90 Encounters with Churchill: Unique insights with Sinclair Mackay

In this podcast episode, I am delighted to welcome author Sinclair Mackay to discuss his captivating book on Winston Churchill, which delves into 90 meetings over Churchill's 90-year life. Our conversation covers Churchill's diverse roles and personal attributes, from his military valour to his romanticism, and even his encounters with notable figures like Einstein and Queen Elizabeth II. Sinclair shares how Churchill's fearless and multifaceted nature made him an extraordinary figure, one who continually adapted to monumental changes in society. We also touch on Churchill's lasting impact on today's world and the different generations' perceptions of him. It's a thoroughly engaging discussion filled with fun anecdotes and thought-provoking insights about one of history's most complex characters.

00:36 Churchill's Fascinating Encounters

01:07 Writing Style and Approach

02:14 Churchill's Relationships and Personal Life

04:42 Churchill's Military and Political Career

06:25 Churchill's Emotional Depth and Romanticism

10:52 Churchill's Social and Financial Challenges

14:42 Churchill's Diverse Friendships and Interests

15:32 Highclere Castle and Social Changes

16:09 Churchill's Lifespan and Historical Impact

18:26 Churchill's Fearlessness and Adventures

21:10 Churchill's Post-War Vision and Legacy

24:45 Churchill's Relationships and Influence

27:40 Reflections on Churchill's Complex Legacy

You can hear more episodes of Lady Carnarvon's Official Podcasts at https://www.ladycarnarvon.com/podcast/

New episodes are published on the first day of every month.

Transcript

Welcome to my podcast and I'm delighted to be sitting here with Sinclair Mackay. Sinclair, your book about Winston Churchill, 90 meetings through his life, and of course he lived for 90 years, is fascinating. It opens up windows into this man who was a soldier, a statement, a journalist, a politician, a writer. He was very romantic.

 Close to tears quite often. A lover of champagne and France and watercolours and a painter as well. Indeed, yes. Father, husband, extraordinary man. And there are so many interesting people. I had no idea about his meeting with Einstein. Yes, I love the meeting with Einstein. Obviously, I knew about Harry Truman or Queen Elizabeth II and Ivan Avello, Noel Coward. Some of these people touch Highclere and Downton.

 So that's where I started. I have loved it. Thank you very much for asking me to talk with you today. It's lovely to be here. Meeting Churchill, A Life in 90 Encounters. For 90 years of his life. For 90 years of his life, yes. Extraordinary, isn't it? And what I really enjoyed about your book is that I think perhaps because of social media today...

 we all tend to dip a little bit more than perhaps we used to in the past. So I thoroughly enjoyed starting at the beginning with tales of his childhood and his nurse or his nanny before I then skipped into some of the characters that I knew and wanted to find out a bit more about, which I think is quite an interesting approach to writing now as opposed to the longer.

 narrative of someone like Andrew Roberts. Yes, absolutely. This was a deliberate choice with this book to make the chapters very short and to make each chapter an encounter of someone from the 20th century who had met Churchill and who had seen different qualities in Churchill. So not only as a wartime, famous wartime figures like Bernard Montgomery, but also some lesser known figures too, as members of the public have met him during the war, but also unexpected people like Albert Einstein.

 who met Churchill in 1933. Einstein didn't speak English, Churchill didn't speak German, that didn't stop them getting on like a house on fire. Extraordinary meeting. And a whole range of people other than that. And of course, Churchill met the Earl of Carnarvon at Benham Palace. Yes, the Earl of Carnarvon was recently married, so he was the youngster.

 And Churchill more of the elder statesman already in 1922. He and his wife, Catherine, had gone to Blenheim for Christmas, I think, in roundabout. She's their first married Christmas. George's grandfather had a mission. He was trying to inveigle Churchill into supporting his new ideas for betting taxes, into horse racing. And Churchill was less interested, but I think Catherine...

 But Georgie's grandmother got on very well with Churchill. He always had an eye for the prettiest of ladies, and she was very beautiful. And you described that very well. And also, it's an interesting point in Churchill's life and career, too, because it's largely forgotten now that he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 1920s. And it's one of these things that throws up another kind of facet. But also, in that scene, you're absolutely right. He responds better.

 perhaps, to beautiful women than he does to a lot of other men. But also, I think there's an interesting strand in Churchill's life that it's not just him responding to beautiful women, it's him responding to beautiful, intelligent women, too, because he was unusual. A man at that stage, in the 1920s to the 1930s, he had a lot of very strong friendships with women, which I think was quite unusual at the time. She was also American, and obviously is half American, and I'm not sure whether, I suspect she didn't have any American accent because she'd...

 come to England when she was 11 years old. But I think they shared points in common. Of course. Churchill being half American himself. Yes. So that was probably quite fun. But he was an extraordinary man. My own grandfather, Sinclair, was a general in World War II and had been in the army. And he had certainly met him and prepared some short notes for him, all of which had to be short. He didn't go for long notes. I was brought up on...

