Winston Churchill needed: “A hot bath, cold champagne, fresh peas and old cognac. Whiskey is measured in "fingers" - your body is the only tool for measuring the perfect amount of whiskey for you! And he helps Jack Donahue

Good music while studying the materials of the publication - just press PLAY =)

Most recently, I talked here about how you can cool off remarkably in such hot weather. Today we will touch on a drink that is more serious, stronger and no less interesting, I would also add that it is quite useful with proper use and knowledge of some facts about it, so

Facts about whiskey or 22 great reasons to drink whiskey:

1. Whiskey is virtually fat and carb free, so your hips will thank you.

One shot of whiskey contains no fat at all and is 4% carbs, so you can wear your skinny jeans and still drink whiskey in peace.

2. The word whiskey means "water of life".

Whiskey comes from the Gaelic "Uisge Beatha" which means "water of life". phonetically, this became the basis of the name - "usky", and only then turned into the better known to us "whisky". So this drink is nothing but living water, friends!

3. In the border area, whiskey was worth its weight in gold.

In 18th-century Pennsylvania, whiskey acts as currency—used for cooking, medicine, drinking, and a few other things. This devotion to whiskey eventually led to the farmers' rebellion in 1794, who fought against taxes and fees that threatened their drink with its complete elimination. Also known as the Whiskey Rebellion. This fight was worth it, I can tell you.

4. Whiskey may help prevent cancer.

In 2005, Dr. Jim Swan, speaking at the Glasgow EuroMedLab conference, said: “Research has shown that there are even greater health benefits for people who drink single malt whiskey. Why? Single malt whiskey contains more ellagic acid than red wine. This acid can also be found in most fruits and is an antioxidant that can absorb cancer cells in the body. Of course, more research is needed to be absolutely sure of this, but let's drink and hope that Dr. Swan is right.

5. Drinking whiskey can reduce the risk of stroke.

To be clear, drinking a lot of alcohol increases your chances of having a stroke anyway. However, if you can master the art of moderate consumption - that is, somewhere around one to two fifty-gram shots a day - then this can provide protection against ischemic stroke. Meanwhile, this amount of this drink per day is better than no consumption of it per day when it comes to protection against ischemic stroke.

6. It may also reduce the risk of developing heart disease.

A 1998 study showed that a large sip of whiskey could help protect against heart disease and increase the body's defenses against disease by increasing the body's antioxidant levels.

7. Drinking 6 shots of whiskey a week may reduce the risk of adult dementia.

Special studies at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center showed that the chances of developing dementia were lower among those adults who drank alcohol in moderation compared to those who did not drink at all!

8. Hillary Clinton regularly drinks whiskey.

And we all want to be like Hill)).

9. Winston Churchill drank whiskey and water for breakfast...
and led the state through World War II.

Whiskey and soda, boiled eggs and his cigars, of course.

10. And he helps Jack Donahue run Kabletown.

11. Oh, did I mention that Mark Twain was a big fan?

12. A closed bottle of whiskey will only get better for 100 years.

And even after you open a bottle of whiskey, a half-full bottle will remain good for five years.

13. Things to know about American Drinking Whiskey: Tennessee and Kentucky are some of the earliest whiskey-producing regions in the world.

Bourbons such as Maker's Mark and Wild Turkey are made in Kentucky, while Tennessee is home to Jack Daniel's.

14. There are over 5,000 types of single malts.

15. Whiskey may be the smartest investment you can ever make.

Unlike wine, which only tastes worse in the bottle, the fact that whiskey tastes almost forever means that its value is much higher. So, instead of choosing a retirement fund and investing in it for a comfortable retirement, maybe you should just buy yourself a couple of bottles of rare whiskeys, watch their value go up and enjoy? (It will bring much more pleasure).

16. George Washington, the father of America, also founded one of the largest whiskey factories in the country.

The use of whiskey was mentioned at the core of the Constitution. After his tenure as the first President of the United States, which ended in 1797, Washington proposed to the manager of the Scottish economy, James Anderson, to build a whiskey distillery. The distillery was the largest in America, producing 11,000 gallons of whiskey in 1799, making it one of Mount Vernon's most successful economic ventures.

17. Whiskey was originally created by monks and only for them, which makes it a holy spirit.

(LOL, spirit, understand?) This practice changed in 1541 when King Henry VIII dissolved all those liquor-ridden monasteries. Poor sober monks.

