'A compelling tragedy, but one which casts valuable new light on
the outsized human dimensions of both men ... Agonising but
excellent' The Telegraph 'In this fascinating account of the
turbulent Churchill father-and-son relationship, Josh Ireland shows
how central Winston and Randolph were to each other's lives' Andrew
Roberts Few fathers and sons can ever have been so close as Winston
Churchill and his only son Randolph. Both showed flamboyant
impatience, reckless bravery, and generosity of spirit. The
glorious and handsome Randolph was a giver and devourer of
pleasure, a man who exploded into rooms, trailing whisky tumblers
and reciting verbatim whole passages of classic literature. But
while Randolph inherited many of his fathers' talents, he also
inherited all of his flaws. Randolph was his father only more so:
fiercer, louder, more out of control. Hence father and son would be
so very close, and so liable to explode at each other. Winston's
closest ally during the wilderness years of the 1930s, Randolph
would himself become a war hero, serving with the SAS in the desert
and Marshal Tito's guerrillas in Yugoslavia, a friend of press
barons and American presidents alike, and a journalist with a
'genius for uncovering secrets', able to secure audiences with
everyone from Kaiser Wilhelm to General Franco and Guy Burgess. But
Randolph's political career never amounted to anything. As much as
he idolised Winston and never lost faith in his father during the
long, solitary years of Winston's decline, he was never able to
escape from the shadow cast by Britain's great hero. In his own
eyes, and most woundingly of all his father's, his life was a
failure. Winston, ever consumed by his own sense of destiny,
allowed his own ambitions to take priority over Randolph's. The
world, big as it was, only had space for one Churchill. Instead of
the glory he believed was his birthright, Randolph died young, his
body rotted by resentment and drink, before he could complete his
father's biography. A revealing new perspective on the Churchill
myth, this intimate story reveals the lesser-seen Winston
Churchill: reading Peter Rabbit books to his children, admonishing
Eton schoolmasters and using decanters and wine glasses to re-fight
the Battle of Jutland at the table. Amid a cast of personalities
who defined an era - PG Wodehouse, Nancy Astor, The Mitfords, the
Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Lord Beaverbrook, William Randolph
Hearst, Oswald Mosley, Graham Greene, Duff and Diana Cooper, the
Kennedys, Charlie Chaplin, and Lloyd George - Churchill & Son
is the lost story of a timeless father-son relationship.
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