Book

Lough, David, author.

No more champagne : Churchill and his money / David Lough.

First U.S. edition.

New York : Picador, 2015.

©2015

xii, 532 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm

"Meticulously researched by a senior private banker now turned historian, No More Champagne reveals for the first time the full extent of the iconic British war leader's private struggle to maintain a way of life instilled by his upbringing and expected of his public position. Lough uses Churchill's own most private records, many never researched before, to chronicle his family's chronic shortage of money, his own extravagance and his recurring losses from gambling or trading in shares and currencies. Churchill tried to keep himself afloat by borrowing to the hilt, putting off bills and writing 'all over the place'; when all else failed, he had to ask family or friends to come to the rescue. Yet within five years he had taken advantage of his worldwide celebrity to transform his private fortunes with the same ruthlessness as he waged war, reaching 1945 with today's equivalent of £3 million in the bank. His lucrative war memoirs were still to come. Throughout the story, Lough highlights the threads of risk, energy, persuasion, and sheer willpower to survive that link Churchill's private and public lives. He shows how constant money pressures often tempted him to short-circuit the ethical standards expected of public figures in his day before usually pulling back to put duty first--except where the taxman was involved"--Provided by publisher.

Churchill, Winston, 1874-1965 -- Finance, Personal.

Churchill, Winston, 1874-1965 -- Family.

Statesmen -- Great Britain -- Biography.

Prime ministers -- Great Britain -- Biography.

Politicians -- Great Britain -- Finance, Personal -- Case studies.

"Originally published in Great Britain by Head of Zeus Ltd"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Very little money on either side": the Churchills and Jeromes -- "How I long for you to be back with sacks of gold": spendthrift parents, 1875-94 -- "We are damned poor": distant Army duty, 1895-9 -- "Fine sentiments and empty stomachs do not accord": the world's highest-paid war correspondent, 1899-1900 -- "Needlessly extravagant": bachelor, author, MP, 1900-5 -- No "rich heiress": junior minister and marriage, 1906-8 -- "The Pug is décassé": the HMS Enchantress years -- "The clouds are blacker and blacker": the legacy of war, 1914-18 -- "It is like floating in a bath of cream": a timely train crash, 1918-21 -- "Our castle in the air": a country seat at last, 1921-2 -- "What about the 50,000 quid Cassel gave you?": out of office, 1923-4 -- "No more champagne is to be bought": chancellor under pressure, 1925-8 -- "Friends and former millionaires": making, and losing, a New World fortune, 1928-9 -- "He is writing all over the place": a strategy for survival, 1930-1 -- "Poor Marlborough has been shunted": trading futures, 1932-3 -- "The work piles up ahead": summoning more ghosts, 1934-5 -- "We can carry on for a year or two more": films, columns and debts, 1935-7 -- "I shall never forget": Bracken and partner to the rescue, 1937-8 -- "The future opens its jaws upon us": struggling with History, 1938-9 -- "All my arrangements depend on this payment": early burdens of war, 1939-41 -- "Taxed to the utmost": film turns the tide, 1942-5 -- "A most profitable purdah": minting the memoirs, 1945-6 -- "Agreeably impressed": selling the memoirs, 1946-8 -- "The unfolding of time. lie and fortune": racing to the finish, 1948-50 -- "An insatiable need for money": post-war Prime Minister, 1951-5 -- "I shall lay an egg a year": a third and final retirement, 1955-7 -- "Good business": sunset, 1958-65 -- Epilogue.

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