THE
SPLENDID AND THE
VILE B OO K CLUB KIT
CAST
OF
CHARACTERS
BRITS
AMERICANS
WINSTON CHURCHILL
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
British Prime Minister, 1940–1945 (and again 1951–1955).
US President, 1933–1945.
CLEMENTINE CHURCHILL
HARRY HOPKINS
Winston Churchill’s wife (pronounced Clementeen).
Roosevelt’s friend and advisor.
MARY CHURCHILL
W. AVERELL HARRIMAN
The youngest of Winston and Clementine’s four children, 17 years old in 1940.
Roosevelt’s special envoy to Europe.
RANDOLPH CHURCHILL Winston and Clementine’s son, Pamela’s husband.
PAMELA DIGBY CHURCHILL Randolph’s wife, mother of Winston Churchill, Jr.
JOHN COLVILLE One of Churchill’s private secretaries and a detailed diarist.
MAJOR-GENERAL HASTINGS “PUG” ISMAY Churchill’s military chief of staff, served as an intermediary between Churchill and the chiefs of the three military services. A warm, calming presence who immediately became a member of Churchill’s “Secret Circle.”
FREDERICK “THE PROF” LINDEMANN An Oxford physicist, one of the first men Churchill brought into his ministry.
GERMANS ADOLF HITLER Nazi Chancellor of Germany—the Führer (tr. Leader).
HERMANN GÖRING The brutal chief of the German air force, the Luftwaffe. Second-mostpowerful man in the Third Reich. Hitler’s favorite underling.
RUDOLPH HESS Deputy Führer—Hitler’s official number-two (on paper).
JOSEPH GOEBBELS Hitler’s Minister for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda.
LORD BEAVERBROOK (WILLIAM MAXWELL AITKEN) Churchill’s Minister of Aircraft Production. Evelyn Waugh once said that he found himself “compelled to believe in the Devil if only to account for the existence of Lord Beaverbrook.”
DETECTIVE INSPECTOR WALTER HENRY THOMPSON Churchill’s police bodyguard.
LORD HALIFAX Foreign secretary to Neville Chamberlain, Churchill’s main rival for Prime Minister in1940. Eventually agreed to be Churchill’s ambassador to the United States.
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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1
The book’s title comes from a line in John Colville’s diary about the peculiar beauty of watching bombs fall over his home city: “Never was there such a contrast of natural splendor and human vileness.” How do you think a tragedy like this could be considered beautiful? Why do you think Larson chose this title?
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The Splendid and the Vile covers Churchill’s first year in office. What are the benefits of focusing on this truncated time period?
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Larson draws on many sources to provide a vivid picture of Churchill’s home and family life in his first year as Prime Minister. What struck you most about his family dynamic? Considering how powerful he was at the time, was his relationship with his family what you would have expected it to be? Why or why not?
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Churchill’s most trusted advisors spent many long days and nights with the Prime Minister, so much so that they became almost like members of his family. Why do you think Churchill had such close relationships with his political advisors? What do you see as being the key advantages or disadvantages of running a government office in this way? Which of Churchill’s political relationships was the most interesting to you?
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Larson provides various perspectives in the book, from diaries by Mary Churchill and Mass-Observation participants to the inner workings of both Churchill’s and Hitler’s cabinets. How did these different perspectives enhance your understanding of life in 1940 and 1941?
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Reading about how war was waged and discussed by the public in 1940, do you see any similarities to how we talk about warfare today?
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How did you feel reading about the raids? How would your daily life and your priorities change if your country were experiencing similar attacks with such frequency?
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The book includes anecdotes about a vast array of characters around Churchill, like his daughter-in-law Pamela, his children Randolph and Mary, and his wife Clementine. What are the benefits of including various stories about the people related to Churchill—like Pamela’s affair, or Randolph’s gambling habits—in a book discussing his first year in office? Which of these characters did you find to be the most interesting? The most surprising?
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Mary Churchill recounts the evening when the Café de Paris—where she and her friends had planned to go dancing—was bombed. After the initial shock, her group decides the dead would have wanted them to continue their evening of gaiety and dancing elsewhere and they move on to another location. What did you think about this choice? What do you think you would have done in their shoes?
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Discuss Mary Churchill’s portrayal throughout the book. Do you feel she grows and matures throughout this tumultuous year? Why or why not?
