Speaking for Themselves: The Personal Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill Book

This comprehensive collection of personal correspondence between Winston Churchill and his wife Clementine has been authoritatively edited by their daughter, Mary Soames. It is a hugely enjoyable volume, as full of engaging family tittle-tattle as it is of monumental world events. Winston and Clementine married in 1908 and regularly corresponded until the year before Winston died in 1965. Reading these letters together they form what Mary Soames accurately calls "a lifelong dialogue". They were very different people - Clementine being far more earnest, morally inflexible, and a greater worrier than her husband - but they both genuinely loved, as well as respected, each other. In a letter Winston sent from the Dardanelles in 1915 - to be opened in the event of his likely death – he not only explains how, "since I met you my darling one I have been happy", he also formally commends his wife for teaching him, "how noble a woman's heart can be". These letters were overwhelmingly written for each other's eyes only and, hard as it seems for us living in age where disclosure is the norm, Winston is always candid even about secrets from the heart of World War II. Using the most feeble of code names - Colonel Warden and Mrs Warden at one time - he happily gossips about colleagues and strategy in the certain knowledge that his indiscretion will not be matched by his wife's. A remarkable testament to an exceptional political and personal partnership. --Nick WroeRead More