Clementine Churchill - Softcover

Clementine, Lady Spencer-Churchill died in 1977, aged 92. Instantly recognizable as the seemingly serene, cool and detached wife of Winston Churchill, she had nonetheless shunned publicity throughout her life. In this fully updated biography, her daughter, Mary Soames, throws new light on her mother, writing with affection and candour of Clementine's 57-year marriage to Winston, her strongly held political views and a life that spans many of the major events of the 20th century. Clementine Churchill was the perfect wife for Winston. For 57 years she supported him through the triumphs, disasters and tensions that ruled his public and private life. As a young girl she had known the unhappiness that came from ill-matched parents and continual shortage of money, but she had a strength of character and distinction of mind, allied to outstanding good looks, which attracted the young and impetuous Winston Churchill. The early years of her marriage coincided with the heyday of the reforming Liberal government, in which Winston was a leading figure; she was later to describe them as the happiest of her life. Winston was already a Member of Parliament when they married in 1908, and their life was played out mostly on the public stage from that time onwards. Winston always trusted Clementine completely and she became a valuable counsellor and companion. He invariably wanted her opinion - but did not always take her advice. She believed in him unreservedly, and in his destiny. Clementine was shy, passionate and highly strung, and her self-control was tested to the utmost in the turmoil of public life and in the no less harrowing family crises and the ever-present financial anxieties. But one facet of her life was steadfast: the love she shared with Winston, which was to sustain them both even through the most trying of times. When first published in 1979, "Clementine Churchill" won the Yorkshire Post Prize for Best First Work and a Wolfson Prize for History. This major revision makes full use of further personal material that has come to hand since its first publication and with the benefit of hindsight, Mary Soames also elaborates on many of the issues raised in the original edition.

Mary Soames is the youngest and only surviving child of Winston and Clementine Churchill. She was born in 1922 and brought up at Chartwell in Kent. In 1941, aged eighteen, she joined the ATS and served in mixed anti-aircraft batteries in England and north-west Europe. She accompanied her father as his ADC on several of his wartime overseas journeys. In 1945 she was awarded the MBE (military). In 1947 she married Captain Christopher Soames, Coldstream Guards, later Lord Soames, PC, GCMG, CH. She has also written A Churchill Family Album, The Profligate Duke, Winston Churchill, His Life as a Painter and edited Speaking For Themselves the personal letters between Winston and Clementine Churchill.