January 1, 1970

His ‘conduct’ was ‘exceedingly bad’, according to his headmaster; he couldn’t ‘be trusted to behave himself anywhere’. Churchill was always independent-minded and challenging, and had a natural tendency to battle against formal systems and any sort of authority, in childhood as in later life. But was this ADHD? Very unlikely. Even though he was naughty and lazy, he didn’t possess other key symptoms of ADHD such as short attention span or being easily distracted. In fact the headmaster noticed that he ‘had very good abilities’ and, when he enjoyed subjects, he could focus very well indeed.