I first read My Early Life by Winston Churchill many years ago. I picked up a paperback copy which tied in with the release of the film version and also along the way I got hold of the soundtrack album and later a VHS copy of the film. In this week’s blog I thought I’d take a closer look at all three.
Rooting around in a secondhand shop in St Annes recently I picked up a hardback copy of Winston Churchill’s book My Early Life. It’s a thoroughly wonderful book written in Churchill’s inimitable style. He says in the introduction he has written a book about a vanished age and indeed he has. Churchill was born in 1974 at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. He was the son of Lord Randolph Churchill who was in turn the son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough. His mother was an American, Jennie Jerome, the daughter of an American businessman. She married Lord Randolph and became Lady Churchill.
Lady Churchill was a great influence on his life although in his very early years young Winston looked to his nanny, Mrs Everest, for motherly support. His father, Lord Randolph, was someone whom Winston loved and adored but never seemed to become close to. After the birth of Winston, Randolph began to suffer a debilitating disease which could have been syphilis. Others have speculated it was a brain tumour. Either way, Randolph died in 1894.
Looking back, I must have seen the film version before I read the book. Young Winston was directed by Richard Attenborough and is a wonderful adaptation of the book. When Winston first attends school, which of course was boarding school, his headmaster was played by Robert Hardy and he directs Winston to learn some Latin. Winston doesn’t do very well and the headmaster glares down at him and informs him that if he misbehaves, he will be punished, which to a great extent was Churchill’s overall view of school. Later he comments about exams ‘they always contrived to question me about things I didn’t know. I would much rather they asked me about things I did know.
In the book Winston records his schooldays with a great deal of charm and humour. He goes on to attend Harrow and as he intends to join the army goes to special army classes. Winston seems to have enjoyed his army training and was keen to see action. He took leave with a friend and went to observe events in Cuba where revolutionaries were fighting their Spanish colonial rulers.
Winston was a second lieutenant in the 4th Hussars and spent a long time in India. He was a great lover of polo and he and his colleagues won an inter service championship in their first year in the country, a feat never achieved before by a recently arrived regiment.
Churchill was keen, as I said before, to see action and joined Bindon Blood’s Malakand Field Force and later wrote a book about the campaign. The book was popular and Churchill even received a letter of praise from the Prince of Wales. Because of his mother and father, Churchill was well connected in both political and aristocratic circles and later used his contacts and those of his mother to attach himself to General Kitchener’s campaign in the Sudan. He was part of one of the British Army’s very last cavalry charges in the battle of Omdurman in 1898.
The charge was depicted in the film Young Winston and in his book Churchill ponders about fate and a problem with his shoulder which necessitated using his revolver rather than his sword during the charge, reflecting that if he had been using his sword he might well have been killed in the latter stages when he was surrounded by the enemy.
He ponders many times too about war in the Victorian age. How it was honourable and respectable. He mentions how officers would stop for lunch before a battle and how casualties, which were sometimes considered heavy, were nothing like the heavy casualties suffered in the later world war. If technology had taken away the honour of war in 1914, how would Churchill react to war in 2025 I wonder?
The Victorian age was an age of courtesy and respect and one of my favourite stories in the book occurs when Winston was at Sandhurst. It was the custom then, if an officer wanted leave for a few hours, to sign a book and declare himself absent. One day when visiting friends Winston passed his commanding officer Major Ball, a very strict and formal officer, on the road and realised he had forgotten to sign himself out. He cut short his visit, returned to Sandhurst hoping to add his name before the Major checked the book. Sadly, he found Major Ball’s signature at the end of the page. Would he be disciplined thought Winston? What would his punishment be? Looking further up the list Winston was surprised to find that his name had been added and countersigned by none other than Major Ball himself. Winston writes that this was a clear indication of how discipline could be maintained among officers without departing from the courteous and respectful standards of the time.
Having failed to become an MP for the Oldham constituency he went to South Africa to report on the Boer war as a correspondent. He travelled on an armoured train which was attacked by the Boers and he was captured and imprisoned in a POW camp.
One of things I particularly liked about Young Winston was the music. I bought the soundtrack album in 1985. The music for the film was in the main composed by Sir Alfred Ralston. He was brought into the film by director Attenborough as the two had worked together on a previous film, ‘Oh what a Lovely War’. The soundtrack features music by Edward Elgar, notably the Pomp and Circumstance March no 4 as well as Nimrod from the Enigma Variations.
