The Fraught, Relatable Relationship Between Winston Churchill and His Son
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Summary
Josh Ireland details Winston and Randolph's incredibly close and yet terribly complex and combustible relationship in his new book, Churchill and Son. We begin our discussion with how Winston s own harsh and neglectful father influenced his own decision to be a much more involved and ultimately indulgent family man, in the way he spoiled a son who was already inclined towards appalling behavior. We then get into how World War II and the way Winston may have encouraged Randolph s wife to cheat on him with an American diplomat affected his father for the worse.
Transcript
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Bret McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
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Winston Churchill once said of his only son, I love Randolph, but I don't like him.
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It's a sentiment many apparent with a tumultuous relationship with one of their children can
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relate to and well describes both how Winston felt about Randolph and how Randolph felt
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My guest day details Winston and Randolph's incredibly close and yet terribly complex
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and combustible relationship in his new book, Churchill and Son.
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His name is Josh Ireland and we begin our discussion with how Winston's own harsh and
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neglectful father influenced his own decision to be a much more involved and ultimately
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indulgent family man in the way he spoiled a son who was already inclined towards appalling
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Josh describes the man in which Winston and Randolph both bonded and fought and the effect
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the trouble Randolph caused had on the relationship between Winston and his wife.
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We then get into how World War II and the way Winston may have encouraged Randolph's wife
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to cheat on him with an American diplomat affected Randolph's relationship with his father for
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Josh explains the outsized expectation Winston had for Randolph and the points at which father
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and son respectively realized they'd never be fulfilled and the lesson to be taken from
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their story about the cost of parents imposing their own dreams on their children.
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We end our conversation by discussing why it is that the children of great leaders rarely
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turn out well themselves for, as Randolph himself observed, nothing grows in the shadow
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After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash Churchill and Son.
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So you got a new biography out about Winston Churchill, but this isn't just any other regular
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You focus in on his relationship with his firstborn son, Randolph Churchill.
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I'm curious, what kick-started your project in looking at and writing a biography of this
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I mean, I can sort of pinpoint exactly where I was and when.
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I was on holiday, and I was reading Ben McIntyre's really good book about the early days of Britain's
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And right in the middle of that narrative, suddenly Randolph, who's Winston's son, makes this sort
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of extraordinary cameo, you know, right in the middle of the desert, all these tough soldiers,
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suddenly this sort of fat, drunk, angry, clever, rude, and sort of damaged man sort of strides
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And he steals the show for a few pages and then disappears off.
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I mean, I was barely aware that Winston had a son.
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And then the more I read about Randolph, the more I realized that it was really strange
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that, you know, for all the many biographies of Winston, Randolph barely appears when actually,
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when if you look at how Winston felt about him, Randolph was the absolute center of his
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And that made me realize that it was a different way of looking at Winston, a sort of different
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way of understanding him as maybe as a more human, more emotional, more vulnerable
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And the other thing I was really interested in was, you know, what it's like to grow up
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with a man who is sort of regarded as the greatest Britain in history, you know, what
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effect that has on you, how you ever kind of build a life in that really long and punishing
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But I think to understand Churchill's relationship with his son Randolph, you really have to understand
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Churchill's relationship with his own father, who's also named Randolph, Lord Randolph.
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And then we can talk about, you know, his relationship with his son, Winston Churchill.
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Well, Lord Randolph's one of the most interesting and controversial and sort of strange figures
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He was son of a Duke, and he basically revolutionized the Conservative Party, sort of dragging them into
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And just as he was about to take power himself, he sort of takes this extraordinary gamble,
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which backfires and just throws him out of power.
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Outside of his political life, he led an extravagant existence.
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He and his wife, Jenny, plunged into profound debt.
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And even alongside that, he was suffering from this progressive brain disease, which people
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at the time thought was probably syphilis, but now seems to be something unidentified, but
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So his brain was rotting, his body was rotting, even as he was sort of stepping away from the
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But all of this busyness and all of this danger and all of this excitement left no space at
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And that meant that Winston was this very sensitive, shy child who was desperate for attention from
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And so there's all these terrible scenes where, you know, Lord Randolph goes to address a political
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meeting in Brighton where his son was at school and he didn't even bother to cross the road
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You know, he barely knew what country his son was in.
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And whenever Winston tried to sort of form any kind of bond with him, he'd have this horrible
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rebuke where his father basically told him that he was worthless, was never going to amount
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to anything, and that he was almost ashamed to have him as a son, which had a massive and
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long-lasting effect on psychological impact on Winston.
