the Boardof Trustees of the National Theatre, a political appoint-ment, greeted without enthusiasm in thespian circles.The Soameses had not been theatre-goers and, during anearly meeting Mary pushed a note to the NT’s director,Richard Eyre: “Who is Ian McKellen?” But she threwherself into the new task in a typical hands-on way, devel-oping a keen interest in the theatre, and Eyre found her

^ 1947: ChristopherSoames, Coldstream

Guards, marriesMary Churchill. Her

parents are justvisible in the background.

> 1995: Signinganother copy of

Clementine Churchillat the 1995

Churchill CentreBoston Conference.

Greenock, Scotland, September 1943: Mary Churchill thanks Renown’s captain for a safe voyage (notwithstanding that she

was almost washed overboard). Her father is at far right; behind her left shoulder is WSC’s naval aide Cdr. Tommy Thomson.

HMS Renown, 1943

________________________________________________________________Mr. Humphries, RN (ret.), lives in Hamilton Hill, Western Australia. This articleis excerpted and updated from his recollections of two Renown voyages carryingthe Prime Minister, published in Finest Hour 113, Winter 2001-02.

L I V I N G H I S TO RY

FINEST HOUR 164 / 10

My cruising station was a surface warning radar setatop the mast, 95 feet in the air, reached by a steel ladder.Everything was secret and we had no idea where we weregoing. We finally arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, wherethe captain told us we were to pick up a VIP. We were

only supposed to stay twenty-fourhours, but the Italians had justcapitulated, which apparentlydelayed our guest a bit longer. We

finally sailed on 14 September 1943, carrying our VIP,the Prime Minister, along with his wife and daughter. The PM was returning to Britain from the“Quadrant” conference with Roosevelt, which fixedAnglo-American strategy for the final stages of the war.He had spent over a month in Roosevelt’s company atQuebec, the White House and Hyde Park. (See MartinGilbert, Winston S. Churchill VI, Chapter 30.)

Isend my condolences to the family of Lady Soames,the vivacious passenger I so well remember aboardHMS Renown on a transatlantic adventure long ago. I

am proud to say that we scanned the Atlantic 24/7 whilstthe family slept safely in their cabins. On 12 August 1943, as an 18-year-old radar operator, I boardedHMS Renown in Scapa Flow. On the24th we set sail across the NorthAtlantic into the teeth of a hurricane—my first longvoyage in the Royal Navy. We had no escort, since shewas a fast ship, which would easily have outdistanced anyaccompanying cruisers.

VIC HUMPHRIES

“You look like a gang of bloody pirates.” —WSC


and bearings until we dropped anchor. Radar was fairlynew, and Mr. Churchill, impressed by this performance,asked to see the men responsible. The navigation officerand operators including this writer were summoned andhe congratulated us on a job well done. He shook myhand. I haven’t washed it since. Before leaving Renown, Mr. Churchill addressed ourship’s company and then attended Divine Service. SirMartin Gilbert quotes his then-secretary, ElizabethLayton (later TCC/ICS Honorary Member ElizabethNel), who wrote: “I must say I’ve seldom felt so movedby anything, those dear sailors lined up, the Old Mansinging away, the Padre in his robes (he was a marvellousman), the few (brass) instruments forming a small bandwhich somehow sounded very quiet and touching.” ,

The vivacious Miss Churchill, a treat to have aboard,celebrated her 21st birthday with a large cake. More pre-carious and worrying was when she and a naval officerwent onto the quarterdeck, awash in heavy seas. Here thefuture Patron of The Churchill Centre was nearly sweptoverboard. Her father tapped her on the arm and toldher to use more sense! The Prime Minister came into our recreation area as wewere playing “Tombola” (Bingo). We all stopped and stoodto attention. Observing our varied types of warm clothes,which we always wore at sea in lieu of uniforms, he smiledand said, “You look like a gang of bloody pirates.” As we arrived at the entrance to the Clyde in a densefog, the ship was under radar control going up the river,which we traversed at 27 knots, constantly taking ranges

< The Churchills departing Renown

(background) in a tender; the two

blokes on the lower deck don’t

know who is on the upper deck!

> A cutting from The Times from

13 January 1925, the day I was

born, showing the great man

watching the “All Blacks” football

team beating France 37-8. I am

now nearly 90 and going strong

with the aid of a Pacemaker.

—Vic Humphries

Potsdam, 1945-2006

________________________________________________________________My late husband Jerry was a Churchill Centre mainstay whom we miss. Thesenotes are from my journal during the dedication of a plaque on the Villa Urbig,Babelsburg, Churchill’s Potsdam headquarters, following the 2006 conference.Earlier, Jerry noticed that the Truman and Stalin villas had historical markers andbegan an effort to mark Churchill’s. By 2006 he was too ill to attend, so I kept aminute-by-minute journal for him, including Lady Soames’s remarks. —JK

“The Villa Urbig was just as I remembered it.”

The final summit conference of World War II washeld in Potsdam in Soviet-occupied Germany. Asits site, the Russians chose the once-luxurious and

relatively unscathed suburb of Babelsburg, giving twodays’ notice to residents to clear out (never to return). Frau Gerick, owner of Villa Urbig, and her 16-year-old niece Marie Louise, moved in with relatives in whatremained of their home in Berlin. Their gardener stayedbehind, told them who was in their house, and managedto bring them some personal items they had left behind. Forty-five years later, after the fall of the Berlin Walland reunification of Germany, repossession of the villaswas offered, given proof of ownership or inheritance, atoken payment of one deutschmark, and the owner’sagreement to restore and live in the property. Neither >

JUDITH KAMBESTAD

Villa Urbig, 2006

L-R: Lady Soames, CC UK

Chairman Nigel Knocker, the author, CC

Chaiarman Bill Ives, Marie Louise Gericke.

Gericke nor her sister could afford to restore the villa, soit was turned over to the government and purchased by aGerman businessman as a wedding present for his bride.They restored the 10,000-square-foot villa to its appear-ance in the 1930s, including the artistic forest scenewallpaper in the dining room. The Berlin Wall had actu-ally stood between the villa and the lake. When we werethere the wall had been taken down and the area washeaps of dirt and rock. The owners were planning tolandscape the grounds and to add a boat dock. Mary Soames was a 22-year-old Army officer whenshe accompanied her father to Potsdam as his aide-de-camp. Her mother had charged her with taking good careof her war-weary father. Exhausted, upon arriving at theVilla Urbig, Churchill “flopped into a wicker chair and


JUDITH KAMBESTAD...

Potsdam, 2006.

Laying a floral tribute at the British war memorial. ^

< Wherever she went, Lady Soames was engaged, affable and ready to

hear the thoughts of new acquaintances. She spent much time with

Marie Louise Gericke, whose family had been ejected from Villa

Urbig by the Russians to make room for the British delegation. As

always, she was full of concern for others. “It’s very much to my relief

that you bear no ill-will towards me,” she said to Marie.

demanded a large whisky,” Mary recalled. “That was nottypical of him. It was a very exciting time, but very wor-rying, since we didn't know what was going to happen toEurope. I just tried to make myself useful round thehouse while all these important people were coming andgoing. I sort of acted as a bit of a hostess to my father.” Lady Soames found the salmon-pink villa with a lawnrunning down to a lovely lake “just as I remember it.”There was a curved cement bench where Churchill wouldhave private conversations. She remembered the difficul-ties, in a threadbare, defeated country, of even basichousehold tasks. After being hosted at dinners by Truman and Stalin(“small, dapper, rather twinkly”), it was her turn to directa dinner party for the Big Three. Flowers were a realproblem. She found a few nondescript specimens on the

^ Germany, 1945.

Mary between

Anthony Eden and

her father at the

ruins of Hitler’s

Reichschancellery;

and greeting U.S.

President Harry S.

Truman, who was

attending his first

summit meeting.

It is twenty years since I received my first letter ofappreciation from Lady Soames, a few weeks after theopening of my first Churchill exhibition by the actor

Robert Hardy at the Royal Arsenal Museum. I wastouched by her deep interest in what we were doing, andreceived her letter of approval with deep pride. I am among those fortunate enough to have met heron many occasions, not least in October 2000, when shecame to open “Remember Winston Churchill,” anexhibit at the newspapers building at Kongens Nytorv,marking the 50th anniversary of her father’s visit toCopenhagen. As a little surprise, I collected her in thesame Humber Super Snipe that had carried her fatherthrough the streets in 1950. We conveyed her to theScandic Hotel, where she had asplendid 18th floor suite lookingout over the city. A few hours later we drove tothe opening, where she was warmly greeted by a trumpetfanfare used by the World War II Danish Resistance. Theinvited audience included former Premier Paul Schlüter;Mærsk McKinney-Møller of the Mærsk shipping line;the Churchill Club’s Knud Pedersen; British AmbassadorPhilip Astley; and René Højris, who lent part of his vastChurchilliana collection. Lady Soames gave a warmspeech saying she was thrilled to see the affection that theDanish people still had for her father, and we toasted herwith Pol Roger champagne. The next day took her to the Oscar Nemon bust atthe Churchill Park; the Museum of Danish Resistance,where her guide was the director Esben Kjeldbæk; and

the royal treasuryat RosenborgCastle. After aprivate lunch withMr. MærskMcKinney MøllerI met her at thebeautiful Hoteld’Angleterre,opposite theChurchill exhibition, where she met Gunnar Dyrbergand Vagn Jespersen from “Holger Danske,” one of themost famous resistance groups in Copenhagen. Iremember how excited they were to meet her.

Another memorable time withher was the 2006 UK ChurchillSociety tour to Potsdam, where shehappily revisited the places she had

been with her father. (See previous article.) I noticed thatall the Germans we met were interested in talking to her,notably the former Chancellor, Dr. Helmut Kohl, whomade an impressive and heartfelt dinner speech aboutChurchill and Europe. In 2007 I was invited to Windsor Castle to attend theannual service of the Order of the Garter. The last timewe met was at her home in Kensington in June of lastyear, welcomed like an old friend by Lady Soames andher cute dog. She seemed so ageless! It was fantastic toread about her amazing life in her 2011 memoir, ADaughter’s Tale. Lady Soames did so much for us Churchillians. Herpride in her father’s legacy was manifest, and she encour-aged us all to keep the flame alive and the record true. Ishall never forget our “special relationship.” ,


Niels Bjerre at the 2000 Exhibit.

Copenhagen, 2000

_____________________________________________________________Mr. Bjerre, a longtime Churchill Centre member and founder of the DanishChurchill Club, has organized several exhibits and events in Copenhagen. Hisaccount of the 2000 exhibition is in our website at: http://bit.ly/W7XM3S.

NIELS BJERRE

“She encouraged us to keep the flame alive....”

grounds and gathered them with relief. During themeeting she remembered accompanying her father to ashattered Berlin, where they viewed Hitler’s bunker andthe spot where his and Eva Braun’s bodies were burned:“It was hot, dusty and windy—destruction everywhere—no trees.” Later, to receive the results of the final tally inthe British general election, “we packed up and returnedto London. We never came back.” To his shock but alsohis premonition, her father was out of office.

At the 2006 dedication, Mary handed the brassplaque to the owner's wife, Monika Egger. Marie LouiseGericke, the former owner’s niece, now 81, was on handtoo, and the first thing Mary said to her was: “I am sosorry you had to move out for us.” Marie had worked inthe British Embassy in Washington for twenty years, sothey had much in common. Together they engaged inlong conversations. “It’s very much to my relief,” Maryadded, “that you bear no ill-will towards me.” ,

Iwrite this in the week following the death of mymother: The Lady Soames LG DBE, to give her fulland glorious title. I hope I can articulate from my

brimming heart a few observations and memories of herwithout it tipping over into sentiment. In the autumn of 1968, accompanied by ourLabrador and Jim, my sister’s black pug, we all set offwith my parents on the boat train to Paris. We weregiven a fabulous and rather tearful send off by, amongothers, my grandmother Clementine—you would havethought we were going to Timbuktu for five years. Eighthours later we arrived at our new home, the BritishEmbassy in Paris, a beautiful building near the ElyseePalace that was once the home of Napoleon’s sister. My parents had been briefed to persuade General deGaulle to change his “non” to “oui” over Britain joiningwhat was then called the Common Market. The Generalcaved in and the rest, as they say, is history—albeit onethat some now wish to rewrite.

While my father used his considerable skills andpowers of persuasion to talk round Le General, mymother charmed him over delicious dinners at theembassy. (Among other things, they talked of the end ofthe war when my mother accompanied her father and LeGeneral to inspect the French troops still fighting on theNorthern Front.) At the Embassy we lived a charmed and wonderfullife. The French were ecstatic to have “une fille deChurchill” in Paris. With her charm, her excellent Frenchand her dedication to being as good an Ambassadress asshe possibly could, she didn’t disappoint. Much to my surprise the happiness of the Frenchextended to “la fille de l'ambassadeur.” All sorts of doorsmagically opened: I got tickets to the final at RolandGarros, I managed to get an audition for the French pro-duction of Hair, and I could borrow frocks from all thecouturiers (a privilege I would now kill for, but at 19 Iwas more interested in wearing Biba). My parents filled the house with flowers and laughter.They flung the most wonderful parties—a large dance formy brother and me, complete with a British rock bandand another, grander and more sedate one for HM theQueen on a state visit to Paris. And every year they gavea magnificent lunch for many of the British who cameover to watch the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. Everyone wasserved a cold partridge wrapped in some exotic sauce,which impressed the French no end. Mary Soames lived a truly extraordinary life in whichshe met T.E. Lawrence, Charlie Chaplin and StanleyBaldwin. And she was close to all the top brass who wererunning the war under the command of her father, fromGeneral Montgomery to “Prof” Lindemann. With herfather she stayed at the White House with the Roosevelts,and attended the Potsdam conference, where she did theflowers and dined with Joseph Stalin. She was driven by the most highly developed and old-fashioned sense of duty to Queen, country and familyI’ve ever had the good fortune to come across. But thiswas tempered by an enormous sense of fun and enjoy-ment, as demonstrated in the Embassy. Earlier, in 1964, she ended up having to fight thegeneral election campaign for Christopher on her own, ashe had fallen off a horse and broken his pelvis. I wentwith her round his Bedford constituency, where she gal-lantly canvassed from door to door, addressed meetingsand visited factories. She set an extraordinary pace andone of my abiding memories of her is following hereverywhere at a brisk trot as she would literally run downstreets as though life were too short to spend walkingfrom place to place. Nothing demonstrates her sense of duty better than


My Dear Mama

________________________________________________________________This article first appeared in the July issue of Saga magazine, where The Hon.Emma Soames is editor-at-large. Her further reflections were broadcast by theBBC Radio 4 on June 6th; the podcast may be viewed at http://bbc.in/1uRRNfT.