 The stories of Winston Churchill and his writing. Yes. Because his books and his history books are fantastic. They are absolutely extraordinary. And they still read such extraordinary prose, so full of life and vitality and colour. And he won prizes for it, too. He was a magnificent writer. He was a very good writer. And yet, equally, he then was also writing his own history to make sure. Indeed, Sandy was. That's really to take charge of history.

 really to sit on top of it. Why not? If you can, do it. As a contra to that, because not everything in his life was admired, and during the First World War, he certainly made some desperately, tragically bad decisions. But one of the people he'd met before that was Lord Kitchener.

 Julian Fellows, who wrote and scripted Downton Abbey, married Emma Kitchener. So that was her great uncle. And I thought he didn't go a bundle on Churchill at all. He really did not. No, Churchill said of Kitchener, he detests me. And Kitchener really did. But the problem was because at the time, Churchill was serving with terrific valour in Kitchener's army in Sudan.

 But at the same time, he was writing the most brilliant journalistic dispatches about that war. And to Kitchener, he couldn't understand, was Churchill a soldier or a journalist? For Kitchener, you couldn't be both. But Churchill thought, yes, you can. Absolutely you can. And again, those descriptions of battles that Churchill goes into are just extraordinarily haunting now. And his emotional empathy for the...

 for those who were opposing the British. I think that was so interesting, his ability to stand in both shoes. Absolutely, yes. And to see with, as you say, empathy and human sympathy, the horror of battle too. It's not that he glamorizes battle in any kind of way he should perform. He writes it as a desperate, blood-soaked enterprise. He described it ironically in India as a great adventure, but it was irony. And a lot of people never quite picked up on that, I think.

 that he wasn't a desperate, but a warmonger. Quite the reverse. He was not a warmonger, and partly because of what he'd seen there. But he was a romantic. Yes, very much, yes. And classical romanticism, which was endemic in British education at the time, led him to some poor decisions vis-à-vis the Dardanelles and other parts of the world. Yes, yes.

 I suspect others might have made the same. I think, yes, he was backed up by a number of people around him. He wasn't the sole voice in the making of those decisions, but he certainly carried the responsibility for it. He's carried the historic responsibility ever since. And there is that curious thing. After that, he then goes into the trenches himself. There's amazing photographs of Winston Churchill in the trenches of World War I. But there's brilliant moments where what he's thinking about, apparently, is where to get the next cigar, where to get the next smoked salmon. Clemmie's sending supplies out.

 and the bullets are whistling around him. It's something we don't see very often, actually. It's just genuine physical courage as well as moral courage. And Churchill was absolutely fearless. It was extraordinary. He definitely had both elements of it, which I do find interesting. And, of course, I think he always recognised and said that one of his greatest decisions was to ask and persuade Clementine Hosier to marry him.

 Indeed, yes. And that was one of the backbones of his entire life. Absolutely. And she, I think, I'm right in saying that she had turned down a couple of previous suitors, including, I think, one suitor that they'd been encouraged to go into a hedge maze together.

 in order to seal their romantic tryst. Clemmie made her escape and left her suit stranded in the middle of the maze. Good. And then she was seated next to Churchill at a dinner where I think he wasn't originally supposed to be there, but he was making up the numbers because they would have had 13 around the table. And that was bad luck. So they had to get Churchill in as the 14th. And it was his great friend, Eddie Marsh, Edward Marsh, who set him up. And they sat next to each other. And it was instant, by all accounts. Churchill's first line to Clemmie was, have you read my book?

