The Man Within

By Alison Carlson

Fifty years after his passing, The Man Within is meant to reinvigorate the spirit of Winston Churchill approachable rather than academic, lively rather than staid.

This collection features exceptional black-and-white photos, many of which are previously unpublished, woven together with his own powerful words. It tells his story his childhood, his family, his passions, his friends, his life and has been chosen as the official commemorative book of the Churchill Centre on the fiftieth anniversary of his passing. A percentage of royalties goes to the Churchill Centre UK and to other Churchill 2015 charities.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inkshares
• Release date: Jun 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781941758199

Alison Carlson

Alison was born in the English Lake District, but raised all over the world. She spent four years of high school in Mexico City, and after completing her University degree in the United States, she moved to the Middle East, where she was able to follow her passion and work as a photographer. She has been married for twenty-six years to another Churchillian, with whom she raised two daughters in San Francisco. During this time she kept connections with England through her antique clock business. Alison has a lifelong interest in Churchill stemming from her parents, who lived through WWII in England, where her father became a Squadron Leader in the Royal Air Force. She has participated on the board of the US Churchill Centre and can be found frequently in the Churchill War Rooms in London.

Book preview

THE MAN WITHIN

Copyright © 2015 by Alison Carlson.

All rights reserved.

Created by Alison Carlson.

Edited by Girl Friday Productions.

Design by Macfadden & Thorpe.

The punctuation of Churchill’s words may have been modernized to improve clarity. Quotations reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown, London, on behalf of the Beneficiaries of the Estate of Winston S. Churchill.

Copyright © The Beneficiaries of the Estate of Winston S. Churchill

Published by Inkshares, Inc., San Francisco, California.

Printed in China.

First Edition

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015933323

ISBN 978-1-941758-10-6

(Hardcover)

THE MAN

WITHIN

Winston

Churchill

An Intimate

Portrait

Alison Carlson

In memory of my father, who steadied

and calmed all those he loved.

Table of Contents

Preface by Alison Carlson

Foreword by Randolph L. S. Churchill

Introduction by Phil Reed, OBE

YOUTH

SOLDIER

POLITICIAN

FRIENDS & FAMILY

PASSIONS

ALLIES

WARTIME

LEADERSHIP

FINIS

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Grand Patrons

Photo Credits

Churchill returns from Casablanca.

Preface by Alison Carlson

When I was a child, my parents regaled me with stories of World War II – my father became an RAF pilot, and my mother was evacuated from Manchester during the bombings. During the war, as my parents stood in respect, Churchill’s iconic and sonorous voice came to them over the radio. It calmed them, empowered them, and wove a nation of embattled citizens together. Churchill’s words ran deep in the soul of both my parents.

Standing five feet six-and-a-half inches tall, Churchill was a lone player – in his father’s eyes, in school, in Parliament, in the press. An outsider and perpetual underdog, he took an irrevocably principled stand no matter the odds and maintained his initiative with astonishing optimism. For me, it is that unshakable, unflagging spirit that is perhaps the most remarkable aspect of his personality. Importantly, the reservoirs of strength that he crafted over his life – in the face of adversity and in his own failures – were what steadied my parents, England, and the world.

Churchill embodied a kaleidoscopic mix of personalities. These many facets are not readily captured in the photographs with which we are familiar. I have spent the last five years poring over photographs in the Imperial War Museum, the Churchill Archives in Cambridge, and a variety of lesser-known libraries in England, sourcing photographs that portray a renewed image, rather than just the familiar vision of him: cigar clenched jauntily in hand or flashing a V for victory. Many of these photographs have never been published before – photographs which, for better or worse, I alone have chosen. Remarkably, I found no photographs of him drinking, with the exception of one on a boar hunt; clearly, Churchill decided how he would be photographed, and, ergo, perceived.

It is my hope that the words and images on these pages convey a bit of the bedrock strength and comfort of Churchill – the strength and comfort that came to my parents, and all of Britain, over the radio waves. The world is still a scary place, and Churchill, if only in memory, has reservoirs of strength yet to impart to us. But this strength and comfort should come not just from the unidimensional monolith, the thin sliver so often conveyed, but from the mix of personalities that comprise the man within – his joyousness and sorrow, his pugnaciousness and tenderness, his moral certainties and doubts, his strengths and vulnerabilities. Considered by many to be the greatest man of the twentieth century, he was, despite it all, of flesh and blood.

Foreword by Randolph L. S. Churchill

The year