The Churchill's: And I Thought My Family Was Screwed Up

Winston Churchill, not your most photogenic Brit....cute bow-tie though!

God, I love non-fiction! Not surprisingly, reading non-fiction is on the short list of things people hate doing along with root canals, rectal exams, and plucking out their chin hairs. When people find out that I read a lot of non-fiction they give me a look that can best be described as pity and/or disgust. I think most true life lit can bring back memories of high school history class. Even though my 9th grade history teacher used to make me cry and quite possibly gave me a stomach ulcer, I still love a good non-fiction romp. To me, good history should read like fiction, but the greatest part about it is that these people actually lived! Last week I dove into The Churchill's; In Love and War by Mary Lovell. As the saying goes, you can’t make this shit up, and The Churchill’s lived through some serious shit!

I won’t bore you with a long winded summary of the book. It spans about four centuries and 600 pages but includes a slew of marriages, divorces, births, deaths, wars and the occasional bout of syphilis! Oh those venereal diseases---making life interesting for centuries!

I walked away from it with a TREMENDOUS love for Winston Churchill. I’ve heard varied interpretations of the man who many claim to be the greatest Briton that ever lived (see ya Kate Middleton) and many of them are negative. The word warmonger comes to mind. Yikes! According to Lovell, Winston was a real family man and was truly devoted to his wife, Clementine. Their marriage was a true partnership, probably only rivaled in history by the likes of John and Abigail Adams.

For the rest of the Churchill’s, divorce came must more easily -they should have been called The Divorcehills! It was exhausting keeping up with all of their affairs and failed marriages. Many of the marriages were arranged for want of money or status, and because of this people rarely married people they liked - let alone loved! A really interesting aspect of the book revolved around the idea of “the Dollar Princesses”. Many times, the English aristocracies were basically broke and in want of more money (to make renovations to their abbeys, chateaus, manors) and would marry rich American heiresses like the Vanderbilt’s or the Astor's for their dowries and yearly allowances. Both Winston Churchill’s mother and his cousin’s first wife were American! If you’ve seen the BBC series Downton Abbey, they portray this quite nicely.

I love making lists so here are 5 fun facts that I learned after reading The Churchill’s:

1. Winston Churchill and his wife Clementine referred to each other as “Pug” and “Kitten”. The family always greeted each other with animal noises; meowing, barking, mooing, etc. Takes that song Old McDonald had a farm to a totally different level, doesn't it?

2. Winston’s favorite thing to wear when he was relaxing was something he called a “siren suit”. In reality it was a big onesie; think of an early version of the Snuggy! He had several siren suits in a variety of colors, patterns, and materials and liked to wear them after a hard day’s work. Apparently they were super comfortable yet he felt he was able to keep some sort of formal decorum while wearing them. I don’t know about you, but trying to talk military strategy with a 250 pound Englishmen wearing basically footie pajamas….yeah, not so serious!

3. Winston was made an honorary American citizen in 1963. Technically because his mother was American, I would assume he was anyway, but regardless the only other person to get this distinction during their lifetime was Mother Theresa. Some other Honorary American Citizens include Lafayette (the French general who helped us whoop the redcoats during the American Revolution) and William Penn (An Englishman and founder of the state of Pennsylvania).

4. During the early 20th century, an early form of plastic surgery involved injecting hot paraffin wax into your face. The second wife of Winston’s first cousin Sunny detested a small indent in her nose and wanted something more Grecian and aquiline, so they injected the paraffin wax into her nose to fill in this unsightly gap. Years later the wax dripped (internally) down her face, and caused lumps to form at her jaw-line! If only malpractice was as common as it is now.

5. Winston Churchill died exactly 70 years after his father---almost down to the very minute. At one point he told his son Randolph that he believed he would die the same day as his father. You can add psychic to the Winston’s many talents which also include world class orator, painter, and writer.

Winston in his signature "siren suit"---oooo pinstripes!

Overall, I highly recommend this book for those who hate non-fiction. Most of the tough history stuff, that tends to bore people to tears, was merely glazed over. This wasn’t so much a historybook but a book full of gossip from the turn of the century; think OK Magazine circa 1900!