The Art of Manliness - The Fraught, Relatable Relationship Between Winston Churchill and His Son

00:00:00.000 Bret McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.000 Winston Churchill once said of his only son, I love Randolph, but I don't like him.

00:00:15.580 It's a sentiment many apparent with a tumultuous relationship with one of their children can

00:00:19.100 relate to and well describes both how Winston felt about Randolph and how Randolph felt

00:00:23.580 about his father.

00:00:24.220 My guest day details Winston and Randolph's incredibly close and yet terribly complex

00:00:29.020 and combustible relationship in his new book, Churchill and Son.

00:00:32.160 His name is Josh Ireland and we begin our discussion with how Winston's own harsh and

00:00:35.960 neglectful father influenced his own decision to be a much more involved and ultimately

00:00:39.900 indulgent family man in the way he spoiled a son who was already inclined towards appalling

00:00:44.040 behavior.

00:00:44.860 Josh describes the man in which Winston and Randolph both bonded and fought and the effect

00:00:48.640 the trouble Randolph caused had on the relationship between Winston and his wife.

00:00:52.020 We then get into how World War II and the way Winston may have encouraged Randolph's wife

00:00:56.120 to cheat on him with an American diplomat affected Randolph's relationship with his father for

00:01:00.060 the worse.

00:01:00.780 Josh explains the outsized expectation Winston had for Randolph and the points at which father

00:01:05.000 and son respectively realized they'd never be fulfilled and the lesson to be taken from

00:01:08.840 their story about the cost of parents imposing their own dreams on their children.

00:01:12.480 We end our conversation by discussing why it is that the children of great leaders rarely

00:01:15.840 turn out well themselves for, as Randolph himself observed, nothing grows in the shadow

00:01:20.260 of a great oak tree.

00:01:21.700 After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash Churchill and Son.

00:01:26.120 All right, Josh Ireland, welcome to the show.

00:01:37.500 Thanks, and we're really pleased to be on.

00:01:39.760 So you got a new biography out about Winston Churchill, but this isn't just any other regular

00:01:45.400 Winston Churchill biography.

00:01:46.820 We look at the entirety of his life.

00:01:49.380 You focus in on his relationship with his firstborn son, Randolph Churchill.

00:01:54.380 I'm curious, what kick-started your project in looking at and writing a biography of this

00:01:59.640 father-son relationship?

00:02:01.720 I mean, it's quite weird.

00:02:02.860 I mean, I can sort of pinpoint exactly where I was and when.

00:02:06.580 I was on holiday, and I was reading Ben McIntyre's really good book about the early days of Britain's

00:02:11.840 SAS.

00:02:13.220 And right in the middle of that narrative, suddenly Randolph, who's Winston's son, makes this sort

00:02:18.440 of extraordinary cameo, you know, right in the middle of the desert, all these tough soldiers,

00:02:22.820 suddenly this sort of fat, drunk, angry, clever, rude, and sort of damaged man sort of strides 0.94

00:02:29.840 in. 0.99

00:02:30.720 And he steals the show for a few pages and then disappears off.

00:02:35.340 And that just got me thinking.

00:02:36.520 I realized that I knew nothing about this man.

00:02:38.540 I mean, I was barely aware that Winston had a son.

00:02:40.780 And then the more I read about Randolph, the more I realized that it was really strange

00:02:44.880 that, you know, for all the many biographies of Winston, Randolph barely appears when actually,

00:02:50.680 when if you look at how Winston felt about him, Randolph was the absolute center of his

00:02:54.500 life.

00:02:55.540 And that made me realize that it was a different way of looking at Winston, a sort of different

00:02:59.320 way of understanding him as maybe as a more human, more emotional, more vulnerable

00:03:03.080 figure.

00:03:03.460 And the other thing I was really interested in was, you know, what it's like to grow up

00:03:07.540 with a man who is sort of regarded as the greatest Britain in history, you know, what

00:03:11.220 effect that has on you, how you ever kind of build a life in that really long and punishing

00:03:17.600 shadow.

00:03:18.800 Well, I hope you can see this conversation.

00:03:20.360 It was, the relationship was fraught.

00:03:22.260 I mean, that's an understatement, I think.

00:03:24.700 Yeah.

00:03:25.020 But I think to understand Churchill's relationship with his son Randolph, you really have to understand

00:03:31.280 Churchill's relationship with his own father, who's also named Randolph, Lord Randolph.

00:03:37.260 Can you tell us about Lord Randolph?

00:03:39.240 Like, what was he like?

00:03:40.080 And then we can talk about, you know, his relationship with his son, Winston Churchill.

00:03:45.260 Well, Lord Randolph's one of the most interesting and controversial and sort of strange figures

00:03:49.800 in the 19th century.

00:03:51.100 He was son of a Duke, and he basically revolutionized the Conservative Party, sort of dragging them into

00:03:57.540 the modern age.

00:03:58.360 And just as he was about to take power himself, he sort of takes this extraordinary gamble,

00:04:03.600 which backfires and just throws him out of power.

00:04:06.160 Outside of his political life, he led an extravagant existence.

00:04:09.540 He spent wildly.

00:04:10.940 He and his wife, Jenny, plunged into profound debt.

00:04:14.860 And even alongside that, he was suffering from this progressive brain disease, which people

00:04:20.520 at the time thought was probably syphilis, but now seems to be something unidentified, but

00:04:25.360 which has a lot of the same symptoms.

00:04:26.740 So his brain was rotting, his body was rotting, even as he was sort of stepping away from the

00:04:32.540 political limelight.

00:04:33.660 But all of this busyness and all of this danger and all of this excitement left no space at

00:04:37.800 all for his two children.

00:04:39.560 And that meant that Winston was this very sensitive, shy child who was desperate for attention from

00:04:46.820 a father who barely seemed to notice him.

00:04:48.960 And so there's all these terrible scenes where, you know, Lord Randolph goes to address a political

00:04:54.980 meeting in Brighton where his son was at school and he didn't even bother to cross the road

00:04:59.520 to say hello to his son.

00:05:00.960 You know, he barely knew what country his son was in.

00:05:03.560 He couldn't tell you how old his son was.

00:05:05.220 And whenever Winston tried to sort of form any kind of bond with him, he'd have this horrible

00:05:09.740 rebuke where his father basically told him that he was worthless, was never going to amount

00:05:14.120 to anything, and that he was almost ashamed to have him as a son, which had a massive and

00:05:20.320 long-lasting effect on psychological impact on Winston.

00:05:24.920 And I mean, what's, yeah, some of these letters are just brutal where he's writing his father

00:05:28.540 and his father just dresses him down. 1.00

00:05:30.460 And, you know, Randolph is like, you're pathetic. 1.00

00:05:32.720 You're never going to amount to much. 1.00

00:05:34.360 I mean, it's, I just can't imagine any father talking to their child like that.

00:05:38.200 I mean, to do it once is pretty bad, but he did it repeatedly, you know, even the last

00:05:42.600 letter he writes to him just before he dies, he's just saying, you're never going to amount

00:05:45.840 to anything. 1.00

00:05:46.420 You're a failure. 1.00

00:05:47.040 You're pathetic. 1.00

00:05:47.920 You're stupid. 1.00

00:05:48.680 You're worthless. 1.00

00:05:50.120 You know, he said, you're going to become a degenerate. 1.00

00:05:52.360 You're going to degenerate into a shabby, unhappy, and futile existence.

