March 12, 2015

Finest Hour 158, Spring 2013

Page 51

By Fred Glueckstein

Winston Churchill: The Story of the Great British States man (Real Lives Series), by Harriet Castor. A&C Black 2011. Softbound, illus., 128 pp. £5.99, Kindle edition $7.99.

At the age of twelve, Harriet Castor’s first book, Fat Puss and Friends, about a cat she befriended, was published by Penguin. Since then Castor, who was born in Cambridge, has written over forty fiction and non-fiction books for children and young adults. Her latest (not her first) Churchill effort is a well-written and attention-grabbing mini-biography.

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Castor’s interest in Churchill began in 2000, when she was commissioned to write a children’s book about famous British statesmen. Her Winston Churchill, in the Famous People series (2002),  allowed her to dig into the saga. “And I became enthralled, amazed, gob smacked [extremely surprised] by the man. All my suspicions evaporated. I was awed by his chutzpah, the foresight, the courage—not just his physical bravery (astonishing enough and demonstrated consistently, decade after decade, war after war), but by his mental toughness. I admired the humanity, the drive, the refusal to give up whatever the situation, the willingness to say what he thought, whatever the reaction it brought, his wit, his wonderful way with the English language, his sheer force of personality….”

The volume begins on an armoured train during the war in South Africa, where Churchill is a war correspondent:

Boom! Bang! The explosions were terrifying. Enemy soldiers, hidden in the hills beside the railway track, were firing on the train with rifles and big field guns. ‘It’s an ambush!’ yelled Captain Haldane from his wagon. ‘Driver – go faster!’…

In one of the rear trucks, a newspaper war reporter stood among the soldiers. He turned to Captain Haldane. ‘We’re going too fast, aren’t we? It’s unsafe. Should I climb along to the engine and tell the driver to slow down?’ Before Haldane could reply, there was an enormous bang and jolt from the front of the train. Everyone in the truck was thrown to the floor….The next moment heavy rifle-fire began whistling through the air and clanging against the steel-plated sides of the train. ‘We’re sitting ducks!’ exclaimed the reporter….

Subsequent chapters cover Churchill’s escape, entry into politics, service at the Admiralty, involvement in conceiving the tank, and loss of office over the Dardanelles. Castor describes Churchill’s political banishment, introduction to painting, service as a battalion commander in France, postwar return to the Tories, warnings over Germany, and return to the Admiralty as war broke out. Subsequent chapters cover the wartime prime minister: his difficult decisions following the fall of France, the Battle of Britain, planning D-Day, and so on. Included within the story line are brief historical backgrounders of the times and Churchill’s famous “fight on the beaches” speech. Sir Winston’s final years are deftly covered with economy of words, but Castor does not miss the salient facts.

This book is accurate, thanks to the author’s faithfulness to Churchill’s own books and those of his chief biographers, which are referenced in the bibliography. For young people, it is an excellent introduction to Churchill that will stimulate further reading.