 I know. But having said that... All authors should say exactly that to everyone they meet. And I think the thing is, it's that sort of unadulcerated honesty, which is thoroughly engaging. And I think it's stayed with him all his life. And his complete unabashed immodesty, if you like, and he'd always reach everyone in bed or dressing up. What you won't know, Sinclair, is one of my...

 great friends who actually rents cottage from me here. Her grandfather was Pagisme. Oh, good Lord. So I've got all the stories from the other side. Pagisme, for those who are listening, was Winston Churchill's private secretary. And so she's got many stories and diaries from another part of the story. And the most intimate part of the story too, because that's an extraordinarily close relationship. So I grew up with this...

 particular family. And there was always the fact that Winston Churchill would work into the night during World War II, and so would Park Ismay. He would then go to bed and sleep and have a bath in the morning, whereas Lord Ismay then had to get up and brief on the journal. He led an extraordinary life, which I'm sure was not particularly healthy. But then, of course, Lord Ismay, which is relevant today, was the first chairman of NATO. And both he and Churchill were...

 Very keen on the neighbourly relationships with Europe. So I'd like to come and redevelop those themes when I'm going to visit fundraising later in September for those who serve and save here as an 80th anniversary of D-Day. Absolutely, yes. And think back to, actually in particular, Lord Ismay occupied many of the roles that we seem to be dismantling. Yes, you're absolutely right, because this is one of those kind of international moments where you slightly wish Churchill was still here.

 And indeed, Lord Ismay was still here, actually, because as you say, it's the foundation of NATO in one sense, the great bridge across the Atlantic to our great friends in America, but also that bridge extending right the way across a unified Europe too. Churchill's dream of Europe unifying, there'll be no longer any need for the terrible conflicts that his century had seen. We're very much in need of that kind of wisdom and forbearance now, but also wit too. Churchill's...

 relationship with America generally. Yes, his mother was American, but it was more than that. As you said earlier, Churchill was a tremendous romantic, and there was a terrific romanticism about his view of America and how that relationship should be. Perhaps the Being Chance the Exchequer also illustrated, was illustrating his own...

 financial impeccunity which taught his life. Indeed so, yes. I love all those accounts of Churchill's. There's constant fretting and anxiety about money. He always had money for tailors and he always had money for champagne.

 So it wasn't probably as bad as a lot of people would. But fascinating that such a figure could then be subchance of the Exchequer too. Himself just always dancing on a precipice of this kind of anxiety. Of disaster. And indeed of disaster. And he always had to be bailed out. But there's quite a few people. When I was looking through on 90 meetings and Lady Diana Cooper was also a regular visitor with Alfred Darth Cooper. And she was a very beautiful woman and quite a character.

 And obviously there was the story I described with Tilly Lodge, who became the second countess of Gandalf. Absolutely, yes. Which is so funny. She was highly intelligent as well and therefore part of the weekend life of Winston and Clemmie Churchill. Some of the London society really did look down on the Churchills, which was extraordinary and very stiff upper lipped about the whole thing. Yes.

 But of course, much of their world disappeared after World War I. That sense of social exclusion. I was fascinated that, I think, Kemi wrote at one point, did it ever worry her that she and Churchill were being socially excluded? And she said, no, it's all actually part of the excitement. Part of the exclusion was down to politics. There was a distaste for Churchill having switched parties and crossed the floor of the House. And it's kind of mercurial.

 approach to party politics, let's say, which a number of other politicians saw as below the salt. But Clementine was very much up for it, and she saw it as an adventure, something to be enjoyed. And then Lady Diana Cooper, who herself wrote screamingly funny letters to her son about encounters with Churchill during the war. The wild weekend world, when I think she and Churchill were staying at Ditchley Hall in Oxfordshire, and there was a party of Polish politicians and soldiers who were in exile.

 Lady Diana Cooper herself was describing how she went out for a walk and walked out on the grounds. And she was dressed up, as she said, in animal furs and weird boots and holes of motley. And when she came back, the guard had changed. They thought she was a mad German assassin out of a circus. She was not being soupy or syrupy about Churchill. She was always perfectly realistic about him. But at the same time, she said...

 His capacity for work, even when there had been an alarming quantity of whiskeys and brandies going down, he still could have worked all the way through it. Then there was his adoration for film, which is a very brilliant moment where she said they had three films staged, shown one evening at Ditchley. They had a high drama, a comedy, and then a propaganda film. And she said Winston managed to cry through all of them, including the comedy.

 His emotions were always very close to the surface. Because I cry in every film as well. And I think I went to see Mr. Something's Magic Emporium with my son, who was like six years old. It was a long time ago now.

 And I did manage to cry in that one. He turned to me and he opened my eyes and said, you've been crying about me, I don't believe. But I really loved some of those small insights to build up a picture of this extraordinary man with the many sides to his character. And I sometimes, as I was reading the different impressions and letters...