00:05:56.180 And Winston got that letter and he never saw his father again.

00:05:59.640 They were, you know, almost the last words he ever had from his father.

00:06:02.940 And what's so shocking about this, despite, you know, being treated so poorly by his father,

00:06:07.860 Churchill, you know, he still deeply admired and loved his father.

00:06:11.760 Like, why do you think, what was going on there?

00:06:14.200 I mean, can you, can you figure, did you figure out like why Churchill had this romantic ideal

00:06:18.940 of his father, even though his father, in the reality, his father was nowhere near that ideal?

00:06:24.100 I think it was psychologically essential for him.

00:06:27.180 I think he retreated into a sort of fantasy where he believed that, you know, his father

00:06:33.160 would have grown to love and admire and respect him.

00:06:35.760 And everything he did, really, right through the course of his life, was part of this dialogue

00:06:40.960 with his father, you know, trying to persuade his father's ghost that he was worthy of the

00:06:45.500 affection that he hadn't been given, you know, 30, 40, 60 years beforehand.

00:06:50.460 There's this extraordinary short story that Winston writes in the last years of his life

00:06:55.120 where he imagines his father returning to him.

00:06:57.240 And it's just, it's as if he could never stop talking to his father or thinking about his

00:07:01.940 father.

00:07:03.040 And I think he just needed to believe that his father would ultimately have grown to

00:07:07.800 love and respect him.

00:07:09.300 And so he had that fantasy and sort of lived it out throughout his entire existence.

00:07:15.140 And do you think Churchill's, you know, his terrible relationship with his dad, do you

00:07:19.760 think that helped him become the Winston Churchill that led England during World War II?

00:07:23.700 Yeah, undoubtedly, I think, I mean, it's, I think the sort of damage that was wrought on

00:07:30.520 him eventually, you know, that drove his ambition and it drove his sense of purpose and it made

00:07:37.580 him go further and harder than I think he would have otherwise.

00:07:40.580 That's what instilled in him that sort of ferocious work ethic, that sort of burning desire to

00:07:45.800 prove himself.

00:07:46.420 So, I mean, it's sort of grim irony that, you know, that Britain's survival in 1940 was

00:07:53.320 all dependent on the bullying, cruel behavior for a man 60 years beforehand.

00:07:59.100 I think, wasn't it Randolph that wrote, or it might have been Winston's, like something

00:08:02.520 like, you know, most great men, like he even thought about this, like most great men, they

00:08:07.120 had like a really bad childhood.

00:08:09.380 Yeah.

00:08:09.560 And that's Winston's entire line.

00:08:11.340 He really, he really thought it was essential as part of the sort of growth of a great man

00:08:15.640 to be subject, subjected to that kind of brutality as a, as a, as a young person, which

00:08:21.620 is what makes his own attempts to sort of mold his own son seem almost perverse and that

00:08:27.080 he took exactly the different, exactly the opposite approach.

00:08:31.240 Okay.

00:08:31.280 Let's talk about his, his son.

00:08:32.940 So Churchill had a terrible relationship with his father.

00:08:35.980 He gets married.

00:08:37.900 Now, what point in his life did he become a father?

00:08:40.380 Like, where was he at in his political career?

00:08:43.240 So he's in his mid thirties when he finally married, marries, uh, he meets a woman called

00:08:47.500 Clementine Hosier, who's comes from a similarly sort of damaged emotional background.

00:08:52.800 And they quite quickly have kids.

00:08:54.500 They have a daughter, Diana, a year after they get married.

00:08:57.960 And then Randolph follows a couple of years later and their marriage coincides with the

00:09:02.660 moment that Winston's political career really begins to take off.

00:09:06.680 You know, he becomes the youngest member of cabinet for 50 years.

00:09:11.980 Initially he's president of the board of trade, which isn't a sort of particularly significant

00:09:15.380 role, but it's still important.

00:09:16.840 Then he becomes home secretary.

00:09:19.120 And then after that becomes Lord of the Admiralty, which makes him one of the sort of three most

00:09:23.240 powerful men in the entire British empire at the time.

00:09:25.680 So he's really flying by the time he actually becomes a father.

00:09:29.740 All right.

00:09:29.860 And so he named his son after his father Randolph.

00:09:33.860 And as you said, so like Churchill had this really terrible relationship with his own father.

00:09:38.420 He decided from the get go that he would do things entirely different with his kids,

00:09:43.600 particularly with Randolph.

00:09:44.580 Like he would, where there was a scorn, Churchill would heap praise.

00:09:48.840 So how did that, what did that look like?

00:09:51.200 I mean, how did Churchill give Randolph the praise and approbation that he craved himself

00:09:57.820 as a child from his own father?

00:10:00.460 Yeah.

00:10:00.660 And I think Winston was sort of very self-consciously a very, very different parent to how his own

00:10:06.680 father had been.

00:10:08.040 I mean, for one thing, he was just much more present.

00:10:10.360 You know, I'm not sure Lord Randolph ever went into his children's nursery.

00:10:14.000 He certainly never gave any of his kids a bath.

00:10:15.980 And Winston was, and when Winston was around and, you know, it should be said, Winston

00:10:19.880 had this incredibly busy, extravagant social life in his work, dominated his existence.

00:10:26.320 But when he could be there for his children, he was this intense, vigorous, charismatic

00:10:30.740 presence.

00:10:32.280 He loved all of his children.

00:10:33.540 You know, he was unashamedly affectionate, but it was Randolph that he adored more than any

00:10:39.560 of the others.

00:10:39.980 And I think, you know, from an early age, all of Randolph's sisters knew that their brother

00:10:44.580 was the favourite.

00:10:45.780 And Winston showed that in lots of ways.

00:10:47.700 I mean, he sort of fed Randolph oysters from the table.

00:10:51.440 When Randolph grew older, he would be encouraged to come and sit with prime ministers and great

00:10:56.800 other political figures.

00:10:58.140 And Winston would wave his cigars at David Lloyd George or Herbert Asquith and tell them

00:11:03.300 to shut up and let his son speak. 0.94

00:11:05.720 And from a very early age, Winston encouraged Randolph to believe that he would become a great

00:11:10.440 man, that he would probably become a prime minister or some other great figure.

00:11:14.840 You know, he praised him.

00:11:16.240 He told him how clever he was, how beautiful he was, how funny he was.

00:11:21.240 And whenever anyone else tried to discipline Randolph, Winston would step in and protect

00:11:25.500 him.

00:11:26.080 You know, there were never any consequences, no matter what Randolph did.

00:11:28.960 And Randolph was, you know, an appallingly mischievous child.

00:11:32.500 Winston defended him and would just say that it was his high spirit or sign of his cleverness.

00:11:38.360 Well, let's talk about him being an appalling child.

00:11:41.500 So he was a terror from the get-go. 0.81

00:11:43.960 And we talked about some of the stuff that he did as a kid that were just like crazy.

00:11:48.780 But Churchill's like, yeah, that's, you know, he's just a clever boy.

00:11:52.560 I mean, yeah.

00:11:53.040 I mean, there's so much.

00:11:54.000 I mean, he's just, he must have just been, he was uncontrollable, really.