18. Whiskey is not afraid of the cold and even sub-zero temperatures cannot freeze it.

Nothing proves this fact more than when a case of 100-year-old whiskey was found in Antarctica. And although he survived temperatures below -30 Celsius, all bottles of this magical drink were in excellent condition.

19. Whiskey is measured in "fingers" - Your body is the only tool for measuring the perfect amount of whiskey for you!

To measure the whiskey, all you have to do is place your finger horizontally on the glass and pour the whiskey to the width of your finger or a couple if you feel frisky))

20. Did I mention that whiskey looks great on a bar?

21. Bacon is a great side dish.

22. But let's be honest: The best reason to drink whiskey is because it tastes good.

Finally, another interesting facts about whiskey or rather, the rule, the rule of five "S" (golden rules for tasting whiskey), which came to us from Scotland (Sight, Smell, Swish, Swallow, Splash). Translated into Russian, this will be the rule of five "P" (Look, Smell, Taste, Swallow, Splash water). So:

Smell the whiskey undiluted, swirl it in the glass.

Taste, take a small sip and, as it were, "chew" it. "Savoring" the whiskey in your mouth gives you the opportunity to get a more complete experience, because. different parts of our tongue perceive different tastes: the tip of the tongue is sweet, the edges of the tongue are salty, the middle of the tongue is acid, the back of the tongue is bitter. Assess the balance of these main taste groups.

Swallow whiskey, evaluate its taste, sharpness or softness.
Pay attention to the aftertaste: long or which, pleasant and soft or sharp and strange. Typically, a classy whiskey has a long aftertaste, and its aroma is able to remain in an empty glass for several days.

The Scots believe that diluting whiskey with spring water allows you to reveal its aromas and taste. This is especially true for whiskey with a cask strength of more than 50% alcohol content, the consumption of which in its pure form will instantly numb your taste buds, significantly reducing your ability to adequately perceive the taste of the drink.

In general, forget about all the rules and enjoy the "water of life"!

The Prime Minister of Great Britain, strategist and orator, Nobel laureate, designer, artist, author of fifty-eight historical works, fat man, smoker and wit (1874-1965) became famous not only for his stormy and varied career. Churchill's life is also a rare example of a happy and peaceful alcoholism that dragged on to a ripe old age. The story about the personality of the great prime minister could well be compiled from his quotes alone. Well, for example: "Reality is a hallucination caused by a lack of alcohol in the blood."

Churchill was a descendant of the Duke of Marlborough, the same Marlbrook from the song, who, due to drunkenness, was going on a campaign. Winston also served as a cavalryman in his youth, that is, a real hussar, and had the appropriate habits: “I can’t live without champagne. After winning, I deserve it, and after losing, I need it.” At 25, Churchill was already a member of the British Parliament. He held many government posts, was the creator of the tank, was the first of the great strategists to appreciate the importance of aviation, put forward the idea of ​​​​a pipeline under the Atlantic Ocean, invented a navigation device for pilots, not to mention the fact that he was one of our two main allies in the victory over Hitler. It's funny that immediately after the revolution, Lenin called him the main enemy of the Soviet regime, and in Moscow in the 1920s, an indispensable attribute of the May Day processions was Churchill's effigy, which was beaten with a hammer. Nevertheless, the fat man always loved Soviet cognac, ordering it in barrels in the Union.

Despite his epicurean drinking and his fondness for Cuban cigars (he was called the man with Cuba in his mouth), Churchill was not a lover of life. He had severe bouts of depression, which he called the black dog. The main means of combating the “black dog” was, as you might guess, alcohol: “I must say that my rules of life prescribe as an absolutely sacred ritual smoking cigars, as well as drinking alcohol before, after and during all meals, as well as in breaks between them. It is known for certain that the prime minister drank at least a bottle of whiskey and cognac (namely “and”, not “or”) a day. Despite political crises and depressions, Churchill always remained cheerful and even after his second resignation, having retired, he did not follow the regimes: “I drink a lot, sleep little and smoke one cigar after another. That's why I'm two hundred percent fit." When asked about the secret of his longevity, he replied: “No sports!” and "Never stood where you could sit, and never sat where you could lie."