 It helped me develop the sort of sense of the Renaissance vision, the extraordinary capacity he had for getting on with so many different people at so many different levels in so many different worlds. Indeed so, yeah. It was very interesting because otherwise you tend to see it by white paper or telegram.

 rather than that sense of being, which I think was really interesting. Yes, because he gets categorised by different genres of history, I suppose, as well.

 Churchill the wartime leader, or you get Churchill the politician. But when you just see that extraordinary range from his friends with artists, he was friends with Walter Sickert, who I was genuinely astounded by that, because Walter Sickert, best known for his rather grim paintings of dowdy Camden Town parlours with prostitutes and all the rest of it, what could he possibly have in common with Churchill? But apparently they got an absolute house on fire, and Churchill was always eager to learn.

 He was as Noel Coward and Avonavella and all those people again who pop up in Downton. Yes, they do, yes. So what's interesting to me is because Lawrence pops up in Highclere, T.E. Bones for Arabia. Rupert Brooke, I always find an extraordinary man. And he made such an impression in such a short life. Indeed, yes. I always find it very hard. And again, is P.G. Woodhouse, whose books I so enjoy. Yes. And we stood in for...

 Tockley Towers, when Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie were filming here. So there were so many of your 90 people who I could find, for my own amusement, small ways of touching Highclere and Downton. It was completely extreme. True, but as you've written about Highclere, that's profound social changes, not just wartime, but the profound social changes of the 20s and 30s, and then what came after the war.

 That kind of very understated English revolution took place after the war, a new post-war realm. The struggle to maintain big estates and all the rest of it. But also just the changing times too. I was fascinated by Churchill.

 Simply being born a kind of high Victorian in 1874, in the autumn of Victoria's reign, but lasting all the way through to the inception of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. But he could have spanned a world that had changed beyond recognition, in much in the same way that Highclere has spanned this kind of extraordinary world that could have revolved around him while Highclere remained the same, and in the same way that Churchill could have remained always true to himself as well. He did remain true to himself. I mean, Highclere...

 My earliest written records are 749 AD. So we've been here for 1,300 years, reformed, recycled, but still a home and with meaning for many different lives. And I often wonder, thinking about the changes that these little mobile phones and streaming has brought to our lives, but if the greatest change wasn't...

 at the time of Edward VII, when the fifth Earl of Carnarvon was living here, when we went from horsepower on four legs to horsepower in cars, and therefore horsepower in the air, to telephones and to telegrams. And you're right, the time that Churchill spanned.

 saw such a change that it would hardly be envisaged. Hardly envisaged, except it was envisaged brilliantly by Churchill. Churchill was great friends with H.G. Wells. He adored the time machine and the War of the Worlds, but he was particularly gripped by the time machine. And Churchill himself made friends with some great physicists. And so in 1931 and 1932, he was foreseeing the rise of nuclear power, the possibilities of a new nuclear age, when hardly anyone...

 considered splitting the atom that led to anything else. But then he also foresaw the internet. He wrote an essay in 1931 where he said, I think it's possible to imagine a future where telephones will have images attached to them and people will be able to talk to each other in different countries as though they were in adjoining rooms. And they will do so in a wireless world. He said, oh my goodness, Churchill absolutely foresaw Wi-Fi. The years in which he lived, rather than I guess, perhaps.

 saw such immense change, which we've all had to adapt to, and then we've simply extended it. I think that's what I was trying to put across. It was amazing. Because the other thing that struck me from reading your book was he was not afraid. No. And I think that's so interesting. He was that the fearlessness, which I read about in your book, Sinclair, earlier on in the Sudan, physically and mentally, then continued. Yes. And that youth, if you like.

 kept him going with the same attitude in and beyond World War II, which I thought was a unique characteristic, which I think comes out when you listen to people's impressions of him. Yes, absolutely. Although at the same time, it was sometimes to the horror of the people around him too. Again, there's another brilliant Diana Cooper moment.

 when they're out in Algiers in 1941, 42, and they've arranged a big picnic. It's Churchill and the big American party and Lady Diane Cooper and Duff Cooper. And Churchill, they go out into this desert region of mountains and all the rest of it. The picnic's set out. Shandy Gaff, chicken, and all sorts of delicious things laid out. Churchill decides that he wants to go down the ravine. He wants to have a look down the ravine.

 He's almost 70 years old. He's had a supposed heart scare. His doctor's with him, looking on in terror. He's under a blazing sun, but he will insist on going down. Going down is absolutely fine. How the hell are they going to get him back up again out of that ravine? It's Lady Diana Cooper who had to come to the rescue of that one, to rescue him from his own fearlessness. They thought, maybe get a rope around him and just haul him up by his midriff, back up the hill.