00:11:56.900 You know, he used to phone up the government departments pretending to be his own father.

00:12:01.420 You know, he'd impersonate his voice.

00:12:03.260 There was one day when David Lloyd George, who was at the time the prime minister of the United

00:12:07.920 Kingdom came to visit the church or so, their country house.

00:12:11.600 And Randolph urinated on him from an upstairs window. 0.62

00:12:15.260 I mean, it's just extraordinary.

00:12:17.800 You know, there was never, no nursemaid stayed employed by the church for more than a couple

00:12:22.280 of months because usually they'd be broken by this demonic child.

00:12:26.220 You know, and he was charming and he was funny, but he was, there was no one, nobody could stop

00:12:31.480 him from doing whatever he wanted.

00:12:32.660 Yeah, the story with the nannies, he'd like run them off.

00:12:35.880 They would like pack their bags.

00:12:37.020 They'd be chanting at the stairs, nanny's leaving, nanny's leaving.

00:12:39.920 You're like, what in the?

00:12:42.380 I know.

00:12:42.880 I mean, and it's just, it's sort of funny on one level.

00:12:46.820 And then also just a sort of horrifying to think what all these sort of poor teenage girls 1.00

00:12:51.360 must have gone through, you know, in this sort of big country house.

00:12:54.480 Suddenly this blonde, angelic demon starts yelling at them and there's no one that will 1.00

00:13:02.160 protect them from him. 0.84

00:13:03.480 Yeah.

00:13:03.620 Like you said, during this time, Churchill really didn't do anything about it.

00:13:07.180 No.

00:13:07.680 I mean, if anything, he encouraged it.

00:13:09.540 I think he saw it as a sign of his son's vitality.

00:13:13.820 You know, a big part of Winston's own myth was that as a child, he'd been the naughtiest 0.97

00:13:18.620 boy at Harrow, that he'd been stupid at school, that no one had thought he would make anything 0.98

00:13:23.460 himself, that he was forever getting into fights, that he was forever getting into arguments. 1.00

00:13:29.380 And the same was true of Randolph.

00:13:31.520 So when Randolph fought with people at school or when Randolph's teachers tried to remonstrate

00:13:38.320 with either Randolph or Winston, Winston would just laugh.

00:13:41.800 And I think Randolph was self-consciously imitating his father.

00:13:45.560 You know, he knew that legend about Winston as the naughty child.

00:13:48.800 I think he saw it as a sort of important part of being a Churchill as a way of demonstrating

00:13:54.720 that as a Churchill, you didn't follow other people's rules.

00:13:58.680 And do you think, I mean, so yeah, Randolph was a terror from the get-go.

00:14:01.900 Do you think there was like an inborn temperament that contributed to that?

00:14:05.220 Or was it, do you think it was primarily driven by Churchill's overindulgence?

00:14:08.440 It's difficult.

00:14:11.460 I mean, I think there's something innate there.

00:14:15.100 There's lots of talk about the sort of streak of Churchill madness that goes from Lord Randolph

00:14:21.160 to Winston to Randolph.

00:14:24.580 You know, that there are generations of Churchills that have sort of suffered from this sort of

00:14:29.520 malady.

00:14:31.040 And I think there's probably some truth to that.

00:14:32.500 And I think clearly whatever was there, planted there by nature, was sort of encouraged by

00:14:39.240 Winston's own behavior.

00:14:40.840 You know, he created a perfect environment for that bad behavior to grow.

00:14:46.320 All right.

00:14:46.540 So when Randolph was a boy, he was peeing on, you know, prominent politicians.

00:14:51.060 But then as he got into young man, like the problems just got bigger.

00:14:55.120 Like, what was he like high school and then early on in his own sort of, you know, launching

00:15:01.740 off into adulthood?

00:15:02.740 What sort of problems did Randolph create for Churchill?

00:15:06.740 I think he, I think the thing about Randolph is that all of Winston's faults are present

00:15:13.240 in him, but they appear in a sort of grander, more extravagant form.

00:15:18.500 So Winston was barely out of debt right through his life, but could just about keep on top of

00:15:25.100 it.

00:15:25.460 Whereas Randolph ran up unbelievable amounts of debts by spending money he just didn't

00:15:30.460 have.

00:15:30.900 You know, he'd buy diamonds for girlfriends or friends.

00:15:33.400 He'd turn up at, when he was still a student, he'd turn up at Winston's house in a chauffeur

00:15:38.600 driven Bentley.

00:15:40.280 You know, he bought flowers, he bought drink.

00:15:42.360 He, when he stayed in a hotel, he'd stay in, you know, the master suite.

00:15:45.680 And all of this went alongside like a ferocious appetite for drink and sex and eating.

00:15:54.460 You know, there are some extraordinary descriptions of him, his eyes growing as he saw a pork chop

00:15:59.780 being brought to the table.

00:16:01.540 And he argued with everyone.

00:16:02.920 He never stopped talking when he was at Eton at high school.

00:16:06.660 You know, there were other people that actually threw him out of a window to see if he would

00:16:09.700 stop talking.

00:16:10.540 And they lobbed him out of the first floor of the window, saw him crash to the ground and 0.63

00:16:14.120 he just carried on talking, but mostly it was arguments, you know, he was arrogant, he

00:16:18.280 was clever, and he thought he knew better than anyone else and was never afraid of speaking

00:16:23.380 up, which is a really admirable quality sometimes, but clearly could get him to a lot of trouble.

00:16:31.660 And this is also when you start seeing like what people described as rose, bloody rose between

00:16:38.280 Winston and Randolph.

00:16:39.960 Like what kind of arguments would they get in more?

00:16:42.120 I mean, it would basically, it would be like yelling matches, essentially.

00:16:45.640 Yeah.

00:16:45.820 I mean, the two men loved each other.

00:16:48.440 I mean, they really deeply loved each other.

00:16:51.240 And I think that love meant that all that affection, all that emotion meant that most of the time

00:16:57.760 they were like a sort of adoring couple.

00:17:02.100 You know, they tell each other how wonderful they were.

00:17:04.880 They'd spend, they'd spend weekends in each other's company.

00:17:07.300 They'd go on holiday together, they'd go drinking together, they'd eat in restaurants

00:17:11.620 together, they'd plot together, they'd go hunting together.

00:17:16.400 But that close proximity also meant that when things went wrong, that it was so charged that

00:17:21.940 they went really, really wrong.

00:17:24.020 Randolph couldn't control himself when he lost his temper.

00:17:26.680 He'd throw chairs, he'd storm.

00:17:29.040 And Winston had exactly the same faults.

00:17:30.860 And often the arguments they had were over tiny things.

00:17:34.540 They were perceived slights.

00:17:36.060 They were like, you know, sort of tumultuous romantic relationship.

00:17:40.620 You know, they could be jealous of each other.

00:17:43.160 They could be jealous of, they could be disapproving of each other's behavior.

00:17:46.820 And then Winston was brilliant at bringing them back together.

00:17:50.640 You know, that he valued his son's friendship and his son's love and couldn't bear the idea

00:17:56.280 that anything could stand in the way.

00:17:58.600 So after a huge argument, you know, Winston would invariably be found going to Cartier's

00:18:03.560 to buy a new bracelet or a watch for his son to try and make up.