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And I mean, what's, yeah, some of these letters are just brutal where he's writing his father
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And, you know, Randolph is like, you're pathetic.
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I mean, it's, I just can't imagine any father talking to their child like that.
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I mean, to do it once is pretty bad, but he did it repeatedly, you know, even the last
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letter he writes to him just before he dies, he's just saying, you're never going to amount
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You know, he said, you're going to become a degenerate.
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You're going to degenerate into a shabby, unhappy, and futile existence.
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And Winston got that letter and he never saw his father again.
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They were, you know, almost the last words he ever had from his father.
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And what's so shocking about this, despite, you know, being treated so poorly by his father,
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Churchill, you know, he still deeply admired and loved his father.
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Like, why do you think, what was going on there?
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I mean, can you, can you figure, did you figure out like why Churchill had this romantic ideal
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of his father, even though his father, in the reality, his father was nowhere near that ideal?
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I think it was psychologically essential for him.
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I think he retreated into a sort of fantasy where he believed that, you know, his father
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would have grown to love and admire and respect him.
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And everything he did, really, right through the course of his life, was part of this dialogue
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with his father, you know, trying to persuade his father's ghost that he was worthy of the
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affection that he hadn't been given, you know, 30, 40, 60 years beforehand.
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There's this extraordinary short story that Winston writes in the last years of his life
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And it's just, it's as if he could never stop talking to his father or thinking about his
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And I think he just needed to believe that his father would ultimately have grown to
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And so he had that fantasy and sort of lived it out throughout his entire existence.
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And do you think Churchill's, you know, his terrible relationship with his dad, do you
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think that helped him become the Winston Churchill that led England during World War II?
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Yeah, undoubtedly, I think, I mean, it's, I think the sort of damage that was wrought on
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him eventually, you know, that drove his ambition and it drove his sense of purpose and it made
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him go further and harder than I think he would have otherwise.
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That's what instilled in him that sort of ferocious work ethic, that sort of burning desire to
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So, I mean, it's sort of grim irony that, you know, that Britain's survival in 1940 was
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all dependent on the bullying, cruel behavior for a man 60 years beforehand.
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I think, wasn't it Randolph that wrote, or it might have been Winston's, like something
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like, you know, most great men, like he even thought about this, like most great men, they
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He really, he really thought it was essential as part of the sort of growth of a great man
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to be subject, subjected to that kind of brutality as a, as a, as a young person, which
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is what makes his own attempts to sort of mold his own son seem almost perverse and that
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he took exactly the different, exactly the opposite approach.
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So Churchill had a terrible relationship with his father.
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Now, what point in his life did he become a father?
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So he's in his mid thirties when he finally married, marries, uh, he meets a woman called
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Clementine Hosier, who's comes from a similarly sort of damaged emotional background.
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They have a daughter, Diana, a year after they get married.
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And then Randolph follows a couple of years later and their marriage coincides with the
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moment that Winston's political career really begins to take off.
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You know, he becomes the youngest member of cabinet for 50 years.
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Initially he's president of the board of trade, which isn't a sort of particularly significant
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And then after that becomes Lord of the Admiralty, which makes him one of the sort of three most
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powerful men in the entire British empire at the time.
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So he's really flying by the time he actually becomes a father.
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And so he named his son after his father Randolph.
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And as you said, so like Churchill had this really terrible relationship with his own father.
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He decided from the get go that he would do things entirely different with his kids,
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Like he would, where there was a scorn, Churchill would heap praise.
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I mean, how did Churchill give Randolph the praise and approbation that he craved himself
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And I think Winston was sort of very self-consciously a very, very different parent to how his own
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I mean, for one thing, he was just much more present.
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You know, I'm not sure Lord Randolph ever went into his children's nursery.
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He certainly never gave any of his kids a bath.
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And Winston was, and when Winston was around and, you know, it should be said, Winston
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had this incredibly busy, extravagant social life in his work, dominated his existence.
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But when he could be there for his children, he was this intense, vigorous, charismatic
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You know, he was unashamedly affectionate, but it was Randolph that he adored more than any
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And I think, you know, from an early age, all of Randolph's sisters knew that their brother
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I mean, he sort of fed Randolph oysters from the table.
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When Randolph grew older, he would be encouraged to come and sit with prime ministers and great
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And Winston would wave his cigars at David Lloyd George or Herbert Asquith and tell them
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And from a very early age, Winston encouraged Randolph to believe that he would become a great
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man, that he would probably become a prime minister or some other great figure.
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He told him how clever he was, how beautiful he was, how funny he was.
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And whenever anyone else tried to discipline Randolph, Winston would step in and protect
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You know, there were never any consequences, no matter what Randolph did.