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What was the most surprising thing you learned about Churchill? Why did it surprise you?
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While England rationed food, gasoline, and other supplies during the war, Churchill and his cabinet received extra provisions. What did you think about this? Do you think this is justified for government officials during a time of crisis? Why or why not?
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Were there any decisions Churchill made over the course of his first year as Prime Minister that you disagreed with? If so, which? Which of his decisions were you most impressed with?
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Do you think there has been another leader as universally beloved as Churchill was in his day? If so, who? If not, why not?
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DRINKS To complete your book club evening, consider serving some of Churchill’s—and Britain’s—favorite beverages.
CHAMPAGNE “At length, the house staff served champagne, brandy and cigars, and these did wonders to lighten the mood. This revitalization over drink and dinner was something of a pattern, as Lord Halifax’s wife, Dorothy, had noted in the past: Churchill would be ‘silent, grumpy and remote’ at the start of a meal, she wrote. ‘But mellowed by champagne and good food he became a different man, and a delightful and amusing companion.’” Churchill and his guests regularly enjoyed champagne. Pol Roger was his favorite . . . but any type will do!
TEA “The one universal balm for the trauma of war was tea. It was the thing that helped people cope. People made tea during air-raids and after air-raids, and on breaks between retrieving bodies from shattered buildings.” “‘Tea acquired almost a magical importance in London life,’ according to one study of London during the war. ‘And the reassuring cup of tea actually did seem to help cheer people up in a crisis.’” “Tea was comfort, and history, but above all, it was English. As long as there was tea, there was England.” For a truly English—or indeed British!—experience, be sure to serve guests a hot, soothing cup of tea.
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FOOD While Churchill had a great love of food and drink, there was yet another staple in his life: cigars. He was known to smoke them everywhere—from the bed to the bathtub—and he never kept an extra far from reach. Churchill’s favorites were Havanas, but we also recommend a chocolate version (with whiskey for an extra Churchillian touch).
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RECIPE CHOCOLATE TUILE CIGARS WITH WHISKEY GANACHE Serves 12 to 16 Shaping tuiles takes some practice! It may take a few tries to figure out the timing for perfect rolling. If you get frustrated, err on the side of underbaking. Put tuiles that still feel soft after they’ve cooled back in the oven to crisp. Place tuiles seam-side down on a rack and bake at 225°F for about 15 minutes. For best results, slide a dowel or wooden spoon handle into each tuile to maintain its shape.
DIRECTIONS 1. To make tuiles, sift confectioners’ sugar over egg whites in a medium bowl. Add salt and whisk until the sugar is fully incorporated into the egg whites. Sift flour and cocoa over the top. Add butter and whisk until well combined. Scrape down the sides and let the mixture rest for at least 20 minutes before continuing. 2. Preheat oven to 350°F. Place paper rectangles (see Tools, left) under a silicone mat on a baking sheet. Spoon one barely mounded tablespoon of batter into the center of each rectangle. Spread the mixture with the back of a small spoon to cover the rectangle as evenly as you can. The batter will be very thin. 3. Bake for 7 to 9 minutes, until the tuiles look and feel dry to the touch.
INGREDIENTS Chocolate Tuiles
Whiskey Ganache
3 large egg whites ½ cup confectioners’ sugar pinch kosher salt ½ cup unbleached all-purpose flour 1 tablespoon Dutch-process cocoa powder ¼ cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
12 ounces dark chocolate, finely chopped 1 ¼ cup heavy cream 2 tablespoons scotch whiskey
5. Repeat with remaining batter, swapping out baking sheets and silicone mats (this is why you need 4 of each!) so you begin with a room temperature surface for the batter. If preparing ahead, store fully cooled tuiles in an airtight container until ready to use.
TOOLS large pastry bag large Bismarck piping tip edible gold paper paper cutter, for cutting labels 1-inch circle punch, for cutting labels edible marker small star or other shaped stamp edible adhesive sh immer dust or powdered sugar, if desired for ash
4. Remove the tray from the oven. Work as carefully and quickly as you can while the tuiles are very hot, which is essential for shaping. Using a thin, flat spatula, flip one of the tuiles over on the hot baking sheet. Starting from the wider edge, wrap the tuile tightly around a wooden dowel (or spoon handle). Quickly set the tuile and dowel seam-side town on a cooling rack, holding gently for a moment to make sure it won’t unroll. Repeat with the second tuile. If it is too stiff to roll, return the baking sheet to the oven for 30 seconds to a minute to soften before continuing. Once tuiles cool slightly, slip them off the dowels/handles.