00:18:07.880 But there were times when their arguments were so fierce that Clementine, Winston's wife

00:18:13.000 and Randolph's mother refused to be in the same room as them.

00:18:15.580 It must have been terrifying to see.

00:18:17.840 They're both big men.

00:18:19.160 They both drank a lot.

00:18:20.100 They both had loud voices.

00:18:22.460 They were both very sure of themselves and they didn't care what anyone else thought

00:18:25.480 about them.

00:18:26.700 Well, speaking of Clementine, like this was another, this added to the tension between

00:18:30.740 like with Churchill and Randolph because Clementine was extremely protective of Winston Churchill. 0.88

00:18:36.900 She even said that like my whole life now, once they got married, it's like devoted to

00:18:41.020 Churchill, Winston and his career.

00:18:43.580 And Randolph got in the way of that.

00:18:47.120 And Clementine, I mean, she kind of, I mean, she didn't really like her son.

00:18:51.600 I mean, that's like, I don't know how the, not the nicest way, like she didn't like Randolph

00:18:55.940 at all.

00:18:56.760 I mean, what was that relationship like between Randolph and Clementine?

00:18:59.920 Yeah, I think Randolph resented his mom, mother for pouring everything she had into

00:19:06.040 his father.

00:19:07.020 And there was very little leftover for the other children.

00:19:10.120 And I don't think he ever forgave her for that.

00:19:12.480 And as far as Clementine was concerned, I think she saw Randolph as the incarnation of all

00:19:17.580 the worst parts for her husband.

00:19:19.040 You know, she admired Winston immensely, but she also knew that he was susceptible to extravagance

00:19:26.580 and gambling and drinking.

00:19:28.900 And she thought Randolph was a bad influence on his father, which is sort of a strange way

00:19:33.800 of looking at the world.

00:19:34.840 And I think also she was deeply jealous of him because Winston, especially in Randolph's

00:19:41.420 for early years, clearly privileged him over anybody else, including her.

00:19:46.540 You know, she thought that she was at the center of his life.

00:19:49.640 And then, you know, as Randolph enters his twenties, she realizes that she's been pushed

00:19:53.680 to its edges.

00:19:54.760 And I think she found that very hard.

00:19:57.640 And so they were in, in a sense, they were in constant competition for Winston's affection

00:20:02.340 and love and attention.

00:20:03.440 And that meant that their relationship was incredibly uneasy, suspicious, and very, very fraught.

00:20:11.840 Did it affect, you know, Clementine's and Winston's marriage?

00:20:15.460 Like, was there tension there because of Randolph?

00:20:17.400 Yeah.

00:20:17.760 I mean, I think for a long time, because Winston's so sort of uninterested in what was going on in

00:20:24.960 anyone else's head or heart apart from his own, I think he didn't notice.

00:20:28.840 But as time went on, I think it became maybe the only significant argument that he and Clementine

00:20:36.160 ever had, you know, that they, this was, this was the one thing in their marriage that threatened

00:20:40.560 to push them apart because they had this long, successful bond for, you know, for upwards

00:20:48.780 of 50 years.

00:20:49.840 But Randolph was the only thing that ever came between them because Clementine felt that

00:20:55.540 Randolph could potentially be the end of, of Winston, that Randolph could be the reason

00:21:00.720 that Winston wouldn't go on to, to achieve all of his dreams until she did everything

00:21:05.700 she could to try and protect Winston from his son.

00:21:08.680 Whereas Winston was obsessed with Randolph.

00:21:10.860 You know, he wanted to spend as much time as he could with him.

00:21:12.820 He wanted to do everything he could to help Randolph.

00:21:15.620 And so those two views were, they couldn't really be reconciled.

00:21:21.000 We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors.

00:21:25.920 And now back to the show.

00:21:27.880 So what's interesting too, you note in the book, when Churchill was in his wilderness years,

00:21:32.140 when he was basically out of power, sort of a pariah, this is before World War II.

00:21:37.140 This is when his relationship with Randolph got really, really close.

00:21:40.940 Randolph became a confidant.

00:21:42.280 They spent a lot of time together because Churchill didn't have much going on.

00:21:45.620 But then World War II starts, Churchill is made prime minister.

00:21:50.260 How does the relationship between him and Randolph change with the start of World War II?

00:21:55.860 So I think it changes almost overnight after Winston becomes prime minister.

00:22:01.020 You know, that they have been accustomed to phoning each other all the time and writing

00:22:04.560 letters and spending huge amounts of time in each other's company.

00:22:08.060 And in a sense, although Winston had been a cabinet minister, there was a sort of, you could

00:22:12.780 see that in the wilderness years that maybe his career was coming to an end and it must

00:22:18.500 have felt to Randolph as if the future was his.

00:22:21.280 And then suddenly Winston becomes prime minister.

00:22:25.160 He's surrounded by the whole apparatus of government.

00:22:28.060 You know, he doesn't have time to think about his son because Britain's in the greatest

00:22:32.940 parody has been maybe for almost a thousand years.

00:22:36.840 And so Randolph finds himself very abruptly pushed to the margins of his father's life.

00:22:43.060 And he finds it very, very difficult to sort of adjust to that new status because he used

00:22:49.060 to be able to just walk into his father's room and start talking.

00:22:51.820 And now there were secretaries in his way or generals or chiefs of staff.

00:22:56.100 And I don't think he, he ever, their relationship really ever recovered from that.

00:23:02.580 Yeah.

00:23:02.620 The way you describe it, it was, I can see this being really hard for Randolph.

00:23:05.460 There was instances where he wanted to see his father, but Churchill's private secretaries

00:23:11.580 wouldn't let him and like wrote these like sort of patronizing letters.

00:23:14.780 Like, yeah, be a good boy and leave your father alone.

00:23:18.360 Exactly, which is, it must have been devastating to Randolph because one of the other things

00:23:23.460 that, you know, when Winston becomes prime minister, he very quickly assembles a new

00:23:27.400 government and he gives appointments to a lot of the people that had stayed loyal to

00:23:31.180 him right through the wilderness years, but also to the people that had been responsible

00:23:35.420 for his time in the wilderness, that, you know, the sort of conservative hierarchy.

00:23:39.760 Winston was very, very quick to forgive the people that he knew would be necessary to

00:23:44.220 help win the war.

00:23:46.260 And Randolph couldn't bear that.

00:23:47.440 He couldn't bear that he'd been excluded, that his loyalty hadn't been rewarded.

00:23:52.520 And he couldn't bear that the things that had made him so useful and necessary to his

00:23:57.200 father, you know, his pugnacity, his willingness to pick fights, his bravery, his run back,

00:24:04.200 his recklessness, all of that was the last thing in the world that his father needed.

00:24:09.900 His father needed someone calm and steady like Clementine.

00:24:14.040 And, you know, Randolph didn't help his case.

00:24:16.080 You know, he got, he'd get drunk and lose important maps when he parked outside Downing

00:24:21.340 Street or he'd, I mean, he, all of the stories come back to Randolph being drunk and shouting

00:24:25.620 at his father.

00:24:26.460 You know, he'd berate him about strategy over dinner.

00:24:29.860 I don't think he could ever adjust to the fact that he was no longer an important person.

00:24:35.080 He wasn't a partner of his father.