For Churchill's 80th birthday, the BBC created a special team to film his future funeral, but the former prime minister outlived three members of this team!

Churchill’s example shows that nature also rests on the children of alcogens: Churchill’s son Randolph was an alcoholic and briefly outlived his father, the middle daughter Diana committed suicide, and the eldest Sarah was a drunken alcoholic. Churchill himself said this: "I took more from alcohol than he took from me."

1887-1893 He studies at a closed school, where he is reputed to be the worst student in the class, although he knows Shakespeare by heart. To the director's remark "We have reason to be dissatisfied with you, Churchill!" replies: "And I - you, Mr. Director!" From the notes of the teachers it follows that even in his youth, Whiney began to smoke and drink. After school, he enters the Sadhurst military school.

1893-1900 By the age of 26, Churchill had already been to four wars, in particular, he takes part in a major cavalry battle during the uprising in Sudan and personally shoots five rebels. In the Anglo-Boer war he is captured, runs and makes his way to his own for three hundred kilometers, without food or drink. Smokes more than drinks, addicted to Cuban cigars. Smokes 15 cigars a day.

1900–1915 Elected to the Conservative Parliament. Serves as the Minister of Trade, then - the Interior, then - the Minister of the Navy. Constantly burns suits with ashes, so his wife Clementine invents a special bib for him. Churchill had a habit of spending the average salary of an office worker on one meal, while paying bills from the treasury. Somehow he comes to the reception drunk and, in response to the accusation of one lady, answers: “Your legs are crooked, and alcohol will disappear from me tomorrow.”

1917-1935 Churchill - Minister of War Supplies in the cabinet of Lloyd George, then Secretary of War, Minister of Aviation and Minister of the Colonies. He likes to tease the Soviet authorities by ordering Shustov's famous cognac in Russia. Every year, 400 bottles are sent to Churchill, which are recorded in the accompanying papers as "former Shustov". At night, after drinking, he snores so much that Lady Churchill moves into a separate bedroom. Once at the reception, the waiter accidentally pours champagne on Churchill's bald head. He says: “Darling, do you really think that this is the most radical remedy for baldness?” In 1922, he flies out of the cabinet and for the next 10 years he is interrupted by ministerial posts that are insignificant for his status.

1939-1945 World War II - the peak of Churchill's career and fame, the time when from a caricature hero, a comic fat man with a cigar in his mouth, he becomes a national hero. In 1939, Churchill was finally appointed Minister of the Navy in Chamberlain's government, and after Chamberlain's resignation, Prime Minister of the coalition government, which he remained almost until the very end of the war. Naturally, six years of gigantic responsibility and stress become the peak of the prime minister's alcoholism. When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Churchill drinks himself unconscious - overjoyed that the United States will have to enter the war. During the war, despite the difficulties with grain, the prime minister orders to continue the production of whiskey in Scotland, and immediately after the war, scotch becomes one of the main exports of Great Britain. After the victory of the Laborites in the elections, he retires and sits on his estate, where he drinks and paints.

1945-1946 Delivers the famous Fulton speech, in which he calls on the world to boycott the USSR, using the term "Iron Curtain" for the first time. In Fulton, Churchill rides in the car with Truman and all the way teaches him to "drip a little alcohol into the water to kill bacteria." As a result, the President of the United States, having accumulated a surplus, asks for the uniform of a conductor and for forty minutes furiously whistles the whistle. Upon arrival, Churchill learns that alcohol is prohibited in Fulton, and becomes furious: “I thought we came to the state of Missouri, but in fact it is the state of the Sahara!” Truman orders two cases of whiskey to be delivered by military aircraft from Canada. At a banquet after the speech, Churchill pounces on black caviar and brandy with the words: "Now Stalin is unlikely to send me this."

1951–1953 Re-elected prime minister. He celebrates his election victory with Louis XIII cognac. Receives the Nobel Prize in Literature. To maintain the image of the speaker, he begins to resort to the use of benzedrine. He still drinks a bottle of cognac a day and smokes a dozen cigars. At one of the receptions, in response to the remark that his fly was unbuttoned, he answers: "A dead bird will not fly out of the nest." On a mix of benzedrine with alcohol, he remains until 1955, until he retires.