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And Randolph was, you know, an appallingly mischievous child.
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Winston defended him and would just say that it was his high spirit or sign of his cleverness.
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Well, let's talk about him being an appalling child.
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And we talked about some of the stuff that he did as a kid that were just like crazy.
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But Churchill's like, yeah, that's, you know, he's just a clever boy.
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I mean, he's just, he must have just been, he was uncontrollable, really.
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You know, he used to phone up the government departments pretending to be his own father.
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There was one day when David Lloyd George, who was at the time the prime minister of the United
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Kingdom came to visit the church or so, their country house.
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And Randolph urinated on him from an upstairs window.
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You know, there was never, no nursemaid stayed employed by the church for more than a couple
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of months because usually they'd be broken by this demonic child.
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You know, and he was charming and he was funny, but he was, there was no one, nobody could stop
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Yeah, the story with the nannies, he'd like run them off.
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They'd be chanting at the stairs, nanny's leaving, nanny's leaving.
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I mean, and it's just, it's sort of funny on one level.
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And then also just a sort of horrifying to think what all these sort of poor teenage girls
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must have gone through, you know, in this sort of big country house.
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Suddenly this blonde, angelic demon starts yelling at them and there's no one that will
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Like you said, during this time, Churchill really didn't do anything about it.
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I think he saw it as a sign of his son's vitality.
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You know, a big part of Winston's own myth was that as a child, he'd been the naughtiest
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boy at Harrow, that he'd been stupid at school, that no one had thought he would make anything
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himself, that he was forever getting into fights, that he was forever getting into arguments.
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So when Randolph fought with people at school or when Randolph's teachers tried to remonstrate
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with either Randolph or Winston, Winston would just laugh.
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And I think Randolph was self-consciously imitating his father.
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You know, he knew that legend about Winston as the naughty child.
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I think he saw it as a sort of important part of being a Churchill as a way of demonstrating
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that as a Churchill, you didn't follow other people's rules.
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And do you think, I mean, so yeah, Randolph was a terror from the get-go.
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Do you think there was like an inborn temperament that contributed to that?
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Or was it, do you think it was primarily driven by Churchill's overindulgence?
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I mean, I think there's something innate there.
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There's lots of talk about the sort of streak of Churchill madness that goes from Lord Randolph
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You know, that there are generations of Churchills that have sort of suffered from this sort of
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And I think there's probably some truth to that.
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And I think clearly whatever was there, planted there by nature, was sort of encouraged by
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You know, he created a perfect environment for that bad behavior to grow.
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So when Randolph was a boy, he was peeing on, you know, prominent politicians.
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But then as he got into young man, like the problems just got bigger.
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Like, what was he like high school and then early on in his own sort of, you know, launching
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What sort of problems did Randolph create for Churchill?
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I think he, I think the thing about Randolph is that all of Winston's faults are present
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in him, but they appear in a sort of grander, more extravagant form.
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So Winston was barely out of debt right through his life, but could just about keep on top of
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Whereas Randolph ran up unbelievable amounts of debts by spending money he just didn't
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You know, he'd buy diamonds for girlfriends or friends.
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He'd turn up at, when he was still a student, he'd turn up at Winston's house in a chauffeur
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He, when he stayed in a hotel, he'd stay in, you know, the master suite.
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And all of this went alongside like a ferocious appetite for drink and sex and eating.
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You know, there are some extraordinary descriptions of him, his eyes growing as he saw a pork chop
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He never stopped talking when he was at Eton at high school.
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You know, there were other people that actually threw him out of a window to see if he would
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And they lobbed him out of the first floor of the window, saw him crash to the ground and
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he just carried on talking, but mostly it was arguments, you know, he was arrogant, he
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was clever, and he thought he knew better than anyone else and was never afraid of speaking
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up, which is a really admirable quality sometimes, but clearly could get him to a lot of trouble.
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And this is also when you start seeing like what people described as rose, bloody rose between
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Like what kind of arguments would they get in more?
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I mean, it would basically, it would be like yelling matches, essentially.
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And I think that love meant that all that affection, all that emotion meant that most of the time
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You know, they tell each other how wonderful they were.
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They'd spend, they'd spend weekends in each other's company.
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They'd go on holiday together, they'd go drinking together, they'd eat in restaurants
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together, they'd plot together, they'd go hunting together.
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But that close proximity also meant that when things went wrong, that it was so charged that
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Randolph couldn't control himself when he lost his temper.
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And often the arguments they had were over tiny things.
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They were like, you know, sort of tumultuous romantic relationship.