00:24:37.540 He was just the prime minister's son.

00:24:39.620 And that doesn't carry any weight.

00:24:42.580 Yeah.

00:24:42.620 These arguments, like he would do it in front of generals and like Randolph would actually,

00:24:46.640 I mean, he'd had no regard for hierarchy, military hierarchy when he was in his father's presence.

00:24:50.420 And he just, he'd dress down generals and say, you're doing your strategy wrong and accuse

00:24:54.940 people of cowardice.

00:24:57.440 And I mean, it's bold and it's brave and it's sort of funny.

00:25:01.040 And, you know, I'm sure a lot of those generals were really pompous and, you know, at the time

00:25:06.520 the war was going really badly.

00:25:08.160 So they probably, their strategy was probably wrong.

00:25:10.760 Whether Randolph knew any better is sort of open to question.

00:25:13.200 But, um, yeah, I just think he couldn't find a way of being useful to his father.

00:25:19.120 And so he just let go, you know, he didn't have any control.

00:25:22.640 He wasn't able to control himself.

00:25:24.700 He wasn't able to reconcile himself to the fact that he was this sort of spare part now.

00:25:30.540 And I think the thing he found intensely frustrating, and I think it's impossible not to feel sympathy

00:25:35.980 for him, was that Randolph knew that Winston revered bravery above all everything, almost any

00:25:41.760 other quality. And he was desperate to be able to get to the front line, to fight, to show

00:25:46.300 how brave he was and to secure his father's admiration.

00:25:50.040 But Winston was never willing to let him do that.

00:25:52.600 He would say that if Randolph were killed, he wouldn't be able to carry on as prime minister.

00:25:57.600 So he found one way or another to stop him from going to the front.

00:26:00.280 So Randolph was just, you know, a staff officer kicking his heels, unable to contribute anything

00:26:05.600 meaningful, unable to do anything that would make him stand out.

00:26:10.940 And he became angry and bitter.

00:26:13.200 And he took it out on the only person that he knew to do.

00:26:16.940 And that was his father.

00:26:18.680 And his father also, during the war, would find excuses for his son to meet him somewhere.

00:26:24.580 You know, when Churchill was flying somewhere in the theater of war, he would somehow figure,

00:26:29.280 oh, I need Randolph here for whatever reason.

00:26:31.620 And Randolph would show up.

00:26:33.300 And I mean, what do you think was going on?

00:26:35.080 Like, why do you think Churchill felt like he needed Randolph by his side?

00:26:37.940 I think, you know, Randolph was probably the most disruptive presence in Winston's life.

00:26:43.500 You know, he caused trouble.

00:26:44.840 He caused arguments.

00:26:45.960 He got drunk.

00:26:47.100 He picked fights.

00:26:48.840 But he also understood him in a way that I think nobody else did.

00:26:52.020 You know, that they had spent so much time that they kind of inhabited almost the same

00:26:56.220 mental space.

00:26:57.120 You know, they had talked about the same moments from the past.

00:27:00.720 They'd gone through so much together already.

00:27:03.380 They shared so many of the same opinions and views on the world.

00:27:06.480 You know, they liked to drink and they liked to gamble.

00:27:10.060 And I think Winston found his son's company a huge support, which is something that I don't

00:27:16.940 think anyone around him ever quite understood or appreciated.

00:27:19.980 I think all they saw was this sort of whirlwind who was going to come in and break apart their

00:27:26.640 carefully laid plans.

00:27:27.680 But actually, I think Randolph actually was essential to his father's well-being and his

00:27:37.140 ability to relax in the way that enabled him to sort of prosecute the war so relentlessly

00:27:43.340 and so effectively.

00:27:44.700 You know, he needed that outlet and Randolph was that outlet.

00:27:48.320 Randolph understood that Winston would want to start the day in bed in silken dressing gown,

00:27:54.680 smoking and drinking and that for Randolph, that was absolutely normal.

00:27:58.140 Whereas for, you know, sort of tightly buttoned civil servants, it was intolerable and was

00:28:02.080 just more sympathetic.

00:28:03.180 And I think probably right through Randolph's life, he gave his father the affection and

00:28:08.680 unstinting admiration that Lord Randolph had never given Winston.

00:28:12.580 And when Winston needed that, that's when he sort of picked the phone up and said, send

00:28:16.560 me my son.

00:28:17.080 So something that added some more complication between the relationship between Churchill and

00:28:23.600 Randolph was Randolph got married, his first wife, Pamela.

00:28:27.640 This is kind of interesting thing because it also, there was like implications that had

00:28:31.540 effect on the war a bit.

00:28:34.580 So key, tell us about Randolph's relationship with his first wife, Pamela, and like Pamela's

00:28:39.120 relationship with Churchill.

00:28:40.860 Yeah.

00:28:41.320 I mean, the marriage should have been a really good thing.

00:28:43.680 You know, Randolph knew that two things would please his father once the war broke out.

00:28:47.560 One was that he would fight with distinction and bravery, and two, that he would find someone

00:28:52.460 he could marry and produce an heir.

00:28:54.740 Winston was absolutely obsessed with sort of the idea of creating a dynasty of Churchill.

00:28:59.640 So absolutely central to that was the idea that Randolph should produce a son of his own.

00:29:05.320 So Randolph wasted absolutely no time.

00:29:06.880 Almost within, within the weeks of war being declared, he proposed to, I think, seven women

00:29:13.120 and all of whom said no, including, you know, he was, he was having an affair with two, two

00:29:18.640 women at the time, both of whom said no, and then found, you know, seven unsuspecting 0.59

00:29:23.720 debutantes who also said no.

00:29:25.700 You know, I think his reputation preceded him.

00:29:28.220 And then finally he found someone who did say yes.

00:29:30.940 Pamela was from another aristocratic background, maybe a tiny bit more provincial than the 1.00

00:29:36.900 Churchills.

00:29:37.860 And I think she was desperate to escape, promise to be for her a boring, routine existence in

00:29:44.340 the backwaters of England.

00:29:46.920 You know, for her, the Churchills was a sort of passport into this exciting, gilded, glamorous

00:29:51.620 political world.

00:29:52.840 So they married a few months later, she gave birth to a child, Winston, and on the face

00:30:01.240 of it, everything was quite happy.

00:30:04.600 Pamela Winston got off, got on incredibly well.

00:30:07.060 She was brilliant at anticipating his moods.

00:30:09.780 She sued him when he was overwrought during the sort of most tense times in the war.

00:30:14.400 And he adored the fact that she had produced another heir.

00:30:18.040 Unfortunately, all of the faults that had made Randolph a difficult son also made him an

00:30:23.900 appalling husband.

00:30:25.260 When his own son was being born, he was in bed with the wife of another man, you know,

00:30:30.440 had to be summoned back from London at four in the morning.

00:30:33.520 And he carried on drinking, he carried on cheating on her, he carried on gambling.

00:30:39.160 And so, and it all came to a head when finally he got posted to the Middle East and on the ship

00:30:45.100 on the way over, he managed to lose their entire... 0.82

00:30:48.040 I think he lost maybe four years worth of salary and then sent her a sort of pathetic

00:30:52.120 note saying, I made a bit of a mistake.

00:30:54.740 Do you think you can sort it out?

