Clementine Churchill

The revised and updated biography of Clementine Churchill, wife of Winston, written by their daughter.

There can surely be no more difficult task than to write a biography of one's own mother;  but Mary Soames has been brilliantly successful.

A delightful book...affectionate and also frank.

Lady Soames has carried out the extremely delicate and difficult task of writing the real story of her mother.  I found it particularly moving because I had a deep affection for her father and mother.

Mary Soames (1922-2014) was the youngest child of Winston and Clementine Churchill. She was brought up at Chartwell in Kent and, aged eighteen, joined the ATS and served in mixed anti-aircraft batteries in England and Europe. She accompanied her father as his ADC on several of his wartime overseas journeys. In 1945 she was awarded the MBE (military). In 1947, she married Captain Christopher Soames, Coldstream Guards, later Lord Soames, PC, GCMG, CH. In 1998 she edited the private correspondence between her parents, Speaking for Themselves, completely revised and updated the celebrated biography of her mother, Clementine Churchill, in 2002 and completed her own autobiography, A Daughter’s Tale, in 2011.

When Clementine, Lady Spencer-Churchill died in 1977, aged 92, she had become a much-loved and iconic figure to the British public. In spite of being instantly recognisable as the seemingly serene, cool and detached wife of Winston Churchill, she had nonetheless shunned publicity throughout her life. In this fully updated, award-winning biography, her daughter Mary Soames throws new light on her mother, writing with affection and candour of Clementine's fifty-seven-year marriage to Winston, her strongly held political views and a life that spanned many of the major events of the twentieth century. 
 
Clementine Churchill was the perfect wife for Winston. For the years of their marriage she supported him through the triumphs, disasters and tensions that ruled his public and private life. As a shy, passionate and highly-strung woman, Clementine's self-control was constantly tested to the utmost by the turmoil of public life and in the no less harrowing family crises and the ever-present financial anxieties. 
 
When they married in 1908, Winston was already a Member of Parliament, and thereafter their life was played out mostly in front of the nation and the world. Winston always trusted Clementine completely and she became his valuable counsellor and companion. He invariably wanted her opinion - but did not always take her advice. She believed in him unreservedly, and in his destiny. 
 
When first published in 1979, CLEMENTINE CHURCHILL won the Yorkshire Post Prize for Best First Work and a Wolfson Prize for History. This major revision makes full use of a wealth of new, intrinsically personal material that has come to light since then and elaborates further on many of the issues raised in the original edition.

The Private Letters Of Sir Winston And Lady Churchill

Speaking For Themselves

The personal letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill.

The record of a remarkably enduring marriage

Lady Soames, the Churchills' sole surviving child... has edited these letters with great skill, providing a lively commentary and vivid pen portraits of supporting characters

We expect the correspondence of Winston Churchill and his wife, Clementine, to be interesting... and still these letters can astonish: in their scope; in the way their individual brilliance is sustained day by day and year upon year

A fascinating aid to our understanding of an extraordinary couple

The fascinating, insightful and often moving correspondence between Sir Winston and Lady Clementine Churchill extends from their early days of innocent courtship in 1908 to Winston Churchill's death in 1965. 
 
The letters serve not only as a chronicle of their personal achievements and tragedies over the years, but also as a political and social history. In their own words, Winston and Clementine recount some of the most momentous events of the twentieth century: the sinking of the Titanic, the abdication of King Edward VIII, the downfall of governments, the Depression, and two world wars. Here are harrowing first-hand accounts from the battlefields of 1915, reflections on political triumphs and upsets, as well as domestic minutiae, foreign travel, revelations of social scandals and, above all, words of mutual support and encouragement that span the career of one of Britain's most revered statesmen. Speaking for Themselves is not only an important historical document, it is a love story and an intimate, charming and often surprising insight into one of the century's most successful marriages. 
 
Mary Soames is perfectly placed to select and comment upon this vast collection of letters. And in her introduction and notes she complements the letters with explanatory notes, biographical details and her own personal recollections.

Mary Soames

Perceptive, funny, always totally honest.

a nostalgic memoir of a happy childhood in a vanished age

The Memoir of Winston and Clementine Churchill's youngest child

At ninety years old, Mary Soames is the only surviving child of Winston and Clementine Churchill. A Daughter’s Tale follows her early life from an idyllic childhood in her own ‘Garden of Eden’ at Chartwell to her ATS service in mixed anti-aircraft batteries during the war. With glimpses into her fascinating personal diary, published here for the first time, she draws us into a world where the experiences of a packed family, social and romantic life unfold against a background of cataclysmic events. 
 
When Chamberlain’s declaration of war in 1939 shatters Mary’s world, she begins to share the anxieties and stresses suffered by her family through her father’s position. The mutual love between Mary and her parents is evident on every page, from her Chartwell years to Winston’s defeat at the 1945 general election, when she recounts her own devastation on her father’s behalf. As she meets her future husband Christopher Soames at the end of this charming memoir, it is clear that, at twenty-four, Mary has lived a full life and is well prepared for her future as wife and mother.

Mary Soames

Praise for A Daughter's Tale

Perceptive, funny, always totally honest.

An entertaining memoir

a nostalgic memoir of a happy childhood in a vanished age

Perceptive, funny, always totally honest.

An entertaining memoir

a nostalgic memoir of a happy childhood in a vanished age

Perceptive, funny, always totally honest.

An entertaining memoir

a nostalgic memoir of a happy childhood in a vanished age

Books by Mary Soames

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