According to the sleeve notes, the pistol used by Simon Ward who played Winston in the film was Churchill’s actual Mauser and it can be seen pretty well during a sequence when Churchill travels to south Africa to report on the Boer war as a newspaper correspondent. He travels with a unit who undertake a recce on an armoured train only to find the train attacked by the Boers on their return journey. Winston played a big part in helping remove a wrecked train from the line only for himself to not only be captured but also to lose his pistol. The pistol was returned to him in later years.
Churchill ended up in a POW camp but resolved to escape despite also claiming to the Boers that he was a correspondent and should not have been detained. With the help of a group of Lancashire miners, Winston stowed away on a goods train and made his way back to the British lines.
The incident made him famous back in the UK and when he next ran for parliament in Oldham, he was duly elected. The tone of the book becomes more serious towards the final pages but overall this is an outstanding read by one of this country’s greatest sons.
The film version was almost just as good. Simon Ward gives us an admirable picture of the young Winston with just the right hint of the great man’s later style and speaking voice.
I first saw this film at the cinema where I greatly enjoyed it and I remember it coming to television some years later. The film finishes with a poignant dream sequence which, I remember reading somewhere, was based on something Churchill either said or wrote. In the dream, a much older Winston meets his father but he is not the unwell man of his later years but restored to full health. Randolph asks Winston about great events and Churchill answers telling of the two World Wars. ‘Did Joe Chamberlain ever become Prime Minister?’ asks Randolph. ‘No’ answers Winston, ‘but one of his sons did, Neville’.
Winston mentions that he has resigned his commission in the army. Randolph looks about at the many paintings and asks Winston if this is what he does. Winston answers that painting occupies much of his time. Randolph thinks for a moment and then tells Winston to ‘do the best you can’ and we see the sleeping Churchill smile at the thought.
I’ve always liked this final sequence but when I bought my VHS copy the scene was omitted. Likewise, every time I have since seen the film on television, this scene has always been removed. I’d love to know why. Perhaps the producers thought the film too long or perhaps preferred the new ending in which Winston talks briefly in a voiceover about his marriage and living ‘happily ever after’. After a search on the internet I came across a post which claimed that Carl Foreman, who wrote and produced the film, found that US audiences occasioned so little reaction to the scene that he promptly had it cut. What reaction was he expecting to see I wonder?
Perhaps it’s time for a search on eBay. I’m sure that somewhere there must be a definitive DVD version of the film and if you ever get the chance, give the book a read, it’s one of my absolute favourites.
John’s book was a great read. He started out working with Alan Bennett as a comedy writer and performer but when he realised that he probably had no future as a tv comedian he got himself a job as a newspaper reporter in Liverpool and later moved over to the BBC as a radio reporter.
My Autobiography by Charles Chaplin.
I really do love books, especially second hand books. I think that what is so wonderful about a second hand book is that the book has told its story before to someone else, and now if you have just bought it, its going to tell it’s story to you. I spend a lot of time browsing in book shops, both physically in actual shops or on-line in virtual book stores. The thing about on-line book stores is that you have to have a starting point, it’s no fun browsing through lists of books so I tend to browse on-line only when there is a particular book I want. In an actual book store I scan through the various sections and although I tend to linger on biographies and books about film, anything can catch my eye. A while ago I was reading a book by movie director Michael Powell called ‘A Life in Movies.’ It was a pretty thick book and took a fair old while to read and when I got the end there didn’t seem to be any indication there was another volume.
You might be thinking, looking at the picture here: Couldn’t the author have found a better picture? Looking at the picture again I suppose that particular copy is just a little tatty. That’s because it’s my travel copy. I’ve got another copy, a much nicer version that resides in my bookcase that I browse through now and again. The reason I’ve got two versions is because my travel copy goes all over the place with me. If I’m travelling somewhere on the bus or train, that slightly tatty copy goes easily into my pocket or my bag because I can read it time and time again. Not only is it the best ever book written about the golden age of Hollywood, it’s also by far the most accessible and readable book on the subject ever.
Letters from an Unknown Author! 