EMMA SOAMES

R E M E M B R A N C E S

The author aged five (foreground, dark coat) with her brothers

Nicholas (velvet collar) and Jeremy, at the christening of her sister

Charlotte, 1954. To her mother’s right are Christopher Soames, Sir

Winston and Lady Churchill.

the dilemma she faced at the beginning of the war. In hermemoirs I found a passage demonstrating her agonisingbefore she joined the ATS: “I did some real heart-searching as to where my duty lay. I knew my parentsdepended on me but...working at a hospital libraryseemed rather inadequate set alongside the challenges andsacrifices confronting so many.” And goodness, did her sense of duty extend to family!In 1983, I gave birth to my daughter in Jerusalem, andmy mother determined to come and help us. She turnedup at our bungalow on the outskirts of the city, bearingsoap and a pair of marigold gloves. Although cooking wasnever her forte, she took over the kitchen, producedsome creditable shepherd's pies, and did some very noisy

washing-up. She was a great support to me and offeredsome terrible advice about looking after a very smallbaby. She was way outside her comfort zone, but flungherself into our life. Of course, when the Israeli government heard she wasin town, she was bombarded with invitations from themayor and the government, but she turned them alldown: at that time her duty lay with her daughter. It wasn’t always all sunny between us, of course, and Iwas the recipient of some Exocet missiles she despatched tome over the years when my behaviour didn’t measure up.But she was staunch in her forgiveness and fiercely loyal toher children. She leaves behind a deeply united familydetermined to keep her memory burning brightly. ,

“I knowabsolutelynothing about thetheatre.Christopherdidn’t like going.”During the meal

she revealed a sharp intelligence, marked with self-depre-cating diffidence (“I know nothing about anything”), aremarkable memory for names and literary quotes, and afacility for telling anecdotes larded with perfectly recalleddetail and dialogue. They often featured her father and boasted a sup-porting cast that included Stalin, Roosevelt, General deGaulle, Noël Coward, Robert Mugabe and all theMitford sisters. She once asked me to dinner with JessicaMitford (“Richard, dear, could you bear to come todinner to break the ice?”) Mary hadn’t seen them sinceJessica had eloped to the Spanish Civil War with Mary’sthen sort-of-boyfriend, Esmond Romilly. I was particularly taken by Mary’s ability to keepseveral sentences bouncing in the air at once, even whileshe dropped her handbag on the floor, picked up thecontents, draped an errant tape measure round her neck,and continued as if this were the most natural thing >>

Mary Soames chaired the Royal National TheatreBoard from 1988, during most of my time asdirector, and we became close friends. Her

appointment was greeted by many people with surpriseand by some with alarm. I heard it said by a Labour MPthat her mandate would be to privatise the NationalTheatre, and by a Conservative that she was being put into “sort out the pinkoes.” My own response was one of curiosity: not so muchas to why she had been chosen as to why she hadaccepted. She was not a regular theatre-goer and had noconspicuously advertised ambitions to hold public office.With hindsight I think Mary agreed because it was anadventure that she couldn’t refuse, and—perhaps anunsurprising thing to say about a Churchill—because itwas her destiny. The National Theatre never had cause toregret her appointment, and neither, I think, did she. Whatever apprehensions I may have had about Marywere dispelled during our first lunch together. “You’llhave to help me out,” she said with unaffected candour.


Without Reserve: Lady Soames

and the Royal National TheatreRICHARD EYRE

_____________________________________________________________Sir Richard Eyre CBE is a film, theatre, television and opera director. He wasdirector of the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh from 1967 to 1972 and of theRoyal National Theatre between 1987 and 1997. First published in The Guardianof 4 June 2014, this remembrance is reprinted by kind permission of the author.

Richard Eyre...in the world. I remember reading a newspaper profile ofMary before I met her. “She is a great giver,” it said. “Theheart comes pouring out and when it reaches you it iswarm.” No one who met her could doubt that. I did help her out as she had requested, and in returnshe gave herself without reserve and without condition tothe life of the National Theatre. She became an assiduousstudent of theatre politics, of plays, of styles of produc-tion, and of the sometimes bizarre and often self-indulgent behaviour of the people who made up theworld she had joined. I found her taste—in plays and inacting—to be infallible, even if she was always tentativeabout asserting it, and she had an unerring ear, nose andeye, for the bogus. Her loyalty never wavered, and evenwhen concerned by hostile criticism or bad box office, orprovoked by artistic controversy—the mud bath in AMidsummer Night’s Dream, the simulated gay sexualintercourse in Angels in America, the depiction of theQueen in A Question of Attribution—she remained stead-fast in her support of the artistic policy. She was not, in spite of her lineage, a natural politi-cian or administrator; she had to work extraordinarilyhard to succeed as she did at the job. She had an irre-ducible sense of duty, and endured without complaint a

few financial crises, several bruising encounters with thearchitect Denys Lasdun, many Olivier award ceremonies,countless sponsorship occasions, and an infinity of meet-ings of the board, the finance and general purposescommittee, the master plan sub-committee, the cateringcommittee, the National Theatre development council,the National Theatre foundation, and the South BankTheatre Board. After Mary left the NT Board I’d meet her from timeto time and we always fell on each other as old friends,hungry for gossip and comradeship. I saw her last a fewweeks before she died. She was frail and her memory wasintermittent, but she was still beautiful, and she stillshowed flashes of her old wit and great charm. Whenever I go through Parliament Square I’ll alwaysremember passing the statue of her father as we droveback together from the theatre—often late at night—andMary saying: “Night, night, Papa.” She told me once that late in his life, when he wasfrail and incommunicative, she had asked him if therewas anything in his life that he had wanted to do buthadn’t, anything that he regretted. He replied: “I’d likemy father to have lived long enough to have seen me dosomething good.” He would have been inordinatelyproud of his daughter. ,


The End of an EraCELIA SANDYS

_________________________________________The Hon. Celia Sandys is a Trustee of The ChurchillCentre, host of several “Chasing Churchill” tours,and author of five books on her grandfather.

My memories of Mary coverso many years and so manyplaces: Christmases at

Chequers and Chartwell; staying at theBritish Embassies in Paris, where I gotmarried for the second time, and inWashington D.C.; Churchill confer-ences; New Years’ Eves in Wiltshire;and travels on three continents. Although she was always a majorfigure in our family life, it was inlater years that we really got to knoweach other. In 1993, we both attended the

Together on the 2011 Mediterranean tour.

Photo : Jeremy Scott, LeisureFare Ltd.

ICS conference in Calgary. I had been invited to be thespeaker at the Gala Dinner. I had never made a bigspeech before and what scared me most was speakingabout my grandfather in front of his daughter. My ratherjittery performance was not improved by a lady in theaudience passing out and, as I continued, receiving thekiss of life and being stretchered off to hospital. Marymade me feel that I had done very well although I knew Iwas a rank amateur. After that first conference, we attended several moretogether: Boston, Williamsburg, Washington, Bath andmore. We enjoyed being together and made enduringfriendships along the way. In 1999 Mary was an enthusiastic member of my firstChasing Churchill tour in South Africa. She was a greattraveller and threw herself into everything with gusto.From Table Mountain to Durban, from the place whereher father was captured by the Boers to the prison fromwhich he made his dramatic escape. We were met atevery stop by descendants of those people who hadknown him a century before. Mary charmed them all andwas deeply moved by their stories, which had becometreasured family legends. She entertained us all at the barof the Rovos Rail train as we steamed in luxury along theline which my grandfather had travelled hidden in theempty coal sacks and made a wonderful speech at thedinner we held in the States Model School where he hadbeen held in “durance vile.” Mary, as well as the other participants, was keen toknow where my next tour was going to be. We decided onMorocco. Mary had just celebrated her 80th birthday butwhen she heard that there was a bottle of Pol Roger ontop of the sand dunes, she was the first to crack it open! Three years ago Mary joined me on a cruise along theCôte d’Azur to visit the places where my grandfatherpainted. She enjoyed it all and everyone enjoyed her. On the last night we celebrated her eighty-ninthbirthday with a wonderful dinner on the balmy deck andsang Happy Birthday as she cut the cigar box cake, anacknowledgement of her love of cigars. An annual event she really enjoyed was ChurchillSongs at Harrow. She was always greeted with roars ofcheers from the boys and would join in the singing withenormous enthusiasm. When I lived in Wiltshire, it became a tradition thatshe and Robert Hardy would spend New Year’s Eve withmy family. Another tradition was that she would bringwith her a jar of caviar she received as a gift from an oldfriend every Christmas. One year she called to tell methat there would be no caviar this Christmas as the gen-erous donor had remarried and had sent a card informinghis friends that he was making a charitable donation

instead of the customary lavish gift. Mary was mostapologetic and said that she would be arriving with foiegras instead if she was still welcome! Of course she was.We loved the caviar but we loved Mary more! After Grandpapa died, for the rest of her life, mygrandmother became the focal point of our family life.For nearly forty years Mary has been the cement that hasbound the family together with love, laughter, friendshipand respect. “What would Mary think about that?” was a constantquestion. A question it was unwise to ask unless one wasprepared to accept her answer. When I started writing about the father with whomshe was so close and she loved so dearly, Mary’s approvalwas crucial. She was generous with praise and gentle withcriticism and always happy to deal with my endless ques-tions that only she could answer.

Ihave countless memories of Mary. These bring backtimes of warm and loving family occasions atChartwell, Chequers and Hyde Park Gate; Churchill

conferences and events and travelling with her on threecontinents. Most of my recollections are full of laughter and funbut some are tinged with emotion and tears. I was staying near the Soames country house whenmy mother died. Mary and Christopher came early in themorning to break the news and drive me home. A year later, together with Sarah, who was stayingwith me, we spent ten long days in and out of Hyde ParkGate as my grandfather’s life ebbed away. The three of usheld hands as imperceptibly he slipped away to meet hisMaker. A few years later Sarah too was gone. One day Mary came to see me in my flat close toBuckingham Palace. I put her in a taxi and gave thedriver her address. The driver who had given her a longand searching look said: “Who’ve I got in my cab? TheQueen?” She thought this very funny. People who didn’t know Mary thought that she mustbe very grand and old fashioned and were surprised byhow down to earth, up-to-date and “normal” she was.She was a great listener and always made one feel that shereally cared about what one was saying to her. Thisendeared her to everyone. Mary will be greatly missed at Churchillian occasionswhere she always played a starring role. She was not simply the matriarch of the Churchillfamily but of all the Churchill organisations with whichshe was so closely involved. This is the end of an era. We will miss her but our memories of her will live onforever. ,



Ifirst met Lady Soames in theChartwell Kitchen Garden,miraculously, and on my very first

visit. It was the summer of 1985,barely a year after the April 1984opening of a tiny, Churchill-centricbookshop in New York City that I’dnamed for Churchill’s home in theKent countryside—though I’d notyet even seen Chartwell myself. Asummer book buying trip to Englandgave me the chance. Circumnavigating the verdantKentish landscape and finallyentering the house Churchill had so loved was poignantand electrifying. Following a giddy house tour, filled withan enveloping sense of his presence, I found myselfdrawn to the Kitchen Garden, where I sat quietly on abench gazing out at the vista. In the distance, a door opened and a solitary femalefigure emerged onto Chartwell’s manicured lawn terrace.I observed her without thought, as she made her waytoward me. It is a rather long walk from the main houseto Chartwell’s brick-walled gardens. Until she entered—through a gateway in the brickwork that her father thebricklayer had once helped to construct—I really hadn’ta clue who this red-coated stroller might be. Then I rec-ognized her. It was Mary Soames. We acknowledged one another; after all, we werealone together in a garden. I introduced myself and she,in turn, told me most offhandedly who she was, addingthat she often stopped by to look in on her childhoodhome and visit with “Mrs. Hamblin”—GraceHamblin—who had served both Winston andClementine Churchill as private secretary, and who nowwatched over Chartwell as its first administrator. Inevitably, I asked Lady Soames if I could take herpicture. She smiled, yes. Inevitably, I also told her aboutChartwell Booksellers. She was immediately full of ques-tions: Could a bookstore really survive on her father’sbooks alone? Whatever had given me the idea? Where

exactly was this extraordinary place?Over the ensuing years, all of my

re-encounters with Lady Soamesseem, in my recollection, variationson our initial meeting. She alwaysappeared unexpectedly and at a dis-tance, visible through my storewindow, marching toward the shopalone and unannounced. Always sheexuded the vivacity that I like tothink she inherited from her father.Ever gracious, ever curious andutterly without pretense, she signedher own books at a gallop, thumbed

through anything that was new on the subject ofWinston Churchill, and departed as she had come: alone. Years later, when Lady Soames could no longer traveloverseas, I came to possess a volume with a deeply per-sonal connection to her. It was a First American editionof The Gathering Storm, the first volume in Churchill’ssix-volume memoir of the Second World War, inscribedin ink on the front free endpaper: ”To Mary andChristopher from Papa, 1948.” This was Churchill’sinscription to his recently wed daughter; she had marriedChristopher Soames on 11 February 1947. There were,moreover, extensive notes in Lady Soames’s hand, pen-ciled across the rear endpapers. The moment the book arrived, I emailed HerLadyship. Was this indeed hers? Had the book nefari-ously gone missing somehow from her library? At first she was mystified. In her library, she informedme, there was The Gathering Storm inscribed to her andChristopher by her father—but dated 1954. The mystifi-cation lifted somewhat when I mentioned one furtherdetail. My copy had originally been acquired, I’d beentold, together with another written by her father that wasinscribed: ”Nana, love Christopher and Mary.” “‘Nana’ was my mother’s first cousin,” wrote backLady Soames, “Maryott Whyte, who looked after mevery soon after my birth until the beginning of the warand who generally invigilated Chartwell in my parents’absence.” I confess I had to look up that word, “invigi-lated.” Turns out it is something of a Britishism, meaning“to supervise candidates during an examination.” Lady Soames would later write at affectionate >>