 No rope. So they used, Diana Cooper's suggestion, a linen tablecloth instead. They wrapped a linen tablecloth around Churchill's midriff and hoiked him up this hill. And Lady Diana Cooper said, it made him look ridiculous, but he never minded looking ridiculous. His fearlessness has meant, no, I want to go and look at this place and I will. Nothing physically will stop me. Even if it means having to be hauled back up like a sack of potatoes afterwards. But that again was what he was determined to be at the front on D-Day.

 against every single suggestion he should be. Yes, but the horror of all those around him. Oh my God, what are you thinking? And I feel quite sorry for those around him who are having to spend a lot of time trying to deal with him rather than the war. And I think that comes across through what you're writing, which I enjoy as well, because it's not all positive. And that determined selfishness in some way, which it was then, was unassailable. And he was going.

 And that then put other people in danger. Yes. I suppose with later reflection, because he never shied away from self-reflection either. I suppose he could do that. But there was that impulsion. It was kind of impossible for him to control, really, wasn't it? The same impulsion of the Sudan. Indeed so. It went all the way through. Absolutely. I was haunted by that moment in May 1945 when Hitler was committed suicide. Germany...

 surrenders, May the 8th, 1945, and Churchill almost instantly insists that he must walk through the streets of Berlin himself. This city which has been absolutely reduced to a skeleton. It's people absolutely traumatised, assaulted by the Red Army, civilians rather than soldiers I'm talking about. This haunted city, the courage it must have taken for Churchill, who must have looked to Germanise as the most...

 appalling villain, because that was their propaganda for the previous 12 years. Walking through the streets of the city with a small security, it must have just been an absolute security nightmare. There were the German civilians who did a double take as they saw Churchill walking through their streets. And I think one of them said, oh, is that the mighty villain, Churchill? And there are others who are much more ambivalent saying, yeah, it's good to see him. It's interesting what he did and what he chose to do from a...

 marketing point of view from a presentation point of view it's incredibly strong yes because we're all just walking together and we shouldn't have been fighting at all but indeed and if we want to start knitting together europe as he wanted to do bringing together europe after a half century of terrible conflict yes absolutely the view after war is obviously we could not make enemies of the german people it was the nazi party they have to separate the two out and as long as the population could be de-nazified

 then the wave was formed. And his vision of a united Europe came to pass. It may be there are stress lines and fractures now, certainly. The Brexit didn't help. But at the same time, we still lean into Europe. And so, as you were referring to earlier, NATO and Lord Ismail and all the rest, that spirit of keeping the bridges intact, I think, will... I agree, and I think it is about building bridges. I write a blog every Monday, and the one I've just written always is about the Northern Lights.

 And one of the legends of the myths of the Northern Lights is there a bridge from this world to the next, which I love that thought. Good Lord, how beautiful. Through the light with all the lights as you head. And it's a lovely thing. But above all, we could do with bridges into Europe and finding.

 ways forward rather than not. Again, it was that Churchillian thing also of he would make a beeline for his political enemies. Unlike today's politics the way across the world, it's not just any particular country, where everything just seems so tribal and so polarised, Churchill kind of wouldn't have recognised that. He was a conservative, but he always made a beeline for his Labour opponents in the House, and he always charmed their socks off. They just couldn't help it. Everyone from Nye Bevan, reluctantly, who hated him, thought he was an absolute monster.

 But my Bevan's wife, Jenny Lee, ended up as a reluctantly absolutely charmed one, Harold Wilson.

 who was to become Prime Minister in the 1960s, met Churchill in the 1950s, and was so moved by their meeting that he told his wife Mary. Mary burst into tears. Harold then went back to the Commons to tell Churchill that Mary had burst into tears, and Churchill at that point burst into tears himself. Everyone was moved, but he always made absolutely sure. There was a very, very anti-Churchill MP called Bessie Braddock, who was an MP for Liverpool, and she was just the absolute arch enemy of Churchill by the mid-1950s.

 Obviously, they were aspiring partners, but they were friends too. Amazing. And that's very much the spirit that you hope that enough politicians would find today. And, of course, Queen Elizabeth II, the late Queen Elizabeth. Absolutely. The relationship between Churchill and the young Queen Elizabeth II, as she came to the throne...

 1952, crowned in 1953. She was only 26 at the time. And he was the grand old man, as the music hall song about him went. And there is this element of, in some accounts, it's almost a little bit like My Fair Lady. He's Higgins and she's Eliza Doolittle. That's a proportion. But in a sense, he's the kind of tutor and she's listening to him. But actually, when you read the histories more closely, you see that...