00:30:56.800 Which I think was the moment when I think she felt as if their marriage came to an end.

00:31:01.280 And that coincided with the arrival of Averill Harriman in the United Kingdom.

00:31:06.860 He was President Roosevelt's special emissary to Churchill.

00:31:10.280 He was the person that would determine how much support the states, which weren't, which

00:31:17.260 were still, which still hadn't entered the war, would provide Britain, which was looking 0.88

00:31:21.140 increasingly beleaguered and alone in a war that was beginning to look unwinnable.

00:31:25.600 And there was an immediate spark of attraction between Averill and Pamela.

00:31:31.460 And Winston, I think, recognised that that relationship had a value to him, that having someone who

00:31:39.820 was so close to the man who was in turn so close to President Roosevelt might help him achieve

00:31:47.260 his war aims, whether by persuading Roosevelt to send more men and ships, or more ships and munitions and

00:31:53.120 supplies, or just having someone who could sort of engage in pillow talk, who could find out what the

00:31:58.460 Americans were thinking.

00:31:59.880 I don't think for a second he initiated the relationship, but I think he knew it was

00:32:04.440 happening and I think he encouraged it.

00:32:06.680 He certainly never showed any sign of disapproving of the fact that his daughter-in-law was

00:32:12.760 sleeping with another man.

00:32:13.760 And what complicated the relationship even more is that Randolph and Averill, they became

00:32:18.460 pretty good friends while Hammerman was having an affair with Randolph's wife.

00:32:24.780 Yeah.

00:32:25.300 I think they were sort of enchanted with each other.

00:32:27.400 I think they had a great time.

00:32:28.440 Randolph was stationed out in the Middle East at the time.

00:32:31.120 Averill made a tour of Egypt and they spent hours in each other's company.

00:32:37.760 You know, they went on boat trips.

00:32:40.020 They went to restaurants.

00:32:41.540 Randolph unwisely told Averill about all the affairs he was having in the Middle East,

00:32:48.500 which I don't know whether maybe that made it easier for Averill when he got home, but

00:32:51.940 he seemed pretty comfortable in that sort of deception.

00:32:55.260 And I don't think Randolph ever particularly, I don't think he ever really blamed Averill for

00:33:00.460 it, what had happened.

00:33:02.080 I think he thought, he saw himself as a sort of man of the world.

00:33:05.300 He thought it was beneath him for men to argue about women.

00:33:09.440 What he resented, what he bitterly resented, and what caused the wound that would probably

00:33:15.300 never ever heal was his sense that his father had betrayed him.

00:33:19.520 That was something he couldn't bear.

00:33:21.840 Yeah.

00:33:22.020 So yeah, Randolph and Pamela end up getting divorced.

00:33:24.480 And you make the case that that really harmed the relationship between Churchill and Randolph

00:33:28.860 because Randolph just for the rest of his life, pretty much felt that Churchill was responsible

00:33:33.880 for it.

00:33:34.340 Like he knew about it and he took Pamela's side over his side.

00:33:38.740 Yeah.

00:33:39.080 I think he always felt as if not only did Winston condone that relationship.

00:33:43.920 And I think Randolph would have accused him of actually being the person behind it.

00:33:49.960 Randolph, I think he just, he couldn't ever get over it.

00:33:53.980 You know, even years later when Winston was the sort of frail, old, weak person sitting

00:34:00.000 on Aristotle and Nassus's yacht, Randolph would still be berating him and he'd be screaming

00:34:05.640 in his face.

00:34:07.300 It was something that cut Randolph deeply.

00:34:10.380 And no matter how many times he tried to heal that wound, he could never quite staunch the

00:34:15.520 blood.

00:34:16.240 It would still have the capacity to hurt him decades later.

00:34:21.480 And the thing that amazed me as I was reading, particularly during the war years, the relationship

00:34:24.520 was that, okay, Churchill, he's leading in World War II, but that's a big undertaking.

00:34:30.920 But at the same time, he's got all this family drama going on.

00:34:33.140 I'm just like, how is this guy doing this?

00:34:34.960 Like, how is he dealing with like his son yelling at him, his wife being mad at him because,

00:34:39.720 you know, he's forgiving his son.

00:34:43.120 He's got his daughter-in-law.

00:34:44.720 It's like, how did he, how did this guy do that without keeling over from a heart attack?

00:34:49.020 I think most people would have just died.

00:34:52.800 I mean, I think one of the interesting things is, is a lot of the times his sort of biggest

00:34:56.220 flare ups with Randolph happen around the time of greatest tension in the, in the war.

00:35:01.900 So the terrible arguments they had after Randolph found out that Pamela had been cheating on

00:35:08.180 him came just as the Japanese were rampaging through Asia in late 1941, early 1942.

00:35:15.740 And there's an appalling row they have in 1940, in the summer of 1944, just after D-Day when,

00:35:21.780 although things were going pretty well, there was still a lot up in the, up in the air.

00:35:25.580 So it's difficult to know whether, you know, that there was something in the atmosphere

00:35:29.720 which should have threw them against each other even more aggressively.

00:35:33.320 But yeah, I think it is extraordinary that amongst, amidst all of that chaos, Winston

00:35:40.300 could still focus.

00:35:41.180 I mean, I think that was one of his great gifts.

00:35:42.920 You know, he had this ability to, you know, to sleep when he needed to.

00:35:47.360 I mean, I think the best thing he did was send Randolph to Yugoslavia as much as he could 1.00

00:35:51.780 to get him out of the way.

00:35:53.560 And I think, you know, he recognized the value of sleeping and eating and drinking and having

00:35:58.280 time to do things that weren't anything to do with the war.

00:36:01.360 But I don't think having your son screaming at you or your wife not talking to you is a

00:36:06.400 recipe for functioning well at work normally.

00:36:09.780 And even, especially when you are, you know, running a war effort.

00:36:14.260 So yeah, I, it is extraordinary that, you know, in the days after D-Day when you would have

00:36:19.600 thought that all of his attention should have been focused on what was happening in Normandy

00:36:23.920 or in, you know, other parts or the Far East.

00:36:28.220 And he was thinking about his son, you know, he was writing less to his son, you know, that

00:36:32.300 at precisely this time, Randolph was writing to his mother begging Clementine to tell Winston

00:36:38.520 to stop interfering in his marriage, you know, that he couldn't help himself.

00:36:42.340 He, he was, as I said, he was obsessed by his son.

00:36:44.740 Um, so the war ended, did their relationship get any better after the war?

00:36:50.000 I think the thing about their relationship before the war was that whether they were up

00:36:54.700 or down, whether they were screaming at each other or hugging each other, they, their relationship

00:37:01.680 was just unmistakably sort of exuberantly alive.

00:37:06.220 You know, it was so living and so, so energetic and it, that quality disappears completely after

00:37:14.480 the war.

00:37:15.180 I think, you know, the Winston, as I said, had always needed that sort of love and affection

00:37:20.640 that Randolph gave him and he needed it during the wilderness years more than he ever had

00:37:25.820 before.

00:37:26.500 You know, there was, he was subject to so much criticism, so much ostracism that he needed

00:37:30.960 that support that Winston, that Randolph gave him.

00:37:33.260 And then after the war, he's this hero across the whole world.