Her Ladyship: A Bookman’s MemoirBARRY SINGER

_____________________________________________________________Mr. Singer is proprietor of Chartwell Booksellers in New York City and the authorof Churchill Style (reviewed in Finest Hour 155). This article was first published inthe Huffington Post for June 12th.

length in A Daughter’s Tale about Maryott “Moppet”Whyte’s powerful, positive influence on her childhood,and her special devotion to “Nana.” I wonder if she didnot at some point give that first inscribed copy of TheGathering Storm to Maryott Whyte. Sir Winston thenwould have replaced the book in 1954, the year that thefinal volume of his war memoirs was published.

I offered to return the book to Lady Soames. “I would be very sorry to see you at a loss over it,” shereplied, with characteristic magnanimity. “I thereforehave no objection to your selling the book.” I thanked her then, and I thank her now, one finaltime. She was an exquisite exponent of all that her fatherrepresented. She also was quite a lady. ,


MINNIE CHURCHILL

Mary Soames was a very important part of myfamily’s life. We so looked forward to her visitswhich were full of laughter and wonderful

stories. After my father-in-law Randolph died in 1968she took over his role and was always there for us, and Iknow she was always there as well for Arabella, who wasyoung Winston’s half-sister. She came to all my children’sweddings. When Randolph and Catherine were marriedat Chartwell, which was the first family wedding that hadever been held there, she was full of advice.

A Long Weekend with Mary We invited her for a lengthy weekend to our house inLyme Regis, Dorset, together with my son Jack and a fewfriends for his birthday. Mary always loved the companyof the young. She could be quite formidable in the nicestof ways. So we decided to have a project that mightinterest her. We had discovered that the MP for LymeRegis was once the original Sir Winston Churchill, andthat he lived in the next village of Musbury in a residencecalled Ashe House, where John Churchill, later first Dukeof Marlborough, was born—or was he? We had heardthat he could not have possibly been born at AsheHouse, for it had been burnt to the ground and in factwas partially rebuilt forty years later. Sir Winston was married to Elizabeth Drake, and theyowned a Drake house nearby called Great Trill—so theymoved there and this was where John was born. InMary’s father’s biography, Marlborough: His Life andTimes, the first chapter is entitled “Ashe House.” NowSimon, whom I live with, is slightly braver than me andmentioned to Mary that her father might have been

wrong! This resulted in a very old-fashioned look from Mary. Wespent the next few days exam-ining church records, lists ofbirths and various authoritativetexts. We visited Ashe House andobserved that only one wing of the

original house had been rebuilt, in factthe old servants’ wing. We visited Great Trill andobserved the Drake Crest on the building, the delightfulowners confirming that John Churchill had in fact beenborn there. There are in fact two entries of his birth, onein Musbury and a second in the parish of Axminster, thelocation of Great Trill. We had a wonderful few daysseeking the truth. At the end Mary exclaimed that“perhaps” we were right and her father was incorrect! On one of the evenings, as we were enjoying thecompany of the young, there was a strange squeakingnoise from outside. Mary asked what it was and I saidthat it was a baby Little Owl, calling for its mother. So,armed with a strong torch, we all went out into thegarden, followed the noise, and there on a branch was thebaby Little Owl. Just at that moment the mother owlarrived and fed it in front of us. Mary, who shared herfather’s deep love of animals, was thrilled. During this weekend Simon asked her if she mindedhim telling stories about her father, as he felt that SirWinston was part of his life and history. She replied thatof course he could talk about her father, but must alwaysbe accurate. This applies to us all: our personal historywas formed by this great man. Mary did not walk in her father’s shadow; she createdher own sunshine and place in our hearts and lives. Shewill be missed with great sadness and affection but withthe thought constantly in our minds: What would Marysay or do? ,

_____________________________________________________________Ms. Churchill married grandson Winston S. Churchill in 1964 and is the motherof Randolph and Jack Churchill, Jennie Repard and Marina Brounger. She is co-author of Sir Winston Churchill: His Life Through His Paintings (2004).

Sir Winston Churchill, 1620-1688

She Created Her Own Sunshine


Clementine Churchill: TheBiography of a Marriage. Penguin /Houghton Mifflin, 1979. Updatedand revised edition, Mariner Books,2003, 752 pages.

Lady Soames’s first book, this lovingyet measured biography, recentlyupdated with more illustrations, is awarmly readable account of SirWinston’s “other half,” and the strongmarriage that stretched from 1908 to1965. Clementine survived him by adozen years, through the centenary ofhis birth and beyond. Re-reading thisaccount many years after the originalis a delightful reintroduction to a for-midable lady, without whom it is hardto imagine Winston Churchill accom-plishing as much as he did. The most startling “new” factherein is that Henry Hozier wasalmost certainly not Clementine’sfather. That was most likely thedashing but short-lived equestrianWilliam George “Bay” Middleton, oneof several lovers of the headstrong and

passionate Blanche Hozier, who hadan unhappy marriage. Lady Soamesmakes clear that while Clementinesuspected toward the end of her lifethat Hozier was not her father, shenever knew who was. A strength of this book is itsdependence not only on the author’spersonal experience (she was certainlythe closest to her parents of all theChurchill offspring), but on themassive correspondence among thefamily. Many letters between herparents are quoted, along with letters

between Clementine and her childrenand other notables. The strength ofthe relationship between Winston andClementine through thick and thincomes winningly through in their ownwords. Her letters also help the readerget behind the sometimes cooldemeanor of the public Clementine. For all her life she had somewhatfragile physical and psychologicaldefenses with which to face the windsof a crowded life filled with pressures,occasional tragedies (such as the earlydeath of her daughter Marigold in1921) and the constant need to besupportive of a whirlwind namedWinston. There is frequent referenceto Clementine’s need to “get away”for breaks, for a few days up to amonth or more. The strong bond between themcontinued when they were apart, andwith one exception, ClementineChurchill never feared to raise a diffi-cult subject with her Winston. Theexception came at the end, whenChurchill understandably had a veryrough time agreeing finally that heshould retire from Parliament in 1964so that his constituency could run anactive Conservative candidate. Evenhere, Clementine worked with othersbehind the scenes to ease the way tothe end of his spectacular career. And Lady Soames knows how bestto paint a scene—her description ofthe funeral of Sir Winston is verymoving, as are the pages relating hermother’s final years. >>

The Mary Soames Canon 1979-2011F I N E S T H O U R ’ S R E V I E W S O F A L L H E R B O O K S

_______________________________________Dean Sterling teaches Communications at TheGeorge Washington University in Washington, D.C.His review of the new revised Clementine Churchillappeared in FH 120, Autumn 2003. His review ofFamily Album, written for this issue, excerpts somecomments from our original review in FH 37.

Wife and FamilyC H R I S T O P H E R H . S T E R L I N G

viding a feel for life as the Churchillslived it. Some of the captions range upto a half page of text, and are oftenfrank in relating what happened tothose shown. Little conversationalasides add to the informality.

A Churchill Family Album: APersonal Anthology / Family Album:A Personal Selection from FourGenerations of Churchills. AllenLane / Houghton Mifflin, 1982 etseq., 200 pages.

What a delight this book is! Longone of my favorites, it stands

with Randolph Churchill’s Churchill:His Life in Photographs (1955) andMartin Gilbert’s Churchill: APhotographic Portrait (1974). Melding careful photo selectionwith insightful captions, the book isdrawn largely from the author’s ownrecords and the albums of her mother,with input from many other collec-tions. The 429 photos trace more thana century from Sir Winston’s parentsto his great-grandchildren. A few pic-tures are familiar, but many are not. Only a family member could addsuch images to the Churchill saga.Most photos in the public domainhave been used so many times that toprint them again seems almost super-fluous. Lady Soames, with fewexceptions (and these are needed forcontinuity), has no truck with oldchestnuts. The ten sections trace SirWinston’s life from his childhood toClementine’s widowhood. Theyinclude cartoons, drawings, paintings,letters, and newspaper or magazineheadlines and pictures. Nor are they allabout people. Some show places (suchas Chartwell, Chequers, or CabinetWar Rooms), other events (notably VEDay), and private occasions likebirthday celebrations. The combination of public andprivate moments is appealing, pro-

Only fairly rarely do “outsiders”show in these photos (as in twoshowing people listening to Churchillradio broadcasts). Then as now, themedia followed the “good and thegreat.” For example, Clementine andWinston’s 1908 marriage made thefront page of several daily newspapers. A striking feature of Family Albumis the enormous span of time andchange through which Winston andClementine Churchill lived. We havebeen told they were born in an agebefore telephones or automobiles, anddeparted in an age that had mankindrushing toward the moon. But theseare hard and intangible concepts incold type. Family Album makes themcome alive with tremendous, nayviolent impact. To this extent it’s morethan a book: it is an experience. ,


Do you need this new edition ifyou have the original? I would argueyes, for at least two reasons—it isphysically easier to read, thanks to thelarger type; and it contains MarySoames’s most considered and com-plete view of her mother’s life ageneration after Lady Churchill’spassing. In a word, bravo. ,

lord, only coming around to admire“the Beaver” late in life. On the otherhand, she was most fond of “TheProf” (Frederick Lindemann), thesometimes bumptious Field MarshalMontgomery (who took her call-outswith good grace), and the often diffi-cult Charles de Gaulle, with whomshe conversed in flawless French.

CLEMENTINE CHURCHILL... Their daughter tells us much aboutClementine’s reactions to Winston’sfriends. Clearly, she feared the harmhis more free-wheeling comradesmight cause him, even unwittingly.For example, at first she long held ajaundiced view of Max Beaverbrook,the swashbuckling Canadian press

The Profligate Duke: George Spencer-Churchill, Fifth Duke of Marlborough,and His Duchess. HarperCollins, 1987,256 pages.

“This book is about unimportantpeople,” our author explains, “but

I have found my dramatic personae everybit as interesting in their characters andemotions, in the complexities of their rela-tionships, and in the events of their lives,as those of the...central figures in thehistory of the Marlborough dynasty.” A reader correctly summarizes: This is“an interesting sketch of the author’s >>

A Journey Worth the TakingR I C H A R D M . L A N G W O R T H

ancestors and of the late 18th andearly 19th century milieu in whichthey lived. Aficionados will note char-acteristics of the Fifth Duke—musicalability, a love of exotic plants, and atendency to wander beyond mar-riage—that show up in latergenerations. Lovers of Blenheim willappreciate descriptions of palace life.” The Fifth Duke of Marlborough(1766-1840) was known mainly fordissipating the family fortune and dal-lying outside his marriage, but therewas more to him than that, as ourauthor explains. He was “a gifted manand left a legacy of original beauty inthe gardens he created....” By his time,the formal garden was passé. Georgeturned with enthusiasm to the newschool of landscape gardening, with“arbours and temples, fanciful bowers

and rustic bridges,” adding to otheraccomplishments as a musician andbibliophile. To his ardent, ultimatelyunfulfilled life Lady Soames bringssympathy, eloquence and under-standing, offering quotes by suchcontemporaries as Horace Walpoleand Mary Mitford—creating, in herpublisher’s words, a “vivid corner of18th century English life.” Fittingly,the book sold well over two printings. Only shreds survive of the FifthDuke’s activities, she writes: “A fewhoary old trees alone bear witness tothe wonderful gardens he made; amere book or two from the amazingcollection he amassed—and lost; someprinted sheets of music that no oneplays or sings; no storied monu-ment—only the tales of his debts,profligacy and fecklessness live on.

And yet, for his Duchess Susan,there was something more.... She was an obscure figure, elusiveto historians, but she has one thingnone of her predecessors had—andnone of her successors, as yet: “In theChapel at Blenheim—where GodHimself must mind His precedence—high up on the wall opposite thetowering monument to the GreatDuke, is a seemly marble memorialtablet to Susan, placed there by heronly surviving child…no otherDuchess is so commemorated, noteven the tremendous Sarah. It is amonument also to filial piety—and,maybe, remorse.” That is “an elementof ironic justice,” our author con-cludes. It also reminds us of the filialpiety she herself consistently expressedthrough her own grand life. ,


_______________________________________Ms. Alberigi was a Governor of The Churchill Centreand chaired two outstanding conferences, SanFrancisco in 1990 and Washington in 1993. Thisreview is reprinted from FH 69, Winter 1990-91.

