A Daughter's Tale: The Memoir of Winston Churchill's Youngest

A Daughter's Tale: The Memoir of Winston Churchill's Youngest Child

In this charming and intimate memoir, Winston Churchillâ€™s youngest daughter shares stories from her remarkable lifeâ€”and tells of the unbreakable bond she forged with her father through some of the most tumultuous years in British history.
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Now approaching her ninetieth birthday, Mary Soames is the only surviving child of Winston and Clementine Churchill. Through a combination of personal reminiscences and never-before-published diary entries, she describes what it was like growing up as the scion of one of the lions of twentieth-century statecraft. Warm memories of a childhood spent roaming the grounds of the familyâ€™s country estate, tending to a small menagerie of pets, evoke the idyllic mood of England between the wars. As she matures into one of her fatherâ€™s most trusted companions, we are given rare glimpses inside the glittering social milieu through which the Churchills movedâ€”as well as the rough-and-tumble world of British politics. With fly-on-the-wall immediacy, Mary describes the momentous debate in Parliament where Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was driven from office, paving the way for Winston Churchillâ€™s ascension and the grueling crucible of World War II.
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During the war Mary served as a gunner in the womenâ€™s auxiliary, helping to shoot down the German V-1 rockets then bedeviling London. Styling herself as Private M. Churchill to avoid publicity, she led a unique double life that comes vividly alive again in the retelling. Splitting her time between luncheons at Chequersâ€”where she spent time with the likes of Lord Mountbattenâ€”and the turret of an anti-aircraft battery, she was never far from the center of the action. Hitler even reportedly hatched a plan, never consummated, to hire spies to seduce her in order to gain access to secret British war plans. She attended the Potsdam Conference as her fatherâ€™s aide-de-camp, arranging a memorable dinner with Harry Truman and Josef Stalin (whom she acidly remembers as â€œsmall, dapper, and rather twinklyâ€). And when British voters overwhelmingly turned on Churchill in the 1945 election, it is left to Mary to recount the pain and devastation her father could never publicly express.
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The mutual love and affection between Mary Soames and her parents pours forth from every page of this elegantly written memoir. A Daughterâ€™s Tale is both a moving personal history and a source of untold insight into one of the enduring icons of British national life.
Country USA
Brand Random House Books for Young Readers
Manufacturer Random House
Binding Hardcover
ReleaseDate 2012-07-24
UnitCount 1
Format Deckle Edge
EANs 9780812993332

Country	USA
Brand	Random House Books for Young Readers
Manufacturer	Random House
Binding	Hardcover
ReleaseDate	2012-07-24
UnitCount	1
Format	Deckle Edge
EANs	9780812993332

A Daughter's Tale: The Memoir of Winston Churchill's Youngest Child

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