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They could be jealous of, they could be disapproving of each other's behavior.
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And then Winston was brilliant at bringing them back together.
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You know, that he valued his son's friendship and his son's love and couldn't bear the idea
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So after a huge argument, you know, Winston would invariably be found going to Cartier's
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to buy a new bracelet or a watch for his son to try and make up.
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But there were times when their arguments were so fierce that Clementine, Winston's wife
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and Randolph's mother refused to be in the same room as them.
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They were both very sure of themselves and they didn't care what anyone else thought
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Well, speaking of Clementine, like this was another, this added to the tension between
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like with Churchill and Randolph because Clementine was extremely protective of Winston Churchill.
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She even said that like my whole life now, once they got married, it's like devoted to
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And Clementine, I mean, she kind of, I mean, she didn't really like her son.
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I mean, that's like, I don't know how the, not the nicest way, like she didn't like Randolph
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I mean, what was that relationship like between Randolph and Clementine?
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Yeah, I think Randolph resented his mom, mother for pouring everything she had into
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And there was very little leftover for the other children.
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And I don't think he ever forgave her for that.
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And as far as Clementine was concerned, I think she saw Randolph as the incarnation of all
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You know, she admired Winston immensely, but she also knew that he was susceptible to extravagance
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And she thought Randolph was a bad influence on his father, which is sort of a strange way
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And I think also she was deeply jealous of him because Winston, especially in Randolph's
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for early years, clearly privileged him over anybody else, including her.
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You know, she thought that she was at the center of his life.
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And then, you know, as Randolph enters his twenties, she realizes that she's been pushed
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And so they were in, in a sense, they were in constant competition for Winston's affection
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And that meant that their relationship was incredibly uneasy, suspicious, and very, very fraught.
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Did it affect, you know, Clementine's and Winston's marriage?
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Like, was there tension there because of Randolph?
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I mean, I think for a long time, because Winston's so sort of uninterested in what was going on in
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anyone else's head or heart apart from his own, I think he didn't notice.
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But as time went on, I think it became maybe the only significant argument that he and Clementine
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ever had, you know, that they, this was, this was the one thing in their marriage that threatened
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to push them apart because they had this long, successful bond for, you know, for upwards
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But Randolph was the only thing that ever came between them because Clementine felt that
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Randolph could potentially be the end of, of Winston, that Randolph could be the reason
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that Winston wouldn't go on to, to achieve all of his dreams until she did everything
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she could to try and protect Winston from his son.
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You know, he wanted to spend as much time as he could with him.
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He wanted to do everything he could to help Randolph.
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And so those two views were, they couldn't really be reconciled.
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We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors.
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So what's interesting too, you note in the book, when Churchill was in his wilderness years,
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when he was basically out of power, sort of a pariah, this is before World War II.
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This is when his relationship with Randolph got really, really close.
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They spent a lot of time together because Churchill didn't have much going on.
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But then World War II starts, Churchill is made prime minister.
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How does the relationship between him and Randolph change with the start of World War II?
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So I think it changes almost overnight after Winston becomes prime minister.
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You know, that they have been accustomed to phoning each other all the time and writing
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letters and spending huge amounts of time in each other's company.
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And in a sense, although Winston had been a cabinet minister, there was a sort of, you could
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see that in the wilderness years that maybe his career was coming to an end and it must
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have felt to Randolph as if the future was his.
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And then suddenly Winston becomes prime minister.
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He's surrounded by the whole apparatus of government.
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You know, he doesn't have time to think about his son because Britain's in the greatest
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parody has been maybe for almost a thousand years.
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And so Randolph finds himself very abruptly pushed to the margins of his father's life.
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And he finds it very, very difficult to sort of adjust to that new status because he used
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to be able to just walk into his father's room and start talking.
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And now there were secretaries in his way or generals or chiefs of staff.
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And I don't think he, he ever, their relationship really ever recovered from that.
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The way you describe it, it was, I can see this being really hard for Randolph.
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There was instances where he wanted to see his father, but Churchill's private secretaries
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wouldn't let him and like wrote these like sort of patronizing letters.
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Like, yeah, be a good boy and leave your father alone.
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Exactly, which is, it must have been devastating to Randolph because one of the other things
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that, you know, when Winston becomes prime minister, he very quickly assembles a new
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government and he gives appointments to a lot of the people that had stayed loyal to
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him right through the wilderness years, but also to the people that had been responsible
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for his time in the wilderness, that, you know, the sort of conservative hierarchy.
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Winston was very, very quick to forgive the people that he knew would be necessary to
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He couldn't bear that he'd been excluded, that his loyalty hadn't been rewarded.