1955–1965 An exhibition of paintings by Churchill is organized at the Royal Academy. From time to time, the retired Churchill visits the Monte Carlo casino, where he sits with a glass of Napoleon cognac produced in 1918, betting only on the numbers 18 and 22. He writes six volumes of World War II and four of The History of the English-speaking Peoples. He suffers from several cerebral hemorrhages, practically stalls, but does not stop drinking: “In my youth, I made it a rule never to drink strong before dinner. Now my rule is not to drink before breakfast.” In January 1965 he dies at the age of 91.

drinking companions

memory

JOHN COLVILLE,

Knight of the Order of the Bath,

Companion of the Order of Victoria (1915–1987),

graduate of Harrow, civil servant,

warrior, pilot, scientist

William Manchester, August 1994

BARBARA

Paul Reid, August 2012

In freta dum fluvii current, dum montibus umbrae

Lustrabunt convexa, polus dum sidera pascet;

semper honos nomenque tuum laudesque manebunt.

As long as the rivers run to the seas, as long as the slopes

Mountain shadows glide and sparkle in the sky of the luminary, -

Until then your name will be in praise and honor.

Virgil. Aeneid. Book 1

Copyright © 2012 by John Manchester, Julie Manchester, Laurie Manchester, and Paul Reid

© Translation and publication in Russian, CJSC "Publishing house Tsentrpoligraf", 2016

© Art design, CJSC "Publishing house Tsentrpoligraf", 2016

* * *

Foreword
Chased lion

On June 21, 1940, Winston Churchill was the most visible figure in England. On this day, France accepted Hitler's terms of surrender, and now virtually all of Europe was under the swastika. Britain with the dominions were one on one with the Third Reich. Churchill, appointed prime minister just six weeks earlier, was defending more than just his home island. As the first minister of the crown, he was also the central figure of the British Empire, which at that time occupied almost a quarter of the entire landmass, on which almost a quarter of the world's population lived. There is no doubt about the importance of his role. Everyone who interacted with him saw him differently. He was a multifaceted person, in which several personalities coexisted, some contradicted each other, but all were natural.

At 10 Downing Street, the newly appointed 65-year-old Prime Minister was known as the Old Man. He was in many ways an inconvenient host. Worked too much. He was selfish and extremely inattentive to people. It was difficult to understand what Churchill was saying, as he lisped and often turned into a grumpy tone, pronouncing the words in a low voice and indistinctly, and his aides had to struggle to understand who he meant when he mentioned "that chubby man in the Foreign Office" or "the lord lame in his left foot". Churchill considered the opinion of military advisers, but never delegated the powers of the prime minister to any of his employees. He wanted to personally make all the decisions as, according to Sir Ian Jacob, "he was determined to be number one". Ian Jacob was Assistant Secretary for War in the War Cabinet and knew firsthand about Churchill's stubbornness.

Not only did Churchill control the solution of strategic issues, he generally delved into all the details. He made, for example, the decision to provide soldiers with earplugs because of the terrifying sounds of modern warfare. It occurred to him that the weapons taken as trophies at the end of the First World War could be made suitable for use in combat conditions. He demanded to be told what arrangements were in place to save the animals in the zoo in case the zoo was bombed by the Germans. Some of his thoughts on the intricacies of warfare were prophetic. He asked his personal representative on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Ismay Hastings, nicknamed Pug, to expedite the development of "a kind of projectile for firing a rifle at a tank, like a trench mortar projectile."

However, woe to the subordinate who drew Churchill's attention to details that he considered insignificant. When in Reykjavik, before the expected German invasion of the country, King George's minister proposed to evacuate the civilian population of Iceland, Churchill replied that this was "of course, complete nonsense." The dangers faced by the Icelanders were minor, and "at any rate, they have a large island and plenty of places to escape to." He took great pleasure in wandering through the jungle of details. One spring, when the Rhine-mining operation was being discussed, Churchill told an aide: “This is one of those rare happy moments when respected people like you and me can enjoy the pleasure usually reserved for the Irish Republican Army. » .

Churchill could exchange jokes with subordinates; this happened not so rarely, but it was not permanent. The subordinates more often had the opportunity to experience his wrath. Churchill's light blue eyes clearly signaled the mood, and if his gaze - "as warm as a summer ray of sunshine" when he was pleased - turned icy, the staff knew that a storm was coming. His anger was terrible - Churchill instilled fear in the admirals, generals and, daily, in his employees. “Oh my God, girl, you couldn’t type even after I said “ripe” twice – R, R,” he barked at Elizabeth Layton, the new typist at Number 10, who had the misfortune of taking a slurred word. "ripe" for "right".