 Queen Elizabeth II, from the very start, was very clued in already. She knew precisely what she was doing. She had that same crystalline intelligence that he did. And she was extremely aware of the weight of constitutional history, the weight of history that rested on her shoulders. So her relationship with Churchill was wonderful. They laughed a lot together. They talked a lot together.

 And she absolutely adored him. But it wasn't all tutor people. They were teaching each other. It was with open eyes. Absolutely open eyes on both sides. But I think because obviously my parent-in-law was a friend of the late queen. And I think their life was formed by entirely separate experiences traveling through World War II. Yes. And he learned to be a fitter and she learned to be a fitter.

 And he was out in Italy and they celebrated together back in London with many other of the young army men who congoed around London together. But those years of World War II and the idea of duty and service and sacrifice was something that lived with them for all their lives.

 Winston Churchill, who had brought everyone through that, just formed such an important part of it. Absolutely. But there was another great quote, again, from Diana Cooper. Heavens, how quotable is she? There was one point where she said to Churchill, isn't it wonderful you've given the people all this courage? And he said, no, absolutely not. All I've done is focus their courage.

 The point he was making is that everyone had that courage within them. It didn't need someone to inspire it out of them. It was already there. And therefore, one of the most aristocratic prime ministers nationalized much of the resources and the emotions of this country. So when it came out in 1945, it was a very different country with a very different ethos, which then went into the first major Labour government and onwards from there with a different set of...

 desires and protocols, actually. It's fascinating. Absolutely, yes. Yes, the social landscape. There is an earthquake in the social landscape, as you've described so fascinatingly. Old patterns reform and reassemble, and echoes of history all the way through. There's always that sense of reaching out to history. And I think that's why the story of Churchill continues to appeal today. Every generation has its own version of Churchill.

 At the moment, to today's younger generation, he is this awful kind of imperialist racist. Only to some of them. I think there is a section who pick up on some of that element, but that's of a different world. But each generation has a different world. My generation was brought up, certainly parts of my generation, in the 1980s and the 1970s were brought up on a Churchill who was the bloodthirsty warmonger who bombed civilians in German cities like Dresden.

 Again, it was a very unforgiving view of Churchill. It made me think, when I was writing the book and researching it, oh my goodness, but it was always the case with Churchill. He always had that polarised reaction. From 1910, 1911 onwards, there were huge working-class communities in Wales who...

 already saw him as a monster because of his perceived actions and strikes in Tony Pandy. And then the general strike in 1926, he became a byword for conservative evil to people like Nye Bevan. But at the same time, he always confounded those critics in the end because they always saw that, like a diamond, he had many other facets. He couldn't just be pinned down to those things. And you're absolutely right. The way that he's depicted...

 By some now, this current incarnation where it's made as the white colonialist oppressor, that'll go in time and it'll be replaced by something else that'll be equally uncomplimentary. But equally, that'll prompt people to then start looking for the other elements in him, which are consistently fascinating, and other elements in his story. And as you've described so fascinatingly, the whole landscape of the...

 the 20s, the 30s, and the 40s, and the society in which he moved, and the people among which he moved, and all the changes throughout that, and what they teach us about the currents and tides of history. I think he's a man, you're right, who we can talk about entirely endlessly. And I hope if either of us had met him, we'd be thoroughly enjoying sitting next door to him. If nothing else, he'd be a fantastic, amusing raconteur. Make us laugh.

 We'd be all drinking a lot of champagne. Every June, we have a Friends of Highclere garden party. Hopefully, the weather will be perfect. The roses out, the afternoon tea on the lawns. Oh, lovely. Delicious. And we ask each of our podcast guests if they were able to bring anyone from this world or anyone they'd written about who they would like to bring, excepting your own family, who would, of course, be welcome. So, Sinclair.

 Who would be your guest? It could only be one person. It would have to be Winston Churchill. How could it not be? We'd all love you to bring him, actually. I wonder if I can get him to accept the invite. You know he has been here in the 1950s. Of course, yes. So it would be nice if he came back again. Yes, absolutely. Sinclair, thank you so much. And for everybody who hasn't yet read Sinclair's book about meeting Churchill, it is incredibly readable, really interesting, and it's full of...

 Fun stories, but also thought-provoking ones as well. Sinclair, thank you so much for coming in today. Oh, thank you. It's such a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you.