The Debt We Owe to Churchill

I finished the biography of Winston Churchill this morning on the bus.  You really must read it.

From the final pages by Sir Martin Gilbert:

The nation mourned, showing its grief at Churchill’s lying-in-state in Westminster Hall, when 300,000 people filed past his coffin, and during the State Funeral, the first given to a commoner since the death of the Duke of Wellington more than a century earlier.

In her message to Parliament, the Queen called Churchill a “national hero.”  Attlee, his wartime deputy and post-war successor, described him as “the greatest Englishman of our time — I think the greatest citizen of the world of our time.”

“It is hardly in the nature of things,” Churchill’s daughter Mary had written to her father in 1951, “that your descendants should inherit your genius — but I earnestly hope they may share in some way the qualities of your heart.” 

Four years later Randolph had written to him: “Power must pass and vanish.  Glory, which is achieved through a just exercise of power — which itself is accumulated by genius, toil, courage and self-sacrifice — alone remains.  Your glory is enshrined forever on the imperishable plinth with the centuries. ”  Such was a son’s encouragement at the time of his father’s final resignation [after his second term as PM].” 

From Mary had come further words of of solace nine years later, when his life’s great impulses were at last fading.  “In addition to all the feelings a daughter has for a loving, generous father, I owe you what every Englishman, woman & child does — Liberty itself.”

And with that, this remarkable story of Sir Winston Churchill ended.  It’s not a final farewell,  however.  More of a beginning.

I’d argue that not just every Englishman, woman & child owes a great deal to Churchill — every freedom-loving man, woman & child has a debt to him as well.  Take the time to learn about him so that you can learn from him and be inspired by his courage and determination.

His legacy lives on.  It’s not the end, but more of a beginning.