Churchill’s Britain

Clark, Peter
Peter Clark is a writer, translator and retired diplomat. He worked for 30 years for the British Council, has translated six novels from Arabic and has written extensively on 19th-century Britain.

More books have been written about Winston Churchill than any modern historical figure, but Peter Clark’s Churchill’s Britain does something quite different. It takes the reader the length and breadth of Britain and Ireland to lesser-known places associated with Churchill’s life. Some are familiar – Blenheim Palace, Chartwell, the Cabinet War Rooms – but we also see his schools, far-flung parliamentary constituencies in Dundee and Epping, the sites of famous speeches, the place he started to paint, the shop he bought his cigars, and the final resting places of his family and close friends. We read about these places in his own words alongside Clark’s insightful analysis and, by visiting sites that made important but less-celebrated contributions to the story of Churchill’s life, we come closer to a full picture. Clark takes us from the site of his father’s marriage proposal to his American future wife on the Isle of Wight to his grave in a country churchyard in Oxfordshire.

Each of the eight regions of the United Kingdom is introduced with a map, and the entries cross-referenced. It can be dipped into, consulted by the traveller, or read straight through. However used, Churchill’s Britain provides fascinating and fresh insights into this extraordinary man.