The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book was the brainchild of my superb editor, Rupert Lancaster at Hodder. A few years ago he approached the Churchill Estate and suggested that there should be a new appreciation to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Sir Winston’s death. The Churchill Estate was keen, and somehow I was fingered as the man for the job—so I am grateful both to Rupert and to Gordon Wise and everyone else at the Churchill Estate; and of course to my wonderful agent, Natasha Fairweather.

It has been a privilege to labour in the Churchill vineyard, as Martin Gilbert once put it. I should record my prime debt to the omniscient Dr Allen Packwood of the Churchill Archives, who was willing to take calls at the most inconvenient times—trying to take his children swimming, and so on—and who pointed me in the direction of all sorts of extraordinary documents.

I was given unstinting guidance by the magnificent staff and curators at Chartwell, the Cabinet War Rooms and Blenheim Palace.

Andrew Roberts gave me two long and alcohol-fuelled tutorials at 5 Hertford Street.

David Cameron did some invaluable devilling into the exact locations of the pivotal meetings in May 1940—not at all clear in Lukacs, for instance.

Of the Churchill family, Nicholas Soames and Celia Sandys were very helpful in discussing their grandfather, and I wrote one chapter in the Greek home of Churchill’s great-grandson Hugo Dixon.

Above all, this book could not have been written without the dynamic researches and encouragement of the great Warren Dockter (or Doctor Dockter, as he is inevitably known in our family) of Tennessee and Cambridge. Together we explored everything from Churchill’s bunker to his bedroom to his bivouac in the First World War, and as we bandied our theories, the whole exercise was given colour and excitement by Warren’s inexhaustible knowledge.

Churchill famously said: ‘Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public’.

He’s right about servitude. So I particularly want to thank my wife, Marina, for putting up with the tyrant Churchill—occupying our house and making constant demands like some giant inflatable lodger—and for all her excellent suggestions.

PUBLISHERS’ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The publishers would like to acknowledge the support and advice of the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge and the members of the Churchill Alliance in the publishing of this book. Thanks also to Cecelia Mackay for her picture research and Natalie Adams and Sarah Lewery for their help with images from the collections at the Churchill Archives Centre.

To find out more about Winston Churchill, the plans for Churchill 2015 and the organisations that form his living legacy, go to www.churchill.com.