March 29, 2025

King Channels Churchill to Kick Cancer

During a visit last month to Northern Ireland, King Charles III met with patients being treated for cancer like himself and said to them, ”What’s that Winston Churchill saying? Keep buggering on.” His Majesty referenced a saying that Churchill used in private during the Second World War that expressed, in a very colorful way, the importance of perseverance through adversity.

The King was visiting the Pharmacy and Pharmacology Department at Ulster University on March 20 when he said sympathetically: “You just have to push on, don’t you.” Both the King and the Princess of Wales announced last year that they were being treated for cancer. Both have since returned to royal duties. Never has there been a word of complaint from either member of the Royal Family.

The origin of the term KBO goes back to the morning of 10 December 1941, when Prime Minister Churchill was working in bed. He received what he subsequently described as the most “direct shock” of the war: First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Dudley Pound telephoned to say that the British warships Prince of Wales and Repulse had both been sunk by Japanese attack. After ringing off, the Prime Minister wept. Yet that same day word came through that the Russian Army had started its first offensive of the war and that the British Army had achieved a notable success against the Germans in North Africa. The next day, both Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, which immediately reciprocated.

In the span of five days, what Churchill called the Grand Alliance had come together. The final outcome of the war had been determined. The Allies would win. On 12 December the Prime Minister cabled President Franklin Roosevelt to say “I am enormously relieved at turn world events have taken.” To his own Private Secretary John Peck, Churchill said, “‘We must just KBO,’ which, he explained, meant ‘Keep Buggering On.’”

2025 International Churchill Conference

Join us for the 42nd International Churchill Conference. Washington, DC | October 9-11, 2025

2025 International Churchill Conference

The International Churchill Society presented its 2017 Churchill Leadership Award to then Prince Charles (see image above). Since the Prince of Wales became King two-and-a-half years ago, he has certainly embodied the Churchillian spirit of perseverance through adversity.