First Lady: The Life and Wars of Clementine Churchill - Sonia Purnell
First Lady: The Life and Wars of Clementine Churchill - Sonia Purnell
Non-Fiction
Pages: 400
Unlike her American counterpart Eleanor Roosevelt, Clementine Churchill has received relatively little recognition or approbation from history. Eleanor is heralded as one of the great women of the century in her own right; indeed, she lived such a separate life from her equally famous husband Franklin Roosevelt that her role as a wife is very much the least of the hats she wore. In contrast, whatever fame or recognition Clementine has earned over the years, her name is always coupled with that of Winston, never independently.
And that is probably the way Clementine would have wanted it, as Sonia Purnell portrays in this admirable biography. Winston Churchill was Clementine's first, second and third priorities, one of her daughters once commented, only half-humorously. And he was more than enough to take up anyone's attention! History has remembered Churchill as such a colossal figure that it is more than refreshing to take a peek behind the curtain, through these pages - to see the insecure, needy, often infantile and demanding man that he was in private. It only serves to humanise him and make him, if not always a more sympathetic figure, than a more understandable one.
Whilst this is Clementine's biography it would be impossible to tell her story apart from Winston's. He was her whole world. She was always convinced of Winston's destiny of greatness, perhaps even more than he was; and that he attained the highest peaks of political life, that he came back from political exile after the Dardanelles disaster and his wilderness years, that he sustained his own and the country's vigour and morale throughout the hard years of war, that he bore the weight of the European war on his shoulders before America's entry, can in no small measure be ascribed to the emotional comfort, support and more than occasional scolding he received from his wife.
Winston and Clementine Churchill epitomise the truth of the old adage - 'behind every great man is a great woman'. It is highly unlikely that Churchill could have achieved half of what he did without Clementine, and considering how history has remembered, that is high praise indeed. That she 'managed' Churchill in a way that even his political colleagues and subordinates recognised, at the same time as playing her own public role, visiting hospitals, shelters, canteens, raising funds for appeals, playing hostess for major political and military figures, and many more wartime activities that I only learned about for the first time reading this book - one can only be grateful for Britain had not one but two Churchill's during her darkest hour.