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And he couldn't bear that the things that had made him so useful and necessary to his
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father, you know, his pugnacity, his willingness to pick fights, his bravery, his run back,
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his recklessness, all of that was the last thing in the world that his father needed.
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His father needed someone calm and steady like Clementine.
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You know, he got, he'd get drunk and lose important maps when he parked outside Downing
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Street or he'd, I mean, he, all of the stories come back to Randolph being drunk and shouting
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You know, he'd berate him about strategy over dinner.
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I don't think he could ever adjust to the fact that he was no longer an important person.
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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
00:24:57.440
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
00:25:08.160
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.
00:25:24.700
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.
00:26:13.200
And he took it out on the only person that he knew to do.
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,
00:26:35.080
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.
00:26:48.840
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
00:26:57.120
You know, they had talked about the same moments from the past.
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
00:27:27.680
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
00:27:44.700
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
00:28:03.180
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
00:28:17.080
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
00:28:34.580
So key, tell us about Randolph's relationship with his first wife, Pamela, and like Pamela's
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
00:28:54.740
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.
00:29:06.880
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
00:29:28.220
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
00:29:37.860
And I think she was desperate to escape, promise to be for her a boring, routine existence in
00:29:46.920
You know, for her, the Churchills was a sort of passport into this exciting, gilded, glamorous
00:29:52.840
So they married a few months later, she gave birth to a child, Winston, and on the face
00:30:04.600
Pamela Winston got off, got on incredibly well.
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
00:30:25.260
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...
00:30:48.040
I think he lost maybe four years worth of salary and then sent her a sort of pathetic
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
00:31:59.880
I don't think for a second he initiated the relationship, but I think he knew it was
00:32:06.680
He certainly never showed any sign of disapproving of the fact that his daughter-in-law was
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.
00:32:25.300
I think they were sort of enchanted with each other.
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.
00:32:41.540
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
00:33:02.080
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.
00:33:22.020
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
00:33:34.340
Like he knew about it and he took Pamela's side over his side.
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
00:34:10.380
And no matter how many times he tried to heal that wound, he could never quite staunch the
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.
00:34:34.960
Like, how is he dealing with like his son yelling at him, his wife being mad at him because,
00:34:44.720
It's like, how did he, how did this guy do that without keeling over from a heart attack?
00:34:52.800
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
00:35:41.180
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
00:35:53.560
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
00:36:09.780
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
00:36:28.220
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
00:37:15.180
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
00:37:26.500
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
00:37:48.900
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
00:38:03.900
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
00:38:15.740
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
00:38:24.400
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.
00:38:45.760
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.
00:39:00.320
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
00:39:12.740
So he asks his father if he could have them and Winston doesn't really say anything.
00:39:21.500
And then he sees his father clad in a raincoat, carrying a towering pile of Mark Twain books
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
00:39:55.340
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
00:40:22.900
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
00:40:37.700
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
00:40:50.360
And at some point, everything that he thought would happen would, would sort of magically
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.
00:41:16.300
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.
00:41:41.020
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
00:42:51.960
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.
00:43:00.540
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
00:43:47.880
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
00:44:12.180
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
00:44:41.580
You sort of think about it, you know, you're much more alert to all those things than maybe
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
00:45:06.700
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
00:45:21.680
I think, you know, that you, no matter how much you might want something for your child,
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
00:45:50.980
I think, you know, he, his own self-worth was entirely dependent on how his father was
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
00:46:16.640
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?
00:46:43.260
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
00:47:06.040
You know, there's a brilliant biography of Svetlana Stalin, who had this sort of weird
00:47:18.820
Randolph's sisters, one of them committed suicide.
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
00:48:04.500
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
00:48:21.960
The rest of the kids, they, they had unhappy lives too.
00:48:25.560
So it was always like, man, should you even try to go for great things if it's going to
00:48:31.460
I'd love to figure out someone who, who's able to sort of go through that charybdis and
1.00
00:48:38.940
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
00:48:52.300
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
00:49:02.780
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
00:49:11.660
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
00:49:29.700
And that's what enables them to get to the top, but it also means that they are sort
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?
00:49:41.360
So the book's out in the States and in the UK as published by Dutton.
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.
00:50:15.020
Check out our website at artofmanliness.com, where you can find our podcast archives, as
00:50:18.360
well as thousands of articles have written over the years about pretty much anything you
00:50:21.400
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And if you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate if you take one minute to give us a review
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Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think would
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As always, thank you for your continued support.
00:50:46.420
Until next time, this is Brett McKay, reminding you to not only listen to the AOM Podcast, but put