Excuse me, darlings, whilst I go OTT

Yes, I know, most of the time I am fairly level-headed.  I might be right or I might be wrong but I do try to remain fairly balanced but every so often I go off on one - either for good or ill!  Happily, this time it is all for good with an absolute rave review for one of the very best history books I have ever read.  I refer to Six Minutes in May by Nicholas Shakespeare to which I made reference in my last Sunday Rumble.  I still haven't quite finished it yet but I simply cannot contain my enthusiasm and as Christmas approaches I urge you all to treat yourselves, particularly if you are British and if you are elderly!  However, even if you are neither of those things but you have a fascination with those bloody "events, dear boy, events" at an unbelievably crucial moment in history, May 1940 to be exact, then this will grip you.

The 'six minutes' referred to in the title, of course, was the deeply peculiar and very English meeting in which Churchill, against all the odds, became prime minister.  However, Mr. Shakespeare carefully keeps that to the very end of his book but he uses the earlier chapters, in effect, to set the scene - and I use that expression deliberately because it has the characteristics of a play.  It covers in some detail the totally stupid, tragic, incompetent and hideously embarrassing military and naval operations undertaken in Norway mainly at the enthusiastic behest of Winston Churchill who replayed, in effect, his catastrophe in Gallipoli in WWI, a perfect example of events playing out 'first as tragedy then as farce'!

However, Mr. Shakespeare does not confine himself totally to "war, war, war" but provides a truly brilliant evocation of "les temps perdu" by introducing us to the high (and low!) political and social life of Britain in the '30s and early '40s.  In one section of his book he describes in some detail the two day debate that took place in parliament following the Norway debacle which, to virtually everyone's surprise resulted in the political demise of Neville Chamberlain, and even more totally gob-smacking, the eventual elevation of Churchill to be wartime leader of the country.

In that particular May, I was, er, 'celebrating' my first birthday so all this passed well over my head but, of course, many of the participants figured heavily in the politics of post war Britain, people like Harold MacMillan, John Profumo, Clem Atlee and so on and on.  For me, reading it now is like living history.  I have just reached Part V which will detail the famously private meeting at No.10 which amazingly plucked Churchill from the mud, blood and freezing sea waters of Norway and rewarded him with the top job.  You couldn't make it up!

 

Comments

[decnine]

Neville Chamberlain, I think. Not Austen.

[Bob]

Since you mentioned the Profumo affair you might be interested in news about Christine Keeler:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-keeler/christine-keeler-woman-at-the-centre-of-britains-biggest-sex-scandal-dies-idUSKBN1E00Q9

Also, this movie is widely advertised over here. Possibly Americans have the qualities of leadership on their minds:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2674454/

[David Duff]

Thanks, 'Deccers', for sorting out my Chamberlains, now duly corrected and I blame the gin!

Bob, I heard an interview on the radio last night with Tom Mangold who was an ace reporter for the Daily Express during the 'scandal'. He reckoned the espionage angle which was played up at the time was hysterical nonsense. John Profumo, who in 1960 had the honour to shake me by the hand even if, so to speak, he had his hands full at the time, was both a tragic and heroic figure. Yes, he lied in parliament (heavens to Betsy, a politician lying!) and was caught out which ended his political career and nearly his marriage. However, after dropping out of public life and nursing his wounds for a while, very privately he volunteered to work fulltime and unpaid on the wards of a charity caring for the elderly. Eventually, he became the chairman of the charity but only after doing his bit at the bedsides of the old and frail.

[Up2L8]

Am glad you clarified "The Six Minutes In May".

[David Duff]

Uppers, you are a very naughty boy even if you did make me laugh!

[Bob]

David, I can't say I spent much time on the Profumo affair at the time, but do seem to remember it was covered over here with a lot of tsk-tsking, pearl clutching and red baiting. We were more innocent back then. Good on Profumo for having made amends. There might not be any modern pols that would even consider it.

[David Duff]

"Good on Profumo for having made amends. There might not be any modern pols that would even consider it.

Quite so, Bob, and don't ask me why but these words came back to me: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." He didn't so much "make amends", as make even more money!