Winston Churchill: His Life as aPainter. HarperCollins / HoughtonMifflin, 1990, 256 pages.

Only two previous books were pub-lished on Churchill’s paintings,

one of them by himself, yet paintingwas a vital element over half his life.His artistic talent emerged at age 40,following his dismissal from theAdmiralty during the Dardanelles crisisin 1915. Painting distracted him fromdespair then, and became his faithfulcompanion for more than forty years. Mary Soames chronicles this verypersonal aspect of her father’s story asonly she could, by weaving his hobbyof painting into his life as a statesman,husband and father. He lived inanother time of world wars, of houseparties, of trips abroad for one’s health,

Lady Soames Takes on the BrushM E R R Y N . A L B E R I G I

aspects she brings alive, as for exampleafter his loss in the 1945 election:“Those who have neither experiencednor witnessed it cannot imagine thevoid which opens under the feet of apolitician removed from power.” Skillfully deploying the words ofher parents, their friends and herself,the author displays an easy, organizedstyle, deftly tying together her diaryentries with numerous personal anec-

dotes. The book begins in May 1915when, dismissed, shattered anddepressed, he turned to oils to combathis demons. Over the next forty-fiveyears Churchill was to paint more than500 oils, half of them during the1930s, which Lady Soames considersthe peak of his skills. While his principal theme waslandscapes, she writes, sometimes theweather would dictate still lifes to bepainted indoors. “Bottlescape,” one ofthe best of these, hangs at Chartwell,and several others are shown in thisprofusely illustrated book with its bril-liant color plates. The author judgeshis floral paintings especially successfulbecause he “fully captured the ‘person-alities’ of his subjects.” To her ownappraisals are added those of his manyartist friends. Churchill was particularly intriguedby the play of light and shadow andwas drawn to strong, bright colors.Thus he found great enjoyment on theFrench Riviera and in Marrakesh, >>

Morocco. His daughter accompaniedhim on many of these trips, some-times as his aide-de-camp, and herstories are of holidays that “flowed inan agreeable sequence of paintingsorties.” On his return home, he“would line up all the canvases he hadpainted around the room, usuallystanding on the floor and leaningagainst the furniture. Then he wouldmake my mother sit next to him andshow them to her, explaining whereeach picture had been painted and anyproblems he had had with it; othermembers of the family, and guests,would also be welcome at this ‘exhibi-tion’ of his works.” Though his art enjoyed praisefrom family and friends, Churchillhimself was “genuinely unconceitedabout his efforts.” She cites severalinstances of his exhibiting his work

anonymously or under a pseudonym. This book’s strength lies in carefulediting: the author provides a goodsense of time and place, and wiselyincludes events that had a directbearing on her father’s painting. So asnot to disturb the book’s continuity,she uses endnotes and footnotes toadd the background of people dis-cussed. These include the manyprofessional painters he called friends,and who filled a dual role as mentorsand instructors. One of the mostimportant was William Nicholson,whom Clementine admired, writingWSC: “I love to think of you paintingsparkling sun-lit scenes….Are youkeeping them cool & pale a laNicholson?” Winston responded: “Ihave painted four pictures…[one], a laNicholson—v[er]y luminous. It is thebest I think I have yet done.” These pages offer invaluable histor-ical material, including a fascinating

list of where the paintings hang today,who owned the grand homes whereChurchill painted, and what relation-ship he had with his hosts. The sixtyexacting color reproductions, chosento illustrate his themes, techniquesand variety, are proof of his expertise.With their large format and highquality one can fully appreciate theintensity of colors and recognize thetexture and brush strokes. The American dust jacket bears thesame painting (“Green Trees andPoppies at Lullenden”) as the originaljacket of Peter Coombs’s Churchill:His Paintings; the British jacket has afine photo of Churchill painting inFrance in 1939, which is more distinc-tive. Inside are the same finely printedpages, adding much to Lady Soames’sfather’s life that only she could know,exposing an unusual side of the greatman with a fine appreciation of thevital role painting played in his life. ,


LIFE AS A PAINTER...

Highly Professional Skills, Gracefully WornP A U L A D D I S O N

letters, supplemented by occasionalnotes and telegrams. Hence thisremarkable edition of 800 exchangesout of some 2000 between them,which opens with a letter from Mr.Winston Churchill to MissClementine Hozier on 16 April 1908,

and closes with a note from Clemmieto Winston on 18 April 1964. Mary Soames is a fine editor. Herunrivalled knowledge of the subject iscomplemented by literary and histor-ical skills which are gracefully wornbut highly professional. Through foot-notes linking passages and biographicalnotes she dispenses just the rightamount of background information. As she explains in the Preface,many of the letters have been pub-lished before, Clemmie’s in LadySoames’s own life of her mother,Winston’s in the official biography.Nevertheless there is little sense of déjàvu. In bringing together both sides ofthe correspondence and eliminatingeverything else, she reveals as neverbefore the inside story of a marriagethat was a great political partnership. It was, of course, a marriage of itstime. At the wedding Clemmie prom-

Speaking for Themselves: ThePersonal Letters of Winston andClementine Churchill. London andBoston 1999, 702 pages.

In the fifty-six years of married lifeWinston and Clementine Churchill

were often apart, Winston often insearch of action and adventure.Clementine too was affected by wan-derlust, and sometimes set off fordistant parts, leaving Winston athome. In 1935 she sailed away for athree-month cruise to the Far East.VE-Day found her in Moscow at theend of a tour of the Soviet Union.Whenever apart they exchanged long

_________________________________________Professor Addison, University of Edinburgh, is authorof several fine Churchill biographies including theseminal Churchill on the Home Front (1992). Hisreview is reprinted from FH 102, Spring 1999.

ised to love, honour and obey.Capable and intelligent, a strong sup-porter of female suffrage, she sacrificedmuch of her own potential for ahusband who never sought to disguisehis egotism or his absorption in themasculine world of politics. Yet themarriage worked for a simple reason,tenderly and movingly expressed intheir letters. Winston and Clemmiemarried for love and the passing oftime served only to strengthen thebonds between them. When Winston began to court thebeautiful Miss Hozier in 1908, he wasbackward with the opposite sex. Inone of his earliest letters to Clemmiehe wrote of his cousin Sunny: “He isquite different from me, under-standing women thoroughly, gettinginto touch with them at once, &absolutely dependent on feminineinfluence of some kind for the peace& harmony of his soul. Whereas I amstupid & clumsy in that relation, &naturally quite self-reliant and self-contained.” The letters between them in theaftermath of Gallipoli, when Winstonwas in the trenches on the verge ofdespair and she was at home fearinghe would be killed, display the devo-tion which enabled them to ride outstorms. “We are still young,” Clemmiewrites, “but Time flies stealing loveaway and leaving only friendshipwhich is very peaceful but not stimu-lating or warming.” “Oh my darling,”Winston replies, “do not speak of‘friendship’ to me—I love you morewith each month that passes.” Winston and Clementine wrote forone another’s eyes only, dashing offlively, spontaneous accounts of chil-dren, friends, relations, births,weddings, funerals, anxieties aboutmoney and health. It is fascinating tosee great historical events in the sub-plot of a family history. Mussolini, forexample, turns up as a most charmingguest at a tea party during a holidayvisit by Clemmie to Rome. Readers are bound to be struck bythe fact that Winston and Clemmietook so many holidays apart, yet wrote

frequently to explain how much theymissed one another. Here perhaps, wasone of the secrets of a long and happymarriage: they didn’t see too much ofeach other, allowed absence to makethe heart grow fonder. Clemmie was Winston’s loyal sup-porter, never losing faith in his geniusor sincerity. But she was a shrewdobserver of politics and acutely awareof the reasons why he sometimesaroused hostility and mistrust. Withina few weeks of his appointment asPrime Minister in 1940 she wrote towarn him “that there is a danger ofyour being generally disliked by yourcolleagues and subordinates because ofyour rough sarcastic and overbearingmanner....you won’t get the bestresults by irascibility and rudeness.” The idea that Churchill had noexistence outside politics is a myth.Here we see him as a husband, father,friend, host, author, painter, brick-layer, film fan, and lover of good foodand drink, a man of flesh and bloodsharing the joys and tragedies ofhuman life. Even in World War II hesomehow found the time to readnovels. His letters display a love andconcern for his children, and aninterest in their fortunes, that few topexecutives could match today. The Churchills were both a happyand an unhappy family. Randolph wascourageous and brilliant but rash and

uncontrollable, a bull in the chinashop of his father’s reputation. Sarahhad a successful stage career but heremotional instability was a source ofgreat anxiety, her first marriage to anentertainer whom Winston describedas “common as dirt.” Diana suffered afailed marriage and a highly-strungdisposition and eventually took herown life. Our author, growing up atidyllic Chartwell in a relatively calmtime, was a striking exception. Apart from his marriage, Chartwellwas the great turning-point inChurchill’s private life. Although ithad its uses as a political headquarters,it really awoke in him an ancestrallove of the land. To Clemmie’s dismay,he poured a fortune into rebuildingthe house and grounds, and costlyexperiments in farming. He wrote hermore than a hundred “ChartwellBulletins” full of enthusiastic reportson the creation of waterworks androckeries and the fortunes of amenagerie of animals and pets. Heretoo he was a fond parent, building atree-house for the children; and abenevolent country squire, interveningto assist “Mr. and Mrs. Donkey Jack,”gypsies who lived in a shack oncommon land. But for World War II,Churchill would have abandoned poli-tics, pulled up the drawbridge, andsettled down to the delights ofChartwell. Or would he? ,


Thriving in the Shade J O H N G . P L U M P T O N

_________________________________________________Mr. Plumpton is a former president of The Churchill Centre, asenior editor of Finest Hour, and a contributor for thirty years.This review is reprinted from FH 153, Winter 2011-12.

A Daughter’s Tale: The Memoir of WinstonChurchill’s Youngest Child. Doubleday /Random House, 2011, 352 pages.

Randolph Churchill is said to have regretted --the difficulty of acorns surviving in the

shade of a great oak. Yet in some cases acornsthrive, and fall not far from the parent. One >>

short-comings in the same way as mymother.” Her siblings were all very different:“Randolph was too distant from me inage to be part of my scheme ofthings….Diana was benevolenttowards me but was chiefly London-based, coming down to Chartwell onweekends. Sarah was my childhoodheroine and my greatest friend.”

Winston’s circle included ProfessorLindemann, Eddie Marsh, Alfred DuffCooper, Bernard Baruch, Lawrence ofArabia (“I liked him very much andnoticed his piercing blue eyes andintense manner”) and Lloyd George(“I was strongly and immediatelystruck by the great man’s white locks,his animation and his celebratedCeltic charm”). World War II, her formative influ-ence, takes up half of the book. Shebegan the war living at Chequers, an18-year-old with the Women’sVoluntary Service, which she joined in1940. The next year she joined theArmy’s Auxilliary Territorial Service asa “gunner girl.” She traces her careerfrom training centres to command ofan anti-aircraft battery, and as aide-de-camp to her father on trips to thesummits at Quebec and Potsdam.

example was Mary Churchill, laterLady Soames, whose personal storywas wonderfully told in her long-awaited autobiography. Here she recounts the rapid-fireevents of her first twenty-five years,culminating in her marriage toChristopher Soames in 1947. She wasborn at the same time as her fatherpurchased Chartwell, a house she hastreasured all of her life. Her bookbrings Chartwell alive as a homebetter than any guidebook. She opens with a poignant accountof the sad death of Marigold Churchill,the beloved “Duckadilly.” A year laterMary arrived: “Perhaps I was, for myparents, the child of consolation.” Wemeet Maryott White (“Cousin Moppet”or “Nana”), her mother’s cousin andMary’s godmother, nanny and lifelongfriend. With her parents often inLondon and abroad, “Nana in allmatters ruled my existence—alwaysloving and always there.” Nana introduced the precociouschild to the joys of literature: a passionthat has remained throughout her life.Lady Soames recalls being enthralledby Black Beauty, Alice in Wonderland,Peter Pan, Treasure Island, Uncle Tom’sCabin and Beatrix Potter. She wasspellbound by her father’s recitals ofMacaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome. Atreasured possession was a gift fromher sister Sarah, “a lovely greenleather-bound copy of The OxfordBook of English Verse, much fadednow.” Her love of literature expandedto the theatre, and there is a litany ofthe great plays of the 1930s and 1940sthat she enjoyed. Mary grew up in an adult worldand her memoirs are full of insight: “Iloved my parents unquestionably andmy mother I held in considerable awe.I thought her very beautiful, sought toplease her, and greatly feared her dis-pleasure….My relationship with myfather was altogether much easier—itjust seemed to happen. Of course, hedid not have to deal with the smallprint of my life or wrestle with my

Young Mary lived a very eclecticwartime life, enduring the privations ofordinary soldiers, while staying betimeswith her parents at Chequers and No.10 Annexe, the above-ground roomswhere her father spent most of his timein London. She had an active social life.Like most of her peers, she enjoyedbeing “footloose and fancy-free and verymuch on the look-out for romance.”She declined two marriage proposals—actually three because the eventualwinner, Christopher Soames, had topropose twice. Her portraits of VIPs are fascinating:Harry Hopkins (“at first a somewhatdour impression from which soonemerged great personal charm”); JanSmuts (“calm demeanour and wise judg-ment”); Charles de Gaulle (“a stern,direct giant. We all thought him veryfine”); Mackenzie King (“very nice but abit of a maiden aunt”); FranklinRoosevelt (“most kind, charming andentertaining”); Louis Mountbatten(“good-looking and most affable. Sarahand I fell for him in a big way.”); In1945 she wrote her mother of SirHarold Alexander: “The person I’vereally lost my heart to is Alex—who isdefinitely my fav’rite Field Marshal. Heis one of the few people I fell for at theage of 17 who has stood the stern test oftime.” Even at a young age, Lady Soameshad an eye for detail and characteranalysis. There are moving descriptionsof the loss of family and friends duringthe war, and accounts of “tensions anddifficulties on the family front,” even asgreat events unfolded. We are remindedthroughout the book that the Churchillswere a very human family in ways thathistorians are unable to capture. Although there is a bibliography, themajor source is the diary the author haskept for most of her life. Assuredly it isone of the great documents of history,which some day may be a majorresource for historians. In the meantime,A Daughter’s Tale is a most illuminatingportrait of the early life of a remarkablewoman who truly was a worthy off-spring of Winston and ClementineChurchill. ,


A DAUGHTER’S TALE...