2 ½-inch dowels or wooden spoons with ½-inch round handles 4 silicone baking mats 4 insulated baking sheets 2 paper rectangles sized 3 ½ by 7 inches with rounded corners to use as patterns for spreading
6. For the whiskey ganache, place chocolate in a medium glass bowl. Warm heavy cream over medium heat until it just comes to a boil. Pour cream over the chocolate and let sit without stirring for 2 minutes. Stir until smooth and glossy. If bits of chocolate remain, warm briefly over simmering water or in the microwave at 50 percent power for short bursts. Mix until smooth. Stir in whiskey until smooth. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for several hours, until it holds its shape on a spoon. To speed this process, refrigerate, stirring frequently, until the ganache cools enough to hold its shape. 7. To fill the tuiles, spoon whiskey ganache into a pastry bag fitted with a Bismarck tip. Pipe ganache into both ends of the tuiles to fill completely, taking care as the cookies will be quite fragile. 8. To create cigar bands, cut 3 or 4 Sugar Sheets into ¾-inch strips. Trim to fit around the tuiles and use edible adhesive to hold them in place. Punch circles in the remaining Sugar Sheets and decorate them with stamp, if desired. Working one at a time, color the design on the stamp with an edible marker and press it firmly in the center of each circle. Attach circles over the bands with edible adhesive. 9. If you want to add “ash” to any of the tuiles, add a thin layer of edible adhesive to the tip of a cigar and dip it in luster dust or powdered sugar.
Source: flourarrangements.org/2018/02/chocolate-tuile-cigars/
10. Chill and serve within a few hours as the tuiles will soften as time passes.
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FA S C I N AT I N G FAC T S
CHURCHILL, LIKE HITLER, ABSOLUTELY HATED WHISTLING. The great man was also plagued by great debt. To supplement his income before taking office, he wrote books, columns for the Daily Mirror and News of the World, and did broadcasts for American radio.
He took two baths a day— no matter what was going on in the world, and no matter whether he was on a train or in a hotel without running water. Staff always found a way to get him his bath.
If he needed something he would hold out his hand and say “Gimme,” and secretary Elizabeth Layton was expected to know what he wanted. He used the same command to summon people. “Gimme Prof” meant she was to call Lindemann.
Only a small percentage of Londoners used the Underground for shelter during the raids, though popular myth would later convey the impression that all of London flocked to the system’s deep subway stations. At its highest, only 5% of London’s remaining population sheltered in the Tube.
During the war, the Queen (Elizabeth II’s mother) began taking lessons in how to shoot a revolver. “I shall not go down like the others,” she said. Churchill’s ability to sleep anywhere at any time was his particular gift. Wrote Pug Ismay, “His capacity for dropping off into a sound sleep the moment his head touched the pillow had to be seen to be believed.”
One of the most distinctive aspects of Churchill’s approach to leadership was his ability to switch tracks in an instant, and to focus earnestly on things that any other prime minister would have found trivial.
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CHURCHILL’S APHORISMS “All you need to be married are champagne, a box of cigars, and a double bed.” “One of the secrets of a happy marriage is never to speak to or see the loved one before noon.” Churchill felt that four children was the ideal number: “One to reproduce your wife, one to reproduce yourself, one for the increase in population, and one in case of accident.”
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S E C R E T S OF CHURCHILL SPEECH
THE
A
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Churchill was skilled at offering both a sober appraisal of facts and reason for optimism.
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e had a knack for making people feel loftier, stronger, H and above all more courageous.
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iarist Harold Nicolson said, “I feel so much in the spirit D of Winston’s great speech that I could face a world of enemies.”
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hurchill’s great trick—one he had demonstrated C before and would demonstrate again—was his ability to deliver dire news and yet leave his audience feeling encouraged and uplifted.
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hurchill would often test out ideas and phrases in the C course of ordinary conversation.
