June 23, 2015

Finest Hour 114, Spring 2002

Page 04


THE PLEASURE WAS OURS

I am overwhelmed by the honour conferred on me by The Churchill Center with its 2001 Farrow Award. The plaque was very welcome and the generous cheque took me completely by surprise. It is a truly wonderful and inspiring start to the New Year for me. My deepest thanks for an honour that is all the greater when I consider the distinguished company I am joining.

Since September 11th I have often found myself reflecting on the vital importance of intelligence in world affairs and on Churchill’s great prescience here, as in many other fields. As he also insisted, and as events have once again demonstrated, strong transatlantic relations must lie at the heart of any successful defence of western and democratic values.

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I am very pleased to be attending the 2002 Conference on the theme, “Churchill and Intelligence.” It will be nice to see many old friends again. With warmest and sincerest thanks, and with all best wishes to The Churchill Center for another successful year.
—DR. DAVID STAFFORD FRHS
CENTRE FOR SECOND WORLD WAR STUDIES
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

BANNING THE CIGAR

When going through the English-Speaking Union magazines here in London, I came across a piece of doggerel on the vexed question of whether the Washington statue of WSC should have a cigar. It appeared in the Yorkshire Post, 1965, from a correspondent signing himself “Postilion.” It might amuse the readership.
—PROF. JOHN RAMSDEN
QUEEN MARY & WESTFIELD COLLEGE, LONDON

Aesthetics was not offered—
Blood, toil, and sweat, and tears
Were all that Churchill proffered,
In Britain’s darkest years.
It heartened all, the free cigar,
Throughout that bitter war—
The hand that made the V-sign,
Held also a cigar.
Drop his cigar? Have at you!
What can this nonsense be?
As well de-torch the statue,
That stands for Liberty.

BURN AND GLOW

I have often meant to send a note of thanks for the magnificent quarterly, Finest Hour, and am finally compelled to do so by your stirring essay in the Autumn 2001 issue, “Our Qualities and Deeds Must Burn and Glow.” Thank you so much to you and Barbara for your work in keeping our hero’s memory fresh. Even if your work is not always acknowledged as it should be, it is always important and appreciated.
—CHRIS POWELL, MANCHESTER, CONN.

CONFERENCE APPRECIATION

(To Judy Kambestad) Can it be that two months have passed since the conference in Southern California wherein Solveig and I and indeed, the entire Canadian contingent enjoyed ourselves? The organization, programme and all the hundreds of other “little things” were seamless to all of us, yet appreciated so much at the same time. I don’t think attendees were moved as much to different locales to enrich our experience since the Calgary/Banff conference in 1994, and not one of your buses had a flat tire! The Hotel Del Coronado was truly a historic and beautiful destination, but the phrase, “it never rains” was proven wrong and was the only thing you didn’t make perfect for we northerners. I know you would want to share our thanks and appreciation with your team and ask you to pass these remarks along to each of them.
—RANDY BARBER, PRESIDENT
ICS CANADA, THORNHILL, ONT.

ATTRIBUTION

In an Erratum (FH 112:15) it is suggested that Churchill did not acknowledge Dr. Johnson as the author of the quotation: “Depend upon it, when a man knows he is going to be hanged in a month, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” Churchill most certainly did: the quotation and attribution are on page 162 of Their Finest Hour, second volume of The Second World War (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1949).
—RAFAL HEYDEL-MANKOO, OTTAWA, ONT.

TRANSCRIPTS

The panel discussion at George Washington University (FH 113, page 11) seems very interesting. I would like to know more about it. Fortunately there’s our own Churchill Proceedings to look forward to, but would it be possible for members to get copies of handouts from various events reported on in “Datelines”?
—ANNE BURTON, DOWNER’S GROVE, ILL.

That’s a very good point. Chris Harmon, who organized the event, tells us that the GWU panel was more a conversation than a formal seminar, so transcripts don’t exist. But audiotapes were made, and we are trying to obtain some. If anyone else besides Mrs. Burton would like a cassette, please let me know when you read this.

We usually try to get hard copy summaries or papers for the academic events we report. Sometimes authors don’t make transcripts available because they are raw material for a book. This is the case for the London Churchill conference (“Churchill in the Twenty-first Century,” FH 111), and our abstracts are the only ones in print. Associate editor Paul Courtenay laboriously wrote these based on his personal attendance, and got them approved by each speaker. Paul is not the author of the forthcoming book based on the London conference, but when it is published it will be offered through our book service. —Ed.

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