Giving away the bride, 1947.

Chronologically as received...

A thing to grieve over. She knew how to be thedaughter of a great man. It involved being a good person.

LARRY ARNN, PRESIDENT, HILLSDALE COLLEGE, HILLSDALE, MICH.

★★★ She was the living embodiment of her Father’s idealsand spirit, our guiding light and inspiration over manyyears of committed service. She joined the Council in1978 and was Chairman of Trustees in 1991-2002—awonderful twenty-four years of personal dedication. Evenafter retirement as our “Fellow Emeritus” she remainedinterested in the Trust’s work and what Churchill Fellowswere achieving, always attending our House of Commonsdinners and award ceremonies. As our Guest of Honourshe presented Churchill Medallions and gave a wonderfuladdress at the award ceremony at the Guildhall in 2008.Her presence and inspiration will be much missed.

JAMIE BALFOUR, DIRECTOR GENERAL, CHURCHILL MEMORIAL TRUST

★★★ She will be remembered as one who gave so much toothers. We join in sending our sincere condolences.

BARBARA HIGGINS, CHURCHILL CLUB OF CONWY, WALES

★★★ In all the tributes, it’s very important to recall that shewas also a first-class biographer and historian. Her biog-raphy of her mother won the Wolfson Prize, Britain’s topaward for history, and her edition of her parents’ corre-spondence was meticulous in its scholarship. She wrotesix interesting, intelligent, well-crafted books. Her turn ofphrase was never less than elegant, her insights invariablyacute. For as long as people are interested in Churchill’spersonality and actions—that is, for the rest of Time—wewill be in debt to her skill as a writer.

ANDREW ROBERTS, NEW YORK CITY

★★★ The loss of this great lady with the many insights sheoffered to her father is shared here.

DANIEL ARTAGAVEYTIA, MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY

★★★She stands out as the longest-lived Churchill in history. Ithought it rather poignant that just after the announce-ment of her passing I was reading in Finest Hour aboutthe founding of the Churchill Centre in Boston twentyyears ago (FH 162: 52), and there was the picture ofMary next to Harriet and me. She stayed at our home forthe few days before that conference.

CYRIL MAZANSKY, NEWTON CENTRE, MASS.

Once with David andDiane Boler we tookMary to dinner, whereshe told of her wartimeexperiences. We were soenthralled that we asked ifshe would show us where herbattery was situated. Off we went to Hyde Park Corner.About 100 yards in, she outlined the placement of guns,ammunition and stores. Then she told us of how “Papa”would invite VIPs like Canadian Prime MinisterMackenzie King, to "go and watch Mary's battery pop-off a few." On one visit her father decided to rest, and satdown on a box of ammunition to puff a cigar. Overheadwas a large sign: “Danger. No Smoking," but no one wasprepared to point that out to the Prime Minister! Around the VE-Day anniversary in 1995 I went toher townhouse late on a warm afternoon. She greeted meat the door and after showing me around offered me adrink. She opened her fridge and all I saw was yogurtand champagne. She said: “We must have The Cuvée.” Isaid, “of course,” and over the course of a lengthy visit,we drank the entire bottle. As I left I stood outside in theheat, my head swimming from all that champagne,thinking, “I just shared an entire bottle of Pol RogerChurchill Cuvée with his daughter—why didn’t I haveher sign the bottle?” But I couldn't get my head and feetto coordinate going back to her door, so I piled into thetaxi she had ordered for me, went back to my hotel andpassed out. She went out for dinner.

JOHN PLUMPTON, TCC PRESIDENT 2000-03, TORONTO, ONT.

★★★ In Marrakesh during the Morocco tour I entered aroom just after Mary had learned that my wife Margaretwas home expecting our first child, Anna. She greeted mewith the enthusiasm she might have expressed had herfather won the 1945 election. She told me of the joywhen her first child was born, and about child-rearing ingeneral. In one of her talks she mentioned her sisterDiana praying: “Oh God, please bless the Dardanelles,whatever they are.” This reminded my wife of Anna, agedone, already impatient with us and the world, standingbeside her crib in the morning, announcing: “Mafekinghas been relieved!” This was Anna’s way of speeding herparents to get the day moving—not a reference toChurchill but to Shirley Temple playing “The LittlePrincess,” whose father was in the Boer War.

FRED SHEEHAN, BRAINTREE, MASS.


Messages from Friends

Ruth Plumpton, Celia Sandys,

John Plumpton, M.S., 1998.

I was never fortunate enough to meet her, but theentire team was so very fond of her as a longstandingsupporter of our work here. The loss of her friendshipand guidance will be keenly felt by all. Our thoughts goout to her family at this difficult time. To honour herpassing, our flag flew at half-mast over Chartwell.KATHERINE BARNETT, HOUSE & COLLECTIONS MGR., CHARTWELL, KENT

★★★ We met at the 1990 San Francisco conference. SaddamHussein had just invaded Kuwait, but despite the crisis Iobtained leave from my submarine to attend. At the tra-ditional black-tie banquet I was introduced to her byRobert Hardy as “a young gentleman in the Navy.” I wasyoung in those days, and it is a pleasant memory. Is there anyone left who can claim to have met FDR,Truman, Stalin, de Gaulle, Lawrence of Arabia, StanleyBaldwin and Charlie Chaplin? She knew them all, andmore. Fortunately she shared her memories with us, inperson and in print, and we became the richer for it.

DAVID FREEMAN, EDITOR, CHARTWELL BULLETIN, PLACENTIA, CALIF.

★★★ I recall a smart young Army lieutenant, aide-de-campto her father the Prime Minister. at Potsdam in 1945. Iwas part of a group of Royal Marines responsible for thesecurity and protection of the British Cabinet (“Eye-Witness to Potsdam,” FH 145: 30-36.) Now that Maryhas rejoined her family, I would like to pay my greatestrespects to that young, smart, efficient Lieutenant Iremember from 1945, and to those who loved her.

NEVILLE BULLOCK RM (RET.), ASHTON, LANCASHIRE

★★★ She frequently visited the Angus Glens. At a concert inCortachy Castle the act—the Whiffenpoof singers fromYale University—was running late, and Lady Airlie sug-gested that her houseguest could “do a turn” to keep theaudience entertained. Lady Soames agreed to tell them abit about “Mama and Papa.” Their marriage was not asstormy as some believe, she said, likening it to Shakes-peare’s sonnet 116. “Let me not to the marriage of trueminds, admit impediments,” she began. “Love is not lovewhich alters when it alteration finds,” she continued, com-pleting the poem in time for the Whiffenpoofs’ arrival.

THE SCOTSMAN, EDINBURGH

★★★ One of my fondest memories is sitting with her in ourNew Hampshire colonial home, going through GeorginaLandemare’s cookbook, Recipes From Number Ten. Itreasure my copy, festooned with blue Sticky Notes onfavorite recipes. I was writing a column interpreting therecipes and measurements for modern kitchens (FH 95-115). We sat hip to hip, slowly turning the pages, as Marynoted particularly memorable dishes. Three Sticky Notes

are marked in her own hand: cold mousse, Boodlesorange fool, gateau hollandaise. I offered these and herother favorites in my column: coq au vin, pommes deterre anna, beignets, biscuits fromage, eclairs. Later shesent me Mrs. Landemare’s handwritten recipe forChristmas pudding, which the cook had given to GraceHamblin. Attached was a note from Grace, who said Mrs.Landemare “was always trying to make a cook out of me.”“You have devoted so much thought and cooking, somany hours, to revive Mrs. Landemare’s recipes,” Marywrote. “Here is a little present for you, which I believeyou will cherish.” Yes, I most certainly do.

BARBARA LANGWORTH, MOULTONBOROUGH, N.H.

★★★ Chartwell was her homegrowing up and her autobiog-raphy recounts lovely stories ofplaying and relaxing with herfamily here. I feel very privi-leged to have known her. Shewas instrumental in everyaspect of Chartwell’s develop-ment to enable visitors to enjoyher family home. She and Lady Churchill developed thevisitor route and decided which parts of the collectionshould be on show; they added staircases and extra doorsto create a smooth visitor flow. I have fond memories ofher passion for this place. She came to meet me in myfirst month. We went round the house and studio and itwas great to hear her stories about the rooms and collec-tions. When we got to the studio she was not as pleased,for we had the whisky and soda mix too strong. “Myfather never had his whisky that strong!” she exclaimed tous. I always check how it looks when I go in the studio.We shall all miss her guidance and wisdom.

ZOË COLBECK, GENERAL MANAGER, CHARTWELL, KENT

★★★ We had fortuitous conversation when I was preparinga presentation on her father and his art for the AmericanArt Therapy Association. From my studies of his use ofart as therapy, I had formed the opinion that Churchillwas not Manic Depressive as is so commonly stated.Rather, his need for hyperactivity affected him stronglywhen circumstances slowed him down, and he turned topainting to absorb his vibrant energy. I asked LadySoames if she felt that her father experienced depression,his “black dog.” She responded, “I think the psychiatristshave made rather a big meal of that!” The only times shehad seen her father depressed, she added, were timeswhen not to be sad would have been inhuman: “Some ofthe things he went through would depress anybody.”

CAROL BRECKENRIDGE, CLEVELAND, OHIO >>


I met her twice:once when MaryHelen, my late wife,and I were visiting theChurchill ArchivesCentre and AllenPackwood kindlyinvited us to lunchwith him and LadySoames; and at the2007 Vancouver con-ference when were ather table for dinner.

My talk at Vancouver about Churchill and the Burmacampaign necessarily involved some criticism, nuanced Ihope, of her father. Lady Soames was extremely graciousafterwards and really did accept that historians wouldnecessarily see things a bit differently than her fatherhad—very impressive from a devoted daughter. We wereboth struck by her charm, her considerable knowledgeworn lightly, and her sense of humor. With her passing alink with a great past is severed.

PROF. RAYMOND CALLAHAN, UNIV. OF DELAWARE, NEWARK, DEL.

★★★ She was a great patron and regular visitor to bothChurchill College and the Churchill Archives Centre atCambridge, where she spent much time. I remember hercoming to undertake research for her excellent book ofher parents’ letters, Speaking for Themselves.While sittingin our reading room she spotted me leading a group ofprimary school children around the Archives Centre. Iexplained that they were here as part of a classroom studythey were doing of her father, and she instantly offered tomeet with them. When it came to questions there was initial shyness, butfinally one young boy piped up: “Are you famous justbecause your father was famous?” His teacher’s faceflushed red. For a few seconds there was an awkwardsilence. Then Mary defused it all: “But dear, I am notfamous at all. I am lucky to be the daughter of a famousfather.” It was a brilliant answer, but only half correct, forshe was justly famous in her own right—for her role inthe war as an officer with anti-aircraft batteries, for herprize-winning biography of her mother and other literaryworks, for her role at the National Theatre, for her lead-ership and patronage of the global network of Churchillorganisations. The Churchill Archives Centre is proud tohold her papers alongside those of her father, mother,brother and husband.

ALLEN PACKWOOD, CHURCHILL ARCHIVES CENTRE, CAMBRIDGE

Mary was a wonderful supporter of all UK activi-ties of the Churchill Society and Centre. I fondly recallher attendance at our conferences in Bath, Portsmouthand London, where she was inevitably the star of theshow. Being with her in Bermuda and Quebec, and atthe exhibition at the Library of Congress in Washington,when we were addressed by President George W. Bush,was also a great treat, as she mingled with so many inter-national admirers. My wife and I were privileged to havebeen invited by Mary to attend the annual service of theOrder of the Garter in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in2010. As she processed in and out of the chapel with theQueen and the other Knights and Ladies, clad in herdark blue Garter mantle and plumed Tudor bonnet, wehad a rare glimpse of her as part of the panoply of State.When she was appointed a Lady Companion of the MostNoble Order of the Garter in 2005, I sent her congratu-lations. “I am, of course, thrilled and feel deeplyhonoured,” she replied. “There seems to be a greatnumber of things to organise (or be organised for) inadvance of the installation, and I am off this very after-noon to be informed on all these matters by no less thanGarter King of Arms and the Secretary of the Order ofthe Garter.” At this point the typescript abruptly termi-nated….followed by a final paragraph in her own hand:“Later. Back home—my head whirling with the detail. Ishall walk the dog!”

PAUL COURTENAY, FH SENIOR EDITOR, ANDOVER, HANTS.

