February 13, 2009

On April 17, 1888, Winston entered Harrow School, a boy’s school near London. Winston found his years at Harrow challenging. He was not thought of as a good student. Winston wrote, “I was on the whole considerably discouraged by my school days.” However, Winston’s ability to memorize lines was clearly apparent while at Harrow. Winston entered a competition and won a school prize for reciting from memory 1,200 lines from Macaulay’s, long poem Lays of Ancient Rome.

Winston Churchill would return to Harrow many times during his life. Once in December 1940 while Britain was in the midst of fighting Germany during World War II, Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited Harrow School where this song was sung to honour the great leader:

Nor less we praise in sterner days
The Leader of our Nation,
And CHURCHILL’s name shall win acclaim From each new generation.
While in this fight to guard the Right
Our country you defend, Sir.
Here grim and gay we mean to stay,
And stick it to the end, Sir.