00:37:38.080 You know, he goes into restaurants and people start cheering him, you know, he, he goes into

00:37:41.480 a French cafe and doesn't have to pay for a drink and he's, he's showered with money

00:37:46.760 and awards and, and praise.

00:37:48.900 And so he doesn't need that from Randolph anymore.

00:37:51.940 And I think also something essentially breaks during the war.

00:37:55.420 It's the, the distance that him becoming prime minister creates and also all the ferocious

00:38:02.300 bloody rows they have together.

00:38:03.900 And I think, you know, for a long time, Winston liked the energy that Randolph provided.

00:38:10.720 He liked the banter and he liked the aggression and he liked the arguments and that's what

00:38:14.940 he thrived off.

00:38:15.740 And then I think after the war, he was exhausted.

00:38:17.860 And the last thing he wanted was, you know, this fat son bustling into his room, telling

00:38:23.700 him what to do.

00:38:24.400 And you could see that, although I don't think they ever lost their love for each other or

00:38:31.400 their capacity for affection, I think they stopped liking each other.

00:38:34.820 And that's sort of heartbreaking, you know, Winston started spending time with, um, his

00:38:39.780 son-in-law, uh, Christopher Soames much more than he ever would his own son.

00:38:43.960 He started almost shunning him.

00:38:45.760 You know, if you look at the visited books at Chartwell, where Randolph had been a constant

00:38:50.960 visitor before the war, he barely comes at all in comparison.

00:38:53.980 And after it, and this is really, there's all these very sad stories.

00:38:58.420 There's one terribly sad story.

00:39:00.320 Randolph, on one of the rare visits he does make, he sees that his father has these wonderful

00:39:06.180 collection of Mark Twain's, I think signed by Mark Twain, that he just left mouldering

00:39:11.500 in a cupboard.

00:39:12.740 So he asks his father if he could have them and Winston doesn't really say anything.

00:39:16.360 And then that night it starts raining.

00:39:19.240 Randolph is just having a walk after dark.

00:39:21.500 And then he sees his father clad in a raincoat, carrying a towering pile of Mark Twain books

00:39:27.880 off to go and hide them from his son.

00:39:29.680 It's, it feels sort of symbolic of, of where their relationship was after the war.

00:39:33.960 You know, we've been talking earlier on, you know, since Randolph was a boy, Churchill had

00:39:38.120 these aspirations that he would be a great man, right?

00:39:41.180 Be prime minister even, and kind of create this Churchillian dynasty.

00:39:44.380 And, uh, Winston believed it and Randolph believed it.

00:39:48.220 Was there a point where both of them eventually resigned themselves to the fact that Randolph

00:39:52.780 wouldn't amount to much?

00:39:55.340 Yeah, I think Winston realized sooner than Randolph.

00:39:58.380 I think, I think Winston knew as soon as the war was over, you know, when Randolph had been

00:40:03.000 in parliament for five years over the course of the war and then lost his seat in the 1945

00:40:07.980 election, which was the last time he would ever be in parliament.

00:40:10.960 And I think Winston knew then, I think Winston knew that his son's flaws were too deep and

00:40:18.720 his anger was too great and he drank too much.

00:40:21.720 He caused too many arguments.

00:40:22.900 He'd fallen out with almost everyone in the Conservative Party's hierarchy.

00:40:27.200 Randolph, I think, held onto that dream for longer.

00:40:29.460 I think he, he felt that all it needed was for his father to disappear from the scene, whether

00:40:34.780 that was to die or to walk away.

00:40:37.700 You know, I think he thought that as long as his father occupied a central place in British

00:40:43.220 politics, then there would never be space for him, which, which I think was true.

00:40:46.240 But I think it also allowed him to believe that what had happened to him wasn't his own

00:40:49.960 fault.

00:40:50.360 And at some point, everything that he thought would happen would, would sort of magically

00:40:54.260 appear.

00:40:54.920 And the sort of sad thing is that actually it's only when he lets go of that dream in the

00:40:58.980 late fifties that he actually sort of begins to approach something like happiness.

00:41:02.900 You know, I think when he realizes that that pressure has been lifted, that he doesn't

00:41:06.940 need to think about that anymore, then he can sort of begin to enjoy life for what it

00:41:11.300 is rather than for what his father says it should be.

00:41:15.200 Yeah.

00:41:15.260 You talk about it.

00:41:16.300 I think a big moment for Randolph with his relationship with his father.

00:41:20.080 So there's all this, you know, this distance between them after the war.

00:41:23.380 Randolph's dream since he was a boy was to write Winston's biography.

00:41:27.820 And he never asked his father to do it because he'd think that'd be presumptuous, but eventually

00:41:32.920 Churchill asked him, asked Randolph to write his biography.

00:41:36.300 Like, what did that mean to Randolph?

00:41:37.880 And how did that change the relationship?

00:41:39.860 I think it meant everything to him.

00:41:41.020 It was a sign Winston did in fact believe in him and value him.

00:41:45.260 And I think it more than that, it allowed, it offered his life a purpose that it just hadn't

00:41:50.380 had before that allowed him to have a part in shaping his father's legend, the memory

00:41:55.800 of his father and allowed him to sort of become closer to him because, you know, he was given

00:42:01.100 all these incredible documents from his father's life.

00:42:04.120 He was able to go and talk to people who'd been significant figures in Winston's life.

00:42:10.360 And I think the whole process allowed him to sort of reacquaint himself with the man that

00:42:14.480 he'd loved so hard and so long for, for so many years.

00:42:19.040 It was, you know, he would say it was the only world worthwhile thing he did.

00:42:22.440 And I think it brought him a happiness that had eluded him for decades.

00:42:27.880 It's, it's, it's kind of like a happy melancholy because, all right, so he, he will have these

00:42:32.960 aspirations to be a great man because his father, you know, basically told him that he'd be

00:42:38.260 a great man, but it ended up like he did do something great.

00:42:41.620 He's there's this quote, I'll read it that you, you quote him.

00:42:43.760 He says about the biography, he says, it's a monument to my father and I'll have left something

00:42:48.160 worthwhile, something worthy of me.

00:42:49.900 I've never done that before.

00:42:51.960 It's nice to leave something behind that someone will remember.

00:42:54.540 So he, he did this great thing, but it was about his father.

00:42:57.600 It wasn't, it wasn't even him.

00:43:00.540 Nothing is ever purely his own, you know, everything, everything he has always comes

00:43:05.260 from his father in some way, you know, that he can never really claim to have achieved

00:43:09.840 anything on his own merits, which I think is crushing when you look back at your life

00:43:14.480 and that's, and you think that I think for anyone, I think you want to feel as if you've

00:43:18.680 established your own identity or you earn everything that's come your way.

00:43:22.220 And, and, you know, for all the people I think, Paul's gone on Randolph for always taking

00:43:28.280 money from his father or taking advantage of Winston's connections.

00:43:31.640 I think, I think he would have been so much happier if he'd have been given a clearer run

00:43:36.280 at life, if he'd have been left to his own devices, you know, that he would say that

00:43:40.400 everything good he did, people would say, oh, that's only because of his father and anything

00:43:44.840 bad he did.

00:43:45.920 They say, oh, how terrible for the old man.