★★★ She was ourPatron from1984—andhow fortunatethat was. Manypatrons existonly as organi-zationalornaments,aroused anddisplayed andthen quicklyshelved. Notours! From the outset, she immersed herself in our work:attending board meetings (on ship and ashore), playingcentral roles at our conferences, contributing to FinestHour, writing and speaking on our behalf and, impor-tantly, offering wise and timely advice. The ChurchillCentre’s debt to her can never be repaid, but it can beacknowledged through the coming years coupled withappropriate reminders of how essential she was to every-thing we did, and hoped to do.

BILL IVES, TCC PRESIDENT, 2003-07, CHAPEL HILL, N.C.


M E S S AG E S F RO M F R I E N D S

With Bill Ives after the launch of USS Winston

S. Churchill, Tenants Harbor Maine, 1999.

With Ray Callahan, Vancouver.

Mary was agenerous frienddating back tothe 1990Conference inSan Francisco,when youseated me nextto her at theBoard dinner.She wrote asplendid letter of introduction that aided research for mybook, Winston Churchill: Soldier. She also wrote a lovelyand gracious preface for the new edition of my ChurchillCentre book, The Orders, Decorations and Medals of SirWinston Churchill. After she received the Order of TheGarter in 2005, she sent me the programs for theinvestiture, the procession and the installation service(which she called “a nice slice of medieval cake”) becauseshe knew I would be interested—completely unbidden.

HON. DOUGLAS RUSSELL, IOWA CITY, IA.

★★★ One late afternoon, after sitting through a number ofpresentations at a Churchill Conference and bemoaningthe difficulty of staying awake, Mary told us this story.When her husband Christopher was British Ambassadorto France (1968-72), they attended many dinners withlong, often boring after-dinner speeches. Mary often fellasleep, but Christopher was nice about it. One evening,she fell asleep on Lord Rothschild’s shoulder! Afterwardsshe asked Lady Rothschild how did she always stayawake? She answered, “NoDoz.” From that time on,Mary told us, “I still take NoDoz.”

JUDITH KAMBESTAD, LOS OSOS, CALIF.

★★★ At the 1990 San Francisco conference, when asked toname figures who had an influenced her father in termsof leadership, strategy and political thought, Lady Soamesnamed five including Robert E. Lee and AbrahamLincoln. On the spot, an idea was born for a 1991“Churchill’s Virginia” conference on Churchill and theAmerican Civil War, which we duly held at Richmondand Williamsburg. Sir Martin Gilbert and Senator HarryF. Byrd, Jr. were the keynote speakers. In San Francisco, the Board arrived a day early fordinner with Lady Soames. Afterward the party boarded aprivate trolley for a ride through the city. She and I sattogether, arms interlocked. Thanks to Christian Pol-Rogerthe trolley was well-stocked with bubbly—so I had achampagne cable car ride with my traveling companion,Lady Soames. What an indelible memory!

RICHARD KNIGHT, NASHVILLE, TENN. >>

With Doug Russell, Vancouver, 2007

When we met at Williamsburg Conference in1998, our conversation was light and friendly. She alwaysgreeted us warmly later. As her “hosts” at the 2003Bermuda conference it was fun to wander the buffet withMary saying, “a bit of that and, oh yes, some of this,” asher plate filled. Our conversation was often about familyand travel. We cherish the formal photograph of us withher at the special reception. Mary was awash in a lightblue satin gown with a crowning tiara. She was a lady inevery sense. We will continue to miss her presence.

PHIL AND SUE LARSON, CHICAGO, ILL.

★★★ It was 2007, on the occasion of Martin Gilbert’s pub-lication of his book on the Battle of the Somme (FH134). Bursting with excitement, I was eager to tell her ofThe American Spectator’s respect for her father. Sheaccepted my admiration with grace but turned to thelady next to me, whom I had neglected to introduce—my wife Jeanne, as luck would have it. She more thancompensated for my neglect and we went home thatnight agreeing we had met a wonderful woman.

R. EMMETT TYRRELL, ED., THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR, WASHINGTON

★★★ Each time I saw her speak she held the audience inthe palm of her hand while radiating intelligence, charm,diplomatic sensitivity, and an underlying strength ofcharacter of which one is always aware even though it'slargely unspoken. How fortunate Sir Winston was tohave a daughter who was such an intelligent, persuasiveand indefatigable champion of his reputation.

PROF. PAUL ADDISON, UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

★★★ One afternoon years ago she invited my two youngdaughters and me to her cozy London home. Beforelunch we shared a bottle of Pol Roger while “Prune,” herLancashire Heeler, sadly blind, entertained us by runninground the garden, maneuvering around plants and shrubsas if she had built-in radar. After showing us around, pointing out importantpaintings and memorabilia, she called for a taxi to arestaurant, for more champagne and a fine lunchincluding “pudding,” the English word for dessert: “Onecan’t have lunch without a pudding.” Carefully and “age-appropriately” she told of how frightened she was during“that ghastly war” and how many times she did not thinkthat she would survive. Her father, she said, felt theweight of the world on his shoulders. “You see,” shereminded the girls, “we didn’t know we were going towin, so it was touch-and-go for a long time, and he feltvery much alone.” We sat spellbound, having a personalhistory lesson from one of the “greatest generation.”

JACQUELINE, OLIVIA AND CHARLOTTE WITTER, REDWOOD CITY, CALIF.


It was during my fifteen-month wedding trip, the firsttime I lived in London, that I met Mary Soames, intro-duced by a mutual friend. I was at work on a book onChurchill. As we talked in her flat in spring 1989, I wasstruck, like others who write about her father, with hersympathetic and respectful view of my interest in his writ-ings. Over the years I came to realize that it was thenatural result of growing up in the house of a seriouswriter, and being one herself. An ally and friend from the start, she answered myquestions, urging me to plunge into every controversy andto make up my own mind. Disclaiming special expertise,she insisted I talk to those who knew about his books andarranged for me to visit Sir William Deakin in France. When Judith and I resolved to found the Rt Hon SirWinston Spencer Churchill Society of Alaska in 1990,Mary agreed to be its patron. In 1994 she made her firstvisit to Alaska. At Denali National Park, she saw theChurchill Peaks, the north and south summits of Mt.McKinley; then, tying a kerchief around her neck, shegamely ate ribs and corn on the cob. As our guest ofhonor at aChurchill Societydinner, she jumpedup to join theCanaries in singingHarrow Schoolsongs. For the next twodecades we enjoyedher company,including a memo-rable trip to theCrimea. I wasstruck by herability to find the right words on every occasion. InSimferopol Airport, after putting up with fulsome greet-ings from our bloviating Russian hosts for two hours, shegently ended the session, recalling from her father’smemoirs that it was quite a drive to Yalta. They assuredher the trip was faster now, and it was: our bus barreledstraight down the middle of the road with a police escort,making other drivers dive onto the shoulder. Most delightful were our talks at her house in Londonover a small bottle of Pol Roger, or in her favorite restau-rant around the corner. She counted it her duty to set therecord straight in the alleys of political and historical con-troversy when someone mistook the facts or was unfair toher father. She inherited his noble love of truth and nevershrank from hard thinking or blunt talk. It was fine to seeher loyalty to her father’s memory. But I also enjoyed herwit, her delight in life, her encouragement, her sense of

Ellen and I hadthe privilege ofmeeting her at abook signing in1992 at the FDRLibrary in HydePark, New York,where she opened anexhibit of herfather’s paintings.(See “A Friend Who

Was Here,” page 36.) We were waiting to have our booksigned, it occurred to me that we were going to Londonsoon and had never been to Chartwell. I came up withthe bright idea of asking Her Ladyship how to get toChartwell by public transport. Ellen was mortified andsaid, “You can't ask her that!” I replied, “Why not? Shelived there, she ought to know!” Well, I did, and Lady Soames could not have beenmore gracious. She not only told us what train to take,but how much the cab fare should be from the station,and recommended a restaurant or two in the area. Thebook she signed that day, Winston Churchill: His Life as aPainter, is a cherished part of my library.

HON. JONAH TRIEBWASSER, RED HOOK, N.Y.

★★★My wife Dorothy and I

first met Lady Soames in1984. We saw her last whenshe hosted us at her home inLondon in September 2012.Lady Soames was especiallyclose to our ChurchillSociety of British Columbiaand its members. Herhusband, Lord Soames, gavethe first address to the

Society after its formation in 1979, and Lady Soamesaddressed our members at our annual banquets in 1984,1989 and 2003. At the International ChurchillConference, organized and hosted by the ChurchillSociety of British Columbia in Vancouver in 2007, theattendees were privileged to celebrate Lady Soames’sbirthday with our Patron as the guest of honour. Maryestablished close relationships with a number of ourmembers, including our past president Joe Siegenbergand our former director Joan McConkey. She oftenseemed to rely on me to help her at the many confer-ences and events we attended.

CHRISTOPHER HEBB, W. VANCOUVER, B.C.


M E S S AG E S F RO M F R I E N D S c o n t i n u e d . . .

With Christopher Hebb, 2007

The Canaries, Anchorage, 1994. James Muller at left.

fun, her sparkling eyes. We oftentalked about the rewards and vicis-situdes of writing. I marveled ather schedule when she was risingat six in the morning to workthrough the quiet hours on heredition of her parents’ letters toeach other. She taught me to dif-ferentiate, when inscribing mybooks, between a book I gavesomeone and a book someone asked me to sign, lest thelatter inscription suggest the book was my gift—a nicedistinction. By 1995, when I came to England for research and welived at Churchill College in Cambridge, our daughterHelen had arrived; Mary always remembered her birthdayand asked her to call her an honorary aunt. In 2000 Mary returned to Alaska for the 17thChurchill Conference and celebrated her birthday with us.The night before it opened, as we sat on the carpet assem-bling packets for 200 delegates, we were surprised whenshe joined us to finish the job. When we lived in Londonagain in autumn 2004, Helen enrolled at Queen’s College,an independent girls’ school where Mary had studied for ayear. I dare say her recommendation had something to dowith Helen’s being admitted for only a few months. No one who met Mary will ever forget her charm, heracuity, her judgment, or the twinkle in her eyes. Thosewho missed meeting her, and everyone who misses hernow, will find all those qualities in her books.

JAMES W. MULLER, ANCHORAGE, ALASKA

★★★ At the Quebec Conference I said to her, “Because ofmy admiration for your father, my son named his sonWinston.” She said “good” and gave me the thumbs-upsign. I have a photo of my grandson at Bladon.

BARTLETT COCKE JR., SAN ANTONIO, TEX.

★★★ In Bermuda after the 2003 conference, my wife Dianeand I were sitting in the hotel lounge when Mary joinedus for afternoon tea. As the afternoon wore on, more andmore people joined us. Eventually the conversationmoved on to the war, and more specifically, the Alliedinvasion of France. I asked her, “What were you doing onD-Day?” fully expecting her to say she was providingsuccour and support to her father as he anxiously awaitednews of the invasion, or perhaps in Southwick House onthe south coast, where the invasion headquarters were.“My dear,” she replied, “I was attending a lecture withseveral hundred other ATS girls on how to makeomelettes from powdered eggs.” That same afternoon she told me of the time she and

her husband Christopher, then Ambassadorto France, attended a state banquet hostedby President de Gaulle. Mary was seatednext to the President, and, after a long andmunificent dinner, the great man rested hishead on Mary’s shoulder, and fell asleep!“Oh, Mary,” I said with a laugh, “I do hopeyou are going to put these sort of anecdotesin your autobiography (which she was thenwriting). “Oh no, my dear,” she replied,

“you mustn’t forget that these men have children.” Thatwas Mary, polite and thoughtful of others to the last.

DAVID BOLER, TONBRIDGE, KENT

★★★ For the past two years I have been the President of theBoard of Advisers for Osher Life Long Learning Instituteat Duke University. In September I start my eighth one-semester course on Churchill. When I come to hischildren I hope I can manage not to tear up. One hadonly to meet Mary to love her.

DR. A. WENDELL MUSSER, DURHAM, N.C.

