DARLING WINSTON

Sub-titled 'Forty Years of Letters Between Winston Churchill and His Mother', carefully edited and put into their historical context by David Lough. The early letters sent home from boarding school constantly ask his parents for more money and foreshadow Churchill's later financial recklessnesses. His mother Jennie Lady Randolph Churchill corresponded with her young son age six, and in 1921 the year of her death, mother and son were still prolific letter writers. Over those 40 years, Churchill's life saw army service in India, escape from a Boer POW camp, his swift ascent from Conservative MP for Oldham to Liberal First Lord of the Admiralty, resignation in the wake of the debacle of Gallipoli, and eventual return to the Cabinet in 1917. His mother's life by contrast is an extravagant and indolent life of the monied classes touring the houses of aristocratic friends and taking advantage of their hospitality. Her second marriage flounders and she becomes a lonely figure. As Winston joins Asquith's Cabinet and meets his wife-to-be Clementine, Jennie is getting divorced and making faltering attempts to embark on a literary career. Winston's letters back from India, Egypt and the First World War trenches demonstrates his disregard for personal safety. The letters reflect Churchill's emotional, intellectual and political development as confided to his mother as his mentor and charts a mother-son relationship characterised at the outset by young Winston's dependence on Jennie, which is dramatically reversed as her life crumbles towards its end. Brimming with gossip, name-dropping and chutzpah, and populated by a cast of the great and good of late Victorian and Edwardian England, there are very illuminating introductions to each exchange. A beautifully designed and illustrated tome of 610pp with satin pagemarker.