MEET MRS. WINSTON

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 95, 18 April 1941, Page 41

MEET MRS. WINSTON

. (Adapted ‘from an article in "News Review ")

T is perhaps just as well for us women who value our social and political freedom that Winston Churchill was not so much in the news thirty years ago as he is to-day. Mrs. Pankhurst’s views on women’s rights would have been adequately countered by a reference to Mrs. Churchill. She is the example par excellence of the woman behind a famous man, and her life of quiet and unspectacular devotion to her husband’s welfare has probably had more effect on the world’s history than the personal achievement of any other woman of our day. Feed the Brute "Tf I should die," said Mrs. Churchill to Lloyd George, " I would leave written instruction to my successor how to manage Winston. First and most important is to feed him well. You must give him a good dinner." And for 33 years Mrs. Churchill has kept to this maxim. Despite her husband’s fame, Mrs. Churchill has contrived to stay out of the limelight. Both her unobtrusiveness and her gracious demeanour are natural results of a strict upbringing. Her mother, Lady Blanche Hozier, hated newspapers and thought publicity "not well bred." Mrs. Churchill is tall and slim, Her large grey eyes look out smilingly from beneath strongly marked brows. Since

od the war she has limited the quantity rather than the quality of the clothes which Norman Hartnell designs for her, and she has a reputation for perfect grooming and perfect clothes sense. Her Children Mrs. Churchill has four children, and thinks this is the’ minimum for any family. The eldest, Diana, is now married to Duncan Sandys, the M.P. She caused her mother some anxiety when young by being almost kidnapped by militant suffragettes (which shows that kidnapping is not an exclusively American pastime). Then comes Randolph, the only son, who served with distinction in the recent battle for France. Sarah, the second daughter, has a promising career ahead of her. She has had considerable success on the vaudeville stage in both London and New York, and _ recently married the well-known comedian Vic. Oliver. Mary, the youngest, is still what Elizabeth Woodward would" call a subdeb. Winston’s Tribute Mrs. Churchill could well be cast as the wife in a Barrie play. She keeps a maternal eye on Winston’s consumption of whisky and cigars, and neither

smokes nor drinks herself, She copes with the housekeeping ‘problems of their succession of town and country residences. She listens with eager interest to the rehearsals of her husband’s speeches. She is always in the gallery of the House to hear him speak, and it is to her that Churchill’s first glance is directed before he plunges into oratory. And Winston, far from being the unappreciative husband of modern drama, n@éver misses an opportunity of acknowledging the debt he owes his wife. In his autobiography he writes, "My marriage was much the most fortunate and joyous event which happened to me in the whole of my life, for what can be more glorious than to be united in one’s walk through life with a being incapable of an ignoble thought."