00:43:47.880 You know, that he was just locked in this sort of golden cage and it's no wonder that

00:43:52.120 he sort of began to resent it because I think, you know, clearly anyone who's the child of

00:43:57.160 a great person, you know, that you're forever trying to be judged on your own merits, you

00:44:02.420 know, that you want to be compared to yourself.

00:44:05.440 You don't want to just be always compared in relation to what your father or mother or sister

00:44:09.920 or brother may have done many years ago.

00:44:12.180 And, you know, you're, and I think more than anyone, Randolph was trapped in that.

00:44:16.560 As you wrote this book and looked at their relationship, did you get any takeaways about

00:44:23.140 lessons on, you know, the father-son dynamic that are universal to all father and sons?

00:44:30.800 I mean, yeah, so about a month after I finished the first draft, my wife had a baby.

00:44:36.820 So it was one of those things, it was a girl, but I mean, I think it was one of those things

00:44:40.320 that really focuses your mind.

00:44:41.580 You sort of think about it, you know, you're much more alert to all those things than maybe

00:44:45.660 you would have been otherwise.

00:44:47.520 And I think one of the things that people criticize Winston for most is that sort of

00:44:53.440 sense that he overindulged Randolph, you know, that he left him spoiled.

00:44:57.380 But I think it's difficult to approach someone for loving their child too much.

00:45:00.940 I think much more damaging was the way he said imposed his own ambitions and his own values

00:45:05.920 on Randolph.

00:45:06.700 He never even considered whether Randolph might want to do something other than become a politician,

00:45:11.120 or he never really wondered whether, you know, Randolph wanted the life that Winston was

00:45:17.800 sort of pushing upon him.

00:45:19.860 And I think that's one thing.

00:45:21.680 I think, you know, that you, no matter how much you might want something for your child,

00:45:25.800 you have to let them find their own way.

00:45:27.560 You can't force them into something that you, you know, that just because it's important

00:45:33.180 to you, it may not be important to your own child.

00:45:35.800 And I think, I don't think he can help this, but his, you know, personality was so strong.

00:45:41.900 So he was so charismatic and so sort of powerful that I think Randolph, he couldn't ever see

00:45:48.740 himself outside of his father's eyes.

00:45:50.980 I think, you know, he, his own self-worth was entirely dependent on how his father was

00:45:57.280 treating him on a given moment.

00:45:59.160 You know, I don't think he ever had a sort of independent sense of self.

00:46:01.840 So I don't know quite how that translates into a sort of universal rule for parenting.

00:46:07.980 But I think what Winston could never respect was someone else wanting something other than

00:46:13.380 the life Winston had wanted for himself.

00:46:16.640 But at the same time, you know, he was affectionate and generous.

00:46:22.600 And I think the thing that's most admirable was that his constant ability to forgive,

00:46:26.860 no matter what Randolph did, he always forgave him.

00:46:29.400 And do you think it's possible for someone to do, you know, world-altering work, right?

00:46:35.980 Great, you know, work that will be remembered for the ages and be a good father?

00:46:40.280 Or is that, you have to like choose one or the other?

00:46:42.360 I mean, it's interesting.

00:46:43.260 If you think about all those sort of great, the big three, the summits between Stalin and

00:46:48.520 FDR and Winston Churchill through the war, you know, these three immensely powerful men who,

00:46:54.940 as much as anyone in history, have really changed the course of history.

00:46:57.920 You know, they really had, they were extraordinary giants of men and all of them had incredibly

00:47:04.780 unhappy children.

00:47:06.040 You know, there's a brilliant biography of Svetlana Stalin, who had this sort of weird

00:47:10.840 life where she actually ends up in the States.

00:47:13.080 And she was completely crushed by Stalin.

00:47:16.260 You know, all of FDR's children were unhappy.

00:47:18.820 Randolph's sisters, one of them committed suicide.

00:47:22.020 Another basically drank herself to death.

00:47:24.320 And I think to go back to sort of where we began, you know, that the idea that great

00:47:30.040 men need to be damaged in their childhood to go and do great things.

00:47:35.080 I think the sort of, the sort of dark side of that is that they are, because they're damaged,

00:47:40.820 they are able to do great things, but they are damaged and damaged people generally end

00:47:45.860 up damaging the people around them, whether they intend to or not.

00:47:49.360 And so I think, I think it is very hard to imagine anyone who is the child of a great

00:47:56.600 person ever having a sort of happy or fulfilled life, because there's, there are very few examples

00:48:02.640 of anyone that has managed that.

00:48:04.500 And the one thing I always think about too, is like you look about here in America, there's

00:48:07.480 like these families that were, you know, kind of dynasties, like the Roosevelt's, for example.

00:48:11.500 So we're talking about the Franklin Roosevelt side and like the Theodore Roosevelt side.

00:48:15.020 But none of their kids, I mean, Teddy, Theodore Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt's junior was, he

00:48:19.720 did, he became a general in the army.

00:48:21.960 The rest of the kids, they, they had unhappy lives too.

00:48:25.020 Yeah.

00:48:25.560 So it was always like, man, should you even try to go for great things if it's going to

00:48:30.340 destroy your family?

00:48:31.460 I'd love to figure out someone who, who's able to sort of go through that charybdis and 1.00

00:48:35.960 skiller and navigate through it.

00:48:38.120 I don't know if it's possible.

00:48:38.940 I remember when I was young, I worked with, I worked with, I won't say it was, but one

00:48:46.520 of, I worked at a publishing house and we published a memoir by a child of one of Britain's

00:48:51.520 prime ministers.

00:48:52.300 And they were just the most, one of the most unhappy people I'd ever met, you know, and

00:48:56.160 they spent their entire life wanting approval or attention from, from their parent and had

00:49:01.700 never been given it.

00:49:02.780 And it was, I mean, I think I always had that at the back of my mind.

00:49:05.120 I was writing, as I was writing this, you know, that you're always, that you can't have

00:49:11.080 both things.

00:49:11.660 I don't think, I mean, logistically, you know, the demands on, if your parent is a sort of

00:49:17.340 significant politician, the demands on their time and attention are immense.

00:49:21.960 But I think also, you know, the people that go on to do those things are egotistical and

00:49:28.420 ruthless and selfish.

00:49:29.700 And that's what enables them to get to the top, but it also means that they are sort 0.99

00:49:34.940 of suboptimal parents.

00:49:37.260 Well, Josh, this has been a great conversation.

00:49:38.920 Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

00:49:41.200 Yeah.

00:49:41.360 So the book's out in the States and in the UK as published by Dutton.

00:49:46.080 So it's available everywhere.

00:49:48.100 I'm sure.

00:49:48.940 Well, Josh Ireland, thanks for your time.

00:49:50.200 It's been a pleasure.

00:49:51.600 Well, thanks so much, Brett.

00:49:52.640 I really enjoyed that.

00:49:53.460 Thank you.

00:49:54.540 My guest is Josh Ireland.

00:49:56.000 He's the author of the book Churchill and Son.

00:49:57.680 It's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere.

00:49:59.880 Make sure to check out our show notes at aom.is slash Churchill and Son, where you can find

00:50:03.160 links to resources when we delve deeper into this topic.

00:50:12.280 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM Podcast.

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00:50:56.460 Thank you.

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The Art of Manliness - June 16, 2021

The Fraught, Relatable Relationship Between Winston Churchill and His Son

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