★★★In 2004 we

heard that LadySoames’s CanadianTilley hat, of whichshe was most fond,had been devoured bysome animal in SouthAfrica. Arriving forthe Portsmouth con-ference that year, webrought a new one,signed by the inventor,Alex Tilley himself,

carrying it in a fragile hatbox. She welcomed us at WestHouse with tea, cookies and Pol Roger—and literallypopped from her chair with delight and immediatelytried it on: hence this wonderful picture! Briefly alone, I raced to video Mary’s collection of herfather’s paintings, which she invited me to do. What anopportunity! Alas it was not to be, for Solveig had wornthe batteries down filming Mary, her Tilley hat, and hergarden. Later she called a cab to take us to our next stop.The driver refused all coin of the realm, even a tip. Hesaid Lady Soames had already paid, sternly directing himto take no tip. He even called me “Guv’nor.” As we look back over the thirty years we were blessedwith her company, Solveig and I remember fondly the“Tilley Afternoon” at West House. Our memories lessenthe sadness of her loss.G.R. (RANDY) BARBER, CHAIRMAN, ICS CANADA, MARKHAM, ONT. ,



Iam excited and honoured to be here at the firstgathering of the North Texas Chapter, and ifI’ve had anything to do

with people wanting to comethen I am indeed happy. Youwill realise how deeply movingit is for me to see how revered, so long after hisdeath, is my father’s memory, which theInternational Churchill Society does so much tokeep fresh and green. It makes me proud that you have all come here

today to meet me. And as you are setting out onyour way, may I venture to say to you what I hope

the International ChurchillSociety does? It does a lot ofthings, of course—but I hopeespecially it will continue to

take a particular care and pride in keeping therecord straight. There are a lot of stories told about famouspeople, and I find that as time goes on it is ratherlike the lens of a camera: Virtues and faults comec

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“Let us Command the Moment to Remain”

MARY SOAMES

Winston Churchill as Father and Family Man

®

INAuGuRAL MEETING, N. TExAS CHAPTER, INTERNATIONAL CHuRCHILL SOCIETy, 19 FEBRuARy 1986

“Tea at Chartwell” (29 August 1927) by Winston S. Churchill, 1928, Coombs 36. In the dining room L-R: Thérèse Sickert;

Dana Mitford; Eddie Marsh; WSC; Professor Lindemann; Randolph, Diana and Clementine Churchill; WSC’s artist friend

Walter Sickert. © Churchill Heritage Ltd., reproduced by kind permission of Minnie Churchill and Marina Brounger.


out of focus. Inaccurate statements said in somepaper or book are copied lightheartedly, and repro-duce themselves all over the place. Few people takethe trouble to go back to the source and find out ifthat really was what happened. I like to hope thatthe Society will, above all the other things, regarditself as the guardian of the true picture and tryalways to bring that camera back into true focus. Sorry to give you a little lecture but I do careabout it tremendously. Your president RichardLangworth would forgive me for saying the onlytime I’ve ever fallen out with him a little bit waswhen I saw a really horrible effigy of my fatherbeing advertised in Finest Hour, and I wrote him afurious letter! [Laughter] Any other society, ofcourse, could trade anything they liked—it’s a freeworld—but the Churchill Society should becareful what they reproduce, because you are, youcan be, the repository of the true story and thetrue image. Naturally, as his daughter, I care verymuch about that. Your chairman has suggested that you wouldlike me to recall my father as a family man, and Ishall do so with great joy as well as some nostalgia.It always gives me happiness when I have anopportunity to revive both for myself and forothers the vivid personality, the warmth andhumanity of my great and beloved father, in theglow of whose memory I shall ever live. Of coursehis family and close friends were the principal ben-eficiaries of his warm-hearted and in the maingenial temperament. But those who knew WinstonChurchill best in public and in private have oftentestified to the oneness of his character. His public face was not that much differentfrom the private countenance we all knew. He wasa most natural, almost uninhibited person with anengaging frankness of expression and candour ofmind which were refreshing to encounter. Hisspontaneous enjoyment of so many things in lifeand his many interests and talents made him avery enthralling companion, as those who workedclosely with him have often recounted. And I’m soglad that some of you had the opportunity todayto meet for a brief moment Sir John Colville andhis wife. Sir John has just published his diaries,Fringes of Power. He was my father’s private secre-tary from the beginning of the war on and offright through the war, and then again when myfather was Prime Minister for the second time. He started, having been in Mr. Neville

Chamberlain’s private office, with a real anti-Churchill outlook, and it is to me moving andtouching to see, as the days and months go by,how he became a candid and deep admirer, a loyalservant, and a true friend. Long after my father leftoffice, he and Margaret Colville were frequent visi-tors to wherever my parents were, and in the lastdays of my father’s life, they were among thepeople who came to bid him farewell. You will see in his book—which I do moststrongly recommend—the engaging and privateside of my father’s life: how he liked to talk to hisprivate secretary on duty (which was often JockColville), and his naturalness. Do try and get it.He’s not very nice about me in the beginning, butwe have remained friends all the way. [Laughter.]

To have been my father’s child was anenrichment, as perhaps you can imagine,beyond compare. And from my earliest

years I found myself admitted to a grown-up worldof interest, variety, excitement and fun. My child-hood memories of my parents are chiefly centredaround life at Chartwell, which I believe quite anumber of you have visited. Chartwell was wheremy father loved most to be in the whole world. Heused to say, “A day spent away from Chartwell is aday wasted.” And there I, by far the youngest ofhis children, was brought up from my earliest days. Of course, no account of Winston Churchill asa family man can exclude his beloved Clementine,whose abiding beauty, distinct personality, steadfastlove, and—last but not least—good housekeeping,made the constant background to her husband’stumultuous career. Many years after they weremarried he was to write her: “My greatest goodfortune in a life of brilliant experience has been tofind you and to lead my life with you.” What atribute! And for fifty-seven years they livedtogether, through a period as tumultuous andchanging as surely as any in our history. Together,they faced the ups and downs of political life. Andfor nearly all their lives, they were in the eye of thestorms which have rocked our civilisation. We children were early on to learn the tidesand seasons of Parliamentary sessions—the over-riding responsibilities of public life which governedour parents’ lives, which took no account of schoolprize-givings, family feasts or carefully plannedtreats and holidays. Even when we were quitesmall, we learned to sense and to respond to the >>

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tension of the crisis. My father used to say gravely,“We must all rise to the level of events”—anaustere dictum for the young, but I have come tobe grateful for it in my life. Public dramas pene-trated to the nursery floor. In 1915, at the heightof the Dardanelles Crisis which resulted ingrievous loss of life and dramatic repercussions, mysister Diana, then aged six, was heard by her nannyto pray with fervour, “Oh God, please bless theDardanelles, whatever they are.” For me, clear consec-utive memories of myfather begin with theopening of that decadewhich has come to becalled “The WildernessYears”: 1929-39. In1929, he ceased to beChancellor of theExchequer after StanleyBaldwin’s Conservativegovernment wasdefeated. For ten yearsafter that he was to beout of office. Winstonwas now in his mid-fifties, Clementine tenyears younger, myselfeightish, trailing alongwell behind the big ones,Diana, Randolph, andSarah. Winston was ofcourse still a member ofParliament, and politicskept my parents much in London. But in theThirties, Chartwell, which had been bought in theearly Twenties, became more and more the centreof their lives. Looking back with a perspective which onedoesn’t have at the time, I think what strikes memost about my father at that period, is what aprodigious worker he was. Our domestic life wasgeared around his programme. Chartwell was averitable factory. The lights from his upstairs studygleamed late into the night while, padding up anddown that long room with its raftered ceiling, hedictated to his secretary hour after hour. Hisspeeches, whether on platforms up and down thecountry or from his place below the gangway in

the House of Commons, received infinite pains intheir preparation. Newspaper articles for bothhome and abroad poured forth. His political activ-ities alone would have filled a busy life, but apartfrom all this, he made time for his work as anauthor and as an historian. It must never be forgotten that he was not arich man. He kept us all by his pen. His literaryoutput in those years was truly amazing. Apartfrom collections and speeches, articles and essays,his major works between the two world wars wereThe World Crisis, the story of the 1914-18 war and

its aftermath; and hismonumental Life of hisgreat ancestor, JohnChurchill First Duke ofMarlborough—ninevolumes between them.The outbreak of theSecond World War foundhim hard at work on hisfour-volume History ofthe English SpeakingPeoples, a vivid,panoramic tapestry, fromwhich he broke off tocontribute with his ownlife and actions morememorable pages to thathistory. After the SecondWorld War he was tocomplete this work, butonly after the six volumesof his war memoirs.

Someone has com-pared him to Caesar, who

waged wars and wrote about them. All the whilehe was involved in politics, leading his party fromthe humiliating defeat of 1945 back to power oncemore. Winston Churchill was seventy-seven andstill going strong when he became Prime Ministeragain in 1951. And if we now recall him chiefly asa statesman and world leader, we must rememberthat it was for literature that he was awarded theNobel Prize in 1953. Life was not all toil. Far from it! If midnight oilwas consumed by the gallon, daylight and sun-shine hours were filled with a multitude ofoccupations: building walls and cottages, makingdams, turning peninsulas into islands, constructingswimming pools, and devising complicated water-c

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“Let Us Command the Moment to Remain”...

“He was not a rich man....In

his upstairs study, padding up

and down that long room, he

kept us all by his pen....”


works so the little rivulet that ran in at the ChartWell splashed round down through the valley andwas pumped up again to start crashing down thehill again. During the winter of 1934, when my motherwas away on a long sea voyage, a friend staying atChartwell wrote to keep her in touch. She wrote,“Winston has so many irons in the fire that theday is not nearly long enough, what with the newwall and the mechanical digger that does the workof forty men, rebuilding the chauffeur’s cottage,films, the crisis in India, and when there is nothingelse, Marlborough. Well, you see, we are busy.”

Then of course there was his painting. Youwill perhaps have the chance to go up toyour wonderful Dallas Museum of Art and

to see there, among very great works of art, a smallexhibition of my father’s pictures. Some of themI’m very proud of, and think are quite good. Hetook up painting literally as occupational therapywhen he was over forty, in the traumatic aftermathof the Dardanelles catastrophe; and from that grimsummer of 1915 for over 40 years more, my fatherfound hours of pleasure and occupation inpainting. He himself wrote: “Happy are thepainters, for they shall not be lonely. Light andcolour, peace and hope, will keep them companyto the end or almost to the end of the day.” Those were prophetic words, for he continuedto enjoy painting up to within a few years beforehis death. I am fortunate to live surrounded bysome of his best pictures. They are so full of lightand colour, and evoke for me many happy hoursspent watching him paint or having picnics whilehe was painting. They evoke not only the manyseasons of Chartwell and the brilliant light of thesouth of France, but they reflect also the hours ofconcentrated pleasure and oblivion from darkworries, which he derived from painting them. One of my father’s salient characteristics washis readiness to forgive. Somebody said about him,“Winston is a very bad hater.” When I was a child,I often heard him quote the Biblical injunction,“Let not the sun go down upon your wrath,” andit was a precept he practised both in his public andhis private life. He indeed was a quick forgiver,and often it was he who made the first steps acrossthe bridge, to make up quarrels, whether inmatters great or small, whether with mightygrown-ups or his own silly, tempestuous children.

And in his public life, he preached and practisedreconciliations and magnanimity in victory to hiscountry’s former foes.

No recollection of my father could ignorethe wit and wisdom and joviality of hiscompany. Early admitted to our parents’

table as we children were, some of my most vividchildhood and teenage memories are the mealtimesat Chartwell. Much of the splendour of conversa-tion, of course, sailed over my head in the earlieryears. I think I may have possibly been more pre-occupied about whether there were going to beenough cupcakes for me to have a second helping.But I think sometimes I didn’t miss all of the fire-work displays and eloquent argument. As time went on, I began to follow and to feelinspired by the great issues of those days. But mostof all, I remember with delight when our companywas joined by some of the muses—the muses ofhistory, of song, and poetry sacred and heroic. Ledby my father, we would recite verse after versefrom Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome, his and ourfavourite being the glorious tale of how Horatiokept that bridge in the days of old; and the rol-licking Edwardian musical songs he had enjoyed somuch as a young man; and Rudyard Kipling in allhis moods; and Rupert Brooke; and of course,Shakespeare. What a prodigious memory my father had,reaching far back to his school days at Harrow.And from him, too, I learned as a child that throb-bing, thrilling, glorious Battle Hymn of theRepublic: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of thecoming of the Lord / He is trampling out thevintage where the grapes of wrath are stored….”Perhaps those long ago, triumphant days were inour minds when we chose that hymn to be sung athis state funeral in St. Paul’s Cathedral. With all these diversions, mealtimes sometimesprolonged themselves into three-hour sessions,often to my mother’s despair. Eventually shewould make to move. And I so well remember myfather looking at her down the table, lovingly andruefully, and saying, “Oh, Clemmie, don’t go. It isso nice. Let us command the moment to remain.” Of course, one never can. But today I’ve triedto command some precious moments that Iremember to remain. And as I have recalled thesethings and that extraordinary man in yourcompany, it has made me very happy. ,

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It hardly seems possible foranyone so engaged, but forthirty years she was always therefor us, full of understanding,advice and wisdom, oftenplaying editor, taking the timeto “get it right”—and to deliverthe occasional deserved rebuke.She was so…essential. It is quiteimpossible for me to imaginecarrying on without her.Her critiques diminished as

I learned to avoid mischaracteri-zations of, or presumptuousnotions about, her father. In a1991 conference at ColonialWilliamsburg, Virginia, anentertainer impersonatingThomas Jefferson made themistake of suggesting that SirWinston was too fond of

alcohol. “My dear Mr. Jefferson,” Mary said firmly, “youhave no way of knowing that, and since I as his daughternever saw him the worse for drink, I think you shouldavoid idle speculation.” Mr. Jefferson left early. In 1992 she was our guest and met our family atPutney House. Our ten-year-old son, not used to Englishforms, delighted her by calling her “Mrs. Soames.” Myaging father had become withdrawn and depressed; wefeared he might have nothing to say. But like the aged SirWinston, reviving with the stimulus of a kind friend, theyears fell away and he astonished us with scintillatingconversation. When she left, he lapsed back into silence. We bundled her into the car and drove 225 miles toHyde Park to open an exhibit of her father’s paintings. Aswe reached the Roosevelt Library she said, “Welldriven—the President was a much scarier driver.” Thenshe added, almost an afterthought: “It is forty-nine yearsto the day, August 15th, 1943, that I was last here withPapa.” Opening the exhibit, she recalled that after theCasablanca Conference her father and the President

For our last cover I chosea still life I knew shewould love, anxious to

send her a copy. Instead I findmyself sitting down to recordthe loss of the person who,next to my wife, was the mostsignificant in my life as awriter. We cherish memories ofher boundless acts of gen-erosity, which changed ourlives forever. We met in 1983 at theChurchill Hotel, London, onthe first of eleven ChurchillTours, many of which sheattended. She had a reputationas a determined guardian ofthe flame, and I wondered ifshe would view a “Churchillsociety” as gratuitous or frivo-lous. No: Lady Soames (“call me Mary”) was entirelyapproachable and grateful for our work. She was soon afamiliar voice on the telephone, as interested in ourdoings as any doting aunt. Two years later she and Lord Soames attended thesecond tour’s dinner for Anthony Montague Browne, herfather’s last private secretary (FH 50), held at thePinafore Room, Savoy Hotel, meeting place of TheOther Club. Speaking first, Mary said it was a pricelessopportunity to declare what the whole family owed toAnthony: “Until my father drew his last breath, Anthonywas practically never absent from his side.” As for us:

Christopher is going to say a proper thank-you for havingus—aren’t you, darling? But what a joy it is to be with youagain. I do appreciate being asked to your lovely parties,and being kept up to date about the work of the Society.All of us in the family find this profoundly moving: thatthere is such a Society, which exists to keep my father’smemory green, and may I also say, accurate….

