What did the leaders of the ‘Big Three’ superpowers during the Second World War have in common? Well, Franklin Roosevelt’s five children went through 19 marriages between them. Meanwhile, Stalin laughed off his son’s suicide attempt and chronically neglected his daughter.
But it is Winston Churchill who is the topic of this fascinating new book, and in particular his relationship with his only son, Randolph, whom he smothered. As Josh Ireland says, ‘Randolph was trapped in a cage built by his father.’
A gilded cage, that is. Winston was determined to spoil his child, partly because his own father, also Randolph, had always thought young Winston a disappointment, keeping him at arm’s length until his death in 1895, aged 45.
Excavating Worcestershire and Warwickshire