However, as usual after such outbursts, Churchill apologized in his own way - he "forgave" Leighton and "was very kind for the rest of the day." In fact, he was by nature filled with compassion for all people in difficulty, including those Englishmen (he always preferred to say "Englishmen and Englishman" rather than "Britishmen and Britons"), whom he considered responsible for the present difficult situation of England. . Upon learning that a mob had thrown stones at Stanley Baldwin's car, he promptly invited the former prime minister to 10 Downing Street for lunch (at a time when every minute was precious to him) and when he was told that Neville Chamberlain was dying of cancer “Chamberlain will not live to see the end of 1940,” Churchill ordered his staff to tell the former prime minister, whose policy had been a complete failure, only good news by telephone.

Baldwin later, speaking of this dinner with Churchill to Harold Nicholson, added that he had left Downing Street "a happy man", feeling "patriotic pride that my country at such a time had found such a leader".

In Baldwin's opinion, "military trials revealed all the basic qualities of character" of Churchill. Not all. In a narrow circle, he liked to gossip about defeated enemies. One day, during breakfast, he and his wife Clementine told the guests a rumor that came from Baldwin's household that he was "a hunted person." According to them, family members and servants were so disrespectful to the former prime minister that when he complained about the radio sounding too loud, someone turned up the volume. And when the food ran out, it was Baldwin's relatives who sent him to the grocer to replenish stocks in the pantry. When Baldwin's friends gave Churchill an invitation to the 80th birthday of the former prime minister, Churchill, through an intermediary, told them: "I do not wish Stanley Baldwin any harm, but it would be better for him not to be born at all." Churchill's most famous saying about Baldwin is: "He sometimes falls over the truth, but hastily gets up and runs on as if nothing had happened." As for Chamberlain, Churchill told his new private secretary, Jock Colville, that the former prime minister was "the most limited, the most ignorant, the most petty of men." Once Churchill, in a conversation with his doctor, managed without taking a breath to denigrate Chamberlain and Baldwin: "Baldwin thought Europe was boring, Chamberlain thought it was big Birmingham." His pettiness was as sincere as his generosity, sentimentality, and love of England.

Members of the personal secretariat (secretaries, messengers, typists) had to unquestioningly follow orders without making critical remarks. “May you have no other god but me,” said the prime minister. He had a difficult character. When Churchill lost his temper, whoever happened to be next to him was hit, and, like people of his class and generation, he never apologized or gave explanations, although later he tried his best to calm the offended party, say by praising handwriting or muttering: "You know, I may seem very cruel, but in fact I am only cruel to one person, Hitler."

On June 27, after the surrender of France, Clementine wrote him the only truly personal letter they exchanged that year. She drew his attention to the potentially catastrophic state of affairs associated with the direct intervention of the Prime Minister - his attitude towards employees. “You risk,” she wrote, “earning the enmity of all your colleagues and subordinates because of your rudeness, sarcasm and bossiness.” Without a doubt, she wrote, overwork is taking its toll. And she noted a noticeable deterioration in his character: “You are not as kind as you were before.” She warned her husband that his irritability and rudeness would cause "dislike or slavish servility". Clementine ended her message with the words: “Please forgive your loving and vigilant Clemmie.” Under the caption, she sketched a cat (for almost three decades, Winston called her Cat). There is no evidence of Churchill's response. However, the fact that the letter survived, later written by their daughter Mary, indicates a low-key reaction.

In 1940, they were not separated for long, as they had been in all previous years of their marriage, when work, war and holidays forced one of them to go abroad. His attitude towards his employees over the coming months, spent mostly in a damp underground shelter, will not undergo the slightest change for the better.

Everyone who was with him at that time agrees that the Old Man was worried about more important issues than the feelings of his subordinates. But in any case, over time, they began to bow before him. Jock Colville later recalled: “Churchill was sympathetic to the common people because he himself had a clear idea of ​​what was required and hated casuistry. That is why the common people loved him and the intelligentsia disliked him.” Churchill, in turn, considered the left, which arrogated to itself the right to judge who is right and who is wrong, arrogant; a "flaw" which, according to Colville, Churchill "could not bear in others, especially arrogance in an intellectual form". For this reason, Churchill felt "dislike and contempt for the intellectual wing of the Labor Party", which responded to him in kind. In 1940, left-wing intellectuals were hostile to Churchill and the common cause of Britain, which could not have been easier: to defeat Hitler.

