Tuesday 29 November 2016

Told As It Was

First Lady by Sonia Purnell

I was keen to read this as will be visiting Chartwell in 2017.

My question would be what if there had been no first world war or second world war, would Churchill and his wife have been remembered. The other question would be if we had had a different prime minister at the helm during the second world war - would the outcome have been different? we will never know.

The lady herself I felt was born in the wrong time as today she would have gone to university and may have gone into politics herself. I was left thinking she was extremely selfish with her children, wanted to go on long holidays or take her self off to bed to the detriment of her children. Both sadly had been damaged from bad childhoods and that may account for this and it was a different time. 

There had not been a role/job description for the prime ministers wife which she made this her own and changed the way things were run.

Clementine came into her own in the first world war as did a great many women running canteens across London.

During the second world war she did a great deal for the ordinary people, but allowed her female relatives to sleep with the American for the country. 

I found at the end of the war extreme selfishness when they actually had to deal with rationing. I naively thought they were in it with the nation not so.

Interesting and never able to live within their means going from one financial crisis to another. 

Good historical references and well written by the author she told the story warts and all.

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