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e kept snippets of poems and biblical passages in a H special “Keep Handy” file. “It is curious,” wrote noted diarist Sir John Colville, “to see how, as it were, he fertilizes a phrase or a line of poetry for weeks and then gives birth to it in a speech.”
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amuel Battersby, a government official who S accompanied Churchill on a tour to view bombdamage around London, said Churchill’s “uniquely unpredictable magic” was his ability to transform “the despondent misery of disaster into a grimly certain stepping stone to ultimate victory.”
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A CHURCHILLIAN WEEKEND
The of f icial prime-minis terial es tate, Chequers,
in Buckinghamshire, 40 miles northwest of London, became a kind of secret weapon for Churchill in the war. With luck and daring, Churchill’s driver could cover the distance from Downing Street to Chequers in an hour—which proved helpful as the Prime Minister was shuttled back and forth throughout his crucial first year in office. The house stands in a shallow valley of the Chilterns, surrounded on three sides by rising terrain laced with paths that lead walkers among yew hedges, ponds, and copses of beech, larch, and holly, delicately patrolled by chalk-blue butterflies. Tall windows, which would have been filled with amber light in peacetime but were then dark in accordance with blackout rules, flank the façade of the building. Among the many priceless items housed there are the table that Napoleon used during his exile on St. Helena, countless large paintings, two swords once wielded by Oliver Cromwell, and a letter from Cromwell composed at the battle at Marston Moor in 1644. On any given weekend during Churchill’s first year as Prime Minister, one could find Churchill’s many political advisors and family members eating, drinking, and discussing matters of public safety within the walls of this stately home.
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A CHURCHILLIAN WEEKEND
(CONTINUED)
GATHERING PROVISIONS
STAFFING UP
The Chequers Trust, which paid the wages of staff and the routine costs of maintaining the estate, donated £15 (just under $1,000 in today’s U.S. dollars) for each weekend— about half of what Churchill actually spent, or as he once put it, just about enough to cover the cost of feeding the chauffeurs of his guests. For the period June through December 1940, his costs at Chequers exceeded the Trust’s overall contributions by the equivalent of $20,288.
According to the diarist Harold Nicolson, when Churchill and company would head to Ditchley, the weekend house he retreated to under threat of invasion, it would go something like this: “First come two detectives who scour the house from garret to cellar; then arrive valet and maid with much luggage; then thirty-five soldiers plus officers turn up to guard the great man through the night; then two stenographers with masses of papers.”
One Chequers order consisted of:
Two projectionists joined the weekly Chequers entourage after Churchill realized how much he enjoyed the home cinema at Ditchley.
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36 bottles of Amontillado—Duff Gordon’s V.O.
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36 bottles, white wine—Valmur, 1934 (Chablis)
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36 bottles, port—Fonseca, 1912
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36 bottles, claret—Chateau Leoville Poyferre, 1929
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24 bottles, whisky—Fine Highland Malt
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1 2 bottles, brandy—Grande Fine Champagne, 1874 (66 years old, same vintage as Churchill)
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6 bottles of champagne—Pommery et Greno, 1926 3 (Pol Roger, however, remained Churchill’s favorite)
The house and grounds were watched over by a platoon of Coldstream Guards consisting of four non-commissioned officers and 30 soldiers, but Ismay wanted this increased to a company of 150. The guardsmen were housed in tents on the grounds; Ismay recommended a more permanent arrangement, with huts and a mess room hidden in the trees at the back of the estate. As invasion fears intensified, Home Forces stationed a Lanchester armored car at Chequers, for Churchill’s use, along with two officers to operate it. The Home Forces general staff recommended the officers be armed with Thompson submachine guns.
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FURTHER READING William Manchester and Paul Reid, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm, 1940–1965 Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography Sonia Purnell, Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour John Colville, The Fringes of Power: 10 Downing Street Diaries, 1939–1955 Martin Gilbert, The Churchill War Papers Andrew Roberts, The Holy Fox: The Life of Lord Halifax Andrew Roberts, Churchill: Walking with Destiny John Lukacs, Five Days in London: May 1940 Lynne Olson, Troublesome Young Men Richard Toye, The Roar of the Lion: The Untold Story of Churchill’ World War II Speeches Lara Feigel, The Love-Charm of Bombs David Lough, No More Champagne: Churchill and His Money Allen Packwood, How Churchill Waged War
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