![]() Sometimes living with Winston was just too difficult and, sporadically, Clementine took herself off and was away for weeks at a time. As Mary, fortifying her mother, told her: despite all his difficulties – his overbearing – exhausting temperament he does love you and needs you so much. With Clementine on hand to provide the kind of food he liked, Winston was soon able to work, directing operations from his bed. In 1943, when Winston was seriously ill with pneumonia and a fibrillating heart away in Carthage, an exhausted Clementine, travelling in an unheated Liberator bomber one foggy January night, agreed to fly out to see him – a visit which had a most extraordinary effect in making the 69 year old patient swiftly recover. At other times he risked making grave errors of judgement in his behaviour, avoided thanks to her advice. I should like you to make the seeing of my friends a regular business, he once told her. She does not shy away from revealing instances when both plates and tantrums were thrown and details several explosive occasions which ended with Winston apologising to Clemmie, (the name reserved only for intimates), especially if he overstepped the mark in ordering her about. In painting a portrait of a highly unusual marriage, where the stresses and tensions threatened to snap on several occasions, Purnell excels. In addition, he suffered bouts of depression and for much of their married life experienced the pain of political isolation and unpopularity. In 1908, when she married Winston he was already a well-known politician, ten years older than her, who, she was soon to discover was constantly overspending. ![]() She suffered tragedy and hardship at a young age but quickly developed resilience, sympathy for those less fortunate and an ability to earn her own living (rare for a girl of her class then) as well as a lifelong terror of running out of money. Sonia Purnell has written a highly readable, well researched and insightful biography of a beautiful woman born into a rackety aristocratic family with no money, who never knew her own father and was terrified of the man she thought was her father. Sex, although a serious and delightful occupation, (as Winston told his mother-in-law on their honeymoon), does not appear to have been a driving force for either of them although they quickly produced five children. He was constantly demanding all of those and she gave of herself unstintingly. Once she had overcome (more or less) the shyness and insecurity of her early years, she was the one person able to reprimand Winston and she was not afraid to do so, forcefully on occasions, as well as offering him the help, advice, support and love that he craved. This exchange, well into the latter half of their marriage, is a powerful example of Clementines earnest intelligence and noble sentiment, qualities which earned her Winstons respect in the first place even though her liberal political views, especially on womens suffrage, were often at odds with her husbands. The Frenchman apologised and the following day sent his hostess a large bouquet of flowers. There are certain things that a woman can say to a man which a man cannot say and I am saying them to you, General de Gaulle. Winston, its not that at all, she continued in her impeccable French. Clementine was outraged and said so and although Winston tried, diplomatically, to smooth over the outburst, she was not placated. When the subject arose of how to prevent the remaining French fleet from falling into German hands, Clementine Churchill said she hoped it would support the British effort to defeat the Nazis whereupon de Gaulle replied that it would give the French more satisfaction to turn their guns on the British. In the winter of 1940-1941, shortly after the British had sunk the French fleet off Mers-el-Kebir, the newly exiled leader of the Free French, Charles de Gaulle was a lunch guest at Downing Street.
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