Churchill had little interest in socio-political theories; he was a man of action: identify the problem, find the solution, and solve the problem. However, for a man of action, he was unusually thoughtful and well-read. While serving in India, as a young officer, he assembled a library that included Aristotle's Ethics and Politics, Plato's The Republic, Schopenhauer's writings on pessimism, Malthus's on population, and Darwin's Origin of Species. For Churchill, reading was a form of activity. Carried away by reading throughout his life - from the short stories of the writer S.S. Forester about the sea adventures of Horatio Hornblower to the works of Shakespeare and Macaulay - he was able to identify the main elements of complex intellectual systems, structures and theories. During the war, he once abruptly ended a conversation about socialism that had begun at dinner, recommending that those present read the entomological work of Maurice Maeterlinck, The Life of Termites. "Socialism," said Churchill, "will make our society look like a society of termites." And the issue was closed. Nearly a decade later, when the Labor Party nationalized one industry after another while in power and the rationing of meat, paper, petrol and even wood for furniture was still in place, Churchill remarked: "The socialist dream is no longer a utopia, but queues of atopia." .

At the end of June, Churchill's private secretary, Eric Seal, noted how much Churchill "had changed since becoming Prime Minister," how much he had become "calmer, less abrupt, less intemperate, less impulsive." This was not true. It was Seal's attitude to Churchill that changed, not Churchill himself. His character was fully formed at the turn of the century as an officer in the imperial army of Victoria, as a war correspondent, as a young member of parliament under the old queen. And he knew it. One evening, while listening to the recordings of The Mikado, he said that they brought back his youth and the Victorian era, "the eighty years that will take place in the history of our island along with the Antonine era." High-society Englishmen who came of age at the height of the empire had an unshakable faith in England, confidence in their own opinions, and the conviction that they knew the world and were its masters.

In many ways, Churchill remained a man of the nineteenth century, but by no means an ordinary man. He was one of those whom Henry James called in his documentary English Hours ("English hours") "people for whom the mechanism of convenience should work smoothly." Churchill's valet heated a glass of whiskey over a neatly cut candle to fully reveal the taste and aroma of the drink; his typists and secretaries kept candles ready for him to light a cigar. (Churchill favored Romeo y Julieta Cuban cigars). He never took the bus. Churchill used the London Underground for the only time in 1926 during a general strike. Clementine dropped him off at South Kensington, but Winston was unable to find his bearings, "walking around in circles looking for a way out, and eventually had to call for help." Churchill never carried cash, only at the casino and at the derby for an assistant to buy chips and bet on favorites.

Clementine, ten years younger than Winston and much more versed in domestic economics, kept house books; she did the shopping with the servants. Churchill was not in the habit of dealing with local merchants. This man, the embodiment of the spirit of England, never visited the charity bazaars and did not stand in line at the bakery for freshly baked buns. He never bought train tickets himself. As befits a man of his class and position, he never cooked a meal. Once he wanted to spend the weekend not in London, but in a country house in Chartwell, and Clementine reminded him that there were no kitchen staff. "I'll cook for myself," replied Churchill. - I can boil an egg. I've seen how they do it." When he was going to go somewhere, he always asked: “A coachman on a goat?” - which meant whether the driver was there. His bodyguard, Scotland Yard Inspector Walter Thompson, recalled that on those rare occasions when Churchill himself got behind the wheel, “he didn’t let anyone through, leaving dents in his own and other people’s cars. According to his theory, people were not supposed to be in his way.

To ride with Churchill, Thompson recalled, required "taking responsibility for one's own life into one's own hands." One day Churchill, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, turned down a side street in Croydon and saw a traffic jam caused by road repairs. The policeman signaled Churchill to stop, but Churchill ignored the constable's signal and drove onto the pavement and avoided the traffic jam. Thompson quite often had to intercept Churchill's steering wheel to prevent accidents. When Churchill, while driving, collided with the car of a certain unfortunate Londoner, he was not impressed, however, as well as frequent collisions with subordