(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill,)
Just fun today.
From William Manchester’s The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill; Alone: 1932-1940:
[Churchill] tells of how, crossing Parliament Square, he ran into Lord Londonberry, his cousin and frequent adversary. Londonderry, hoping to drive home a point, had asked him: “Have you read my book lately?”And two others from memory concerning Cripps, an austere teetotaler, vegetarian, and frequent object of fun for Churchill.
Winston chortles his reply: “No, I only read for pleasure or profit.”
In the House of Commons he had remarked upon Sir Stafford Cripp’s “look of injured guilt.”
So many cabinet ministers wanted ennoblement that he had protested: “They can’t all have peerages; there ought to be some disappearages.” (pgs. 25-26)
During WWII, Churchill’s plane was forced to make an emergency landing at an airfield in the North African desert. The heat was intense and the desert bare without a blade of grass: “God, how Cripps would love this place.”
It was with a nod toward Cripps as he walked by that Churchill told a colleague: “There but for the grace of God goes God.”
2 comments:
Are Cripps and Brodhead perhaps related?
I perceive a strong family resemblence.
Might Dick be Stafford's love child?
What has happened to all the people who were able to effortlessly use the English language in an elegant and witty manner?
Now we have the likes of people who think that using profanity is the height of intelligence and wit.
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