—25 SEPTEMBER 1985


A F T E RWO R D

A Friend Who Was HereRICHARD M. LANGWORTH

Putney House, Contoocook, N.H., 1992

drove a long way across the desert to Marrakesh, where thePresident was hoisted into a tower….There they sat, twogreat allies and friends, watching the sun setting over theAtlas Mountains. The next morning my father playedtruant from the war and painted his only wartime picture[“Tower of Katoubia Mosque,” FH 124 cover] giving it tothe President in remembrance of that sunset. To comeback to Hyde Park and to find an exhibition of his pic-tures really puts a crown on it. —15 AUGUST 1992

Three years later she was with us at a Boston con-ference, chaired by Barbara Langworth. We hadstellar speakers: William Buckley, William

Manchester, Arthur Schlesinger—and Lady Soames.Afterward we drove her to New Hampshire in ourvintage Cadillac for an extended holiday which took usto Dartmouth and the papers of Winston Churchill, theAmerican novelist, where she read her father’s 1899 orig-inal: “Mr. Winston Churchill presents his complimentsto Mr. Winston Churchill, and begs to draw his attentionto a matter which concerns them both….”

I so enjoyed visiting Dartmouth, with that rich treasuretrove and the charming pale figure of a librarian; swanningaround in your lusciously velvety ruby red Cadillac andseeing lovely New England sights and scenes—those dearlittle red squirrels—and your parting gift of scrummyhickory-cured real American bacon. Your home is alsoyour “mill,” like Chartwell was for my father, which atonce is a great advantage but also harder to take a breakfrom. I always come away from you having learned some-thing more about my beloved wonderful father….

—5 NOVEMBER 1995

Which reminds me of…cigars. To celebrate Boston,Barbara had bought me a box of very special Partagascigars. Mary and I smoked the box in five days, com-peting with each other, as she did with her father, togrow the longer ash. She always won! There were amusing local encounters. At a country

bistro known for “home cookin’” but no frills, Maryordered a hamburger from Rosie, a stolid New Englandwaitress who stood no nonsense. Mary was not ready forthe long list of American options: Fries? Yes, please.Relish? Yes, thank you. Mustard?...sure. Ketchup, onions,pickles?…of course. Rosie stood back, hands on hips:“Do you want this on a plate, or do you want it on thefloor?” Mary roared. I quipped, “Some day, Rosie, I’ll tellyou who you said that to.” “Oh dear,” she said, “was Ibad?” No, not really. Mary was in Williamsburg, Virginia, for the 1998conference, just after playing a quiet, decisive role in myreceipt of a CBE. When I joked that the letters stood for“Colleagues’ Bloomin’ Efforts,” she sniffed: “It wasn’tthat easy, you know!”) She and Celia Sandys werewithout escorts, so we played unofficial hosts, and drovethem to see the restoration at Jamestown, the first perma-nent English settlement in America.

Thank you so much for not only the Jamestown expedi-tion but also for “cherishing” both Celia and me in somany ways, wh[ich] greatly added to our ease and enjoy-ment. But do you really want and mean to retire aspresident of the Churchill Centre? I want to talk to youabout this—please brood upon it. How pleased everyone isby the CBE. I am overjoyed. —15 NOVEMBER 1998

There followed a lengthy exchange about my steppingdown as president and leaving the Churchill book busi-ness—to both of which she was stoutly opposed. (Iprevailed…eventually.) Six months later she was at ourMaine bungalow, “Blenheim Cottage,” following the cel-ebrated launch of USS Winston S. Churchill at Bath IronWorks. The Centre’s Board of Governors held a memo-rable dinner for her at our local inn, along with Secretaryand Mrs. Weinberger and Winston and Luce Churchill. Mary wanted to buy reading glasses for one of herdaughters—so we took her to Walmart! Instant buzz >>


Left: Mr. Winston Churchill to Mr. Winston Churchill: examining her father’s letter to the

American novelist Winston Churchill, Baker Library, Dartmouth College, with Barbara and

Librarian Philip Cronenwett. Center: Boston, 1995. Right: Cigar Aficionado celebration, 1990.

arose as she entered, wearing her USS Churchill cap with “Lady Soames” embroidered on the back. Everyone hadseen her on the local news the night before. Most peoplejust smiled shyly. But occasionally one walked up and toldher how they loved her father—including our roofer, whoknocked on our door, determined to cadge an autograph.To them all, she was kindness itself.

I have quite fallen in love with darling Blenheim Cottage,tucked away in that safe and calm corner of Tenant’sHarbour, with its beautiful peaceful view…it was so sweetof you to whisk me away at the end of that unforgettableday, 17th April, and carry me up there….The ChurchillCentre party at the East Wind Inn was so agreeable, andeverybody was glowing from the day’s events, followed forme by three utterly blissful days “at Blenheim,” sittingaround in the sunshine, monitoring ducks and cormorantsand the come and go of boats…the Farnsworth Museumwith such variety and scope of the Wyeth family’s amazingtalent, then Barbara’s “mystery tour” to see the grey housewhich encapsulates the style and atmosphere of AndrewWyeth’s work. —4 MAY 1999

We’d give anything to have those three days back.

The years fled. We sold our houses and built anewin Moultonborough; she was invested a Lady ofthe Garter by HM The Queen (FH 129). By

2005 we well aware that at eighty-three, the QuebecChurchill Conference might be one of her last abroad.“Do come,” we said, “We’ll drive you down to N.H.amid the autumn colo(u)rs and get you to Boston foryour flight home.” She came. Everyone wanted to shake her hand; clus-ters of people trailed in her wake. As usual she took arather more detached view than some of our conferencescholars. We were seated together when one professorsuggested that Second Quebec in 1944 had produced“nothing of significance.” She leaned over and gave me avery earthy synonym for “rubbish.” At Close Reach she was one of our first houseguests,up mornings in her dressing gown, sipping coffee, sam-pling Barbara’s stellar breakfasts—helping us plan everyday of the 2006 Churchill Tour of England. We were aneasy drive from the Mount Washington Hotel, site of the1944 Bretton Woods Conference, where we bookeddinner. I asked if the hotel might arrange a private tourfor Sir Winston’s daughter. “How soon?” they asked. “Now listen,” I said on the way, “the hotel believesyour father stayed there in 1906. Of course it was the‘other’ Winston Churchill, but don’t spoil their fun.”“Certainly not,” she said primly. Immediately upon

meeting the PR lady she said: “I understand you thinkmy Papa was here in 1906. I’m sorry, dear, that is justnot possible.” I groaned. She grinned. The staff bought us a bottle of dinner wine andpromised to change their official history to the AmericanChurchill. Mary thought it “an amazing hotel,” andallowed that if he had got there, he’d have liked it fine. She returned home anxious to see her dog “Prune” andher dear private secretary Nonie Chapman. Quickly camethe usual long letter in her “own paw,” expressing thankswe didn’t deserve, because it was she whom we needed tothank, for giving us such delight for so long. As always, shewrote words she knew would please us.

I love the so-special and made-for-you home on the shoresof that magical lake, and your boating/sailing life to come.Each day passed so pleasantly it all seemed so unrushed,and yet we seem to have accomplished a lot…the lovelylake cruise on the M/V Mount Washington. DearestBarbara, you really are a star-at-the-stove (much relishedby your greedy and always hungry friend)...Now back towork! Monday saw the return of my dog—and, moreimportantly, Nonie! —13 OCTOBER 2005

Our correspondence tapered off over the next fewyears. She had email now, but moreover, she was workingflat-out on A Daughter’s Tale, no easy job for someonenearing ninety. Sadly, she was not the dynamo she hadbeen. We knew and tried not to trouble her with oursmall affairs. In one conversation she sounded almostapologetic that she had not admonished me for some slipwe let through that misrepresented her father. We senther flowers each birthday, and long before the holiday herChristmas card was always first to arrive. I can’t emphasize this more: it was Mary Soames whotaught Finest Hour its editorial credo—never to proclaimwhat her father would do today; strive to “keep thememory green and the record accurate.” It was she whotaught me that what really matters is friendship, thatthere is no point to die bearing a grudge. She was ourguiding light—the person Barbara and I strove to pleasewith every issue, every tour, every event. The cover I hoped she would enjoy was not done intime. We were honored for so long to have known such acompanion. Her love of congenial surroundings andcompany, of fine cigars and good food and Pol Roger,gave one a feeling of empathy almost tangible. We alwayswished the hour of parting would never come. It came, as it must. She was and is in the pantheon of great women, intel-lectual giants, artistic muses, but moreover with a perfectsense of what it is to be a friend. It was a stroke offortune to have had our lives so enriched.


Richard M. Langworth...


Goodbye, my dear,Goodbye!There still is much to say,And yetMy tongue and pen, so wont to fly,Have of a sudden both run dry.

I’ll not forgetToo near to heavenDid everything comply!But destiny is setAs are the stars on high.Goodbye, my dear, Goodbye!—“Valediction,” Sarah Churchill, 1974 ,

West House, London.

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Amarried woman cannot normally display her paternal arms ex-

cept in conjunction with those of her husband. This is a mari-

tal coat, showing the husband’s arms on the dexter side (right side

as seen by the bearer of the shield), and the wife’s paternal arms

on the sinister side; this is known as an impalement. The heraldic

description is as follows:

Gules, a chevron Or between in chief two mallets erect of

the second and in base two wings conjoined in lure Argent

[SOAMES] impaling

Quarterly 1st and 4th Sable, a lion rampant Argent, on a

canton of the last a cross Gules [CHURCHILL], 2nd and 3rd

grand-quarterly Argent and Gules, in the 2nd and 3rd grand-

quarters a fret Or, over all on a bend Sable three escallops of the

first [SPENCER]; and, as an augmentation of honour, in chief an

escutcheon Argent charged with the Cross of St George Gules

and thereon an inescutcheon of the arms of France, namely Azure

three fleurs-de-lys Or.

Around the shield is the Garter with its motto Honi Soit Qui

Mal Y Pense [Shame on him who thinks evil of it], indicating the

bearer's honour as a Lady Companion of the Order of the Garter

[LG]. Suspended below the shield from the ribbon of the Order of

the British Empire is the badge of a Dame Commander of the

Order [DBE]. Above the shield is the coronet of a Baroness.

Supporters: Dexter, a lion guardant winged Argent gorged

with a collar gemel Gules;

Sinister, a falcon wings ele-

vated and addorsed and belled Or

holding in the beak a lure Gules

feathered Argent.

Motto: Fiel Pero Desdichado

[Faithful but Unfortunate] is the

Churchill family’s Spanish motto.

Progression of Honours

1922: Miss Mary Churchill.

1945: Miss Mary Churchill

MBE (Member of the Most

Excellent Order of the British

Empire) for war service.

1947: Mrs. Christopher

Soames MBE (upon marriage).

1965: The Hon Mrs. Soames

MBE (her mother, Lady Churchill,

is given a Life barony as Lady

Spencer-Churchill).

1972: The Hon Lady Soames

MBE (her husband receives a

knighthood, becoming Sir

Christopher Soames).

1978: The Baroness Soames

MBE (“The Hon” is dropped

when Sir Christopher becomes The Baron Soames).

1980: The Baroness Soames DBE (Dame Commander of the

Order of the British Empire on advancement from MBE).

2005: The Baroness Soames LG DBE (on appointment as a

Lady Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, which

was founded in 1348).

Notes

1. A Baron and Baroness (usually “The Lord/Lady —”) use

the more formal titles only in the most legalistic circumstances.

2. A Baron has the prefix “The Rt Hon.”

3. A Baroness by marriage sometimes uses the prefix “The Rt

Hon,” but this is considered over the top and unnecessary.

4. As a DBE, Lady Soames would be styled “Dame Mary,” but

not if she or her husband hold a higher honour. By 1980 she was

already a Baroness (higher than DBE).

5. An LG would be styled “Lady Mary,” but not if she or her

husband hold a higher honour. By 2005 she was already a

Baroness, a higher honour than LG and DBE.

6. “LG” is very prestigious: there are only twenty-four KGs

and LGs, excluding Royal persons, but several hundred Baronesses.

“Dame Mary” would ignore the higher LG, which would

make her “Lady Mary”; but both these titles are subsumed by her

higher status as Baroness. “Lady Mary, The Lady Soames” is more

correct, but is, I think, ponderous. Her preferred and correct title

is therefore The Lady Soames LG DBE. ,

The Lady Soames LG DBEHONOURS AND COAT OF ARMS • PAUL H. COURTENAY

Documents

1999: Lady Soames at the home of Celia Sandys,€¦ · good times and in bad; it has been like a talisman— and will continue to be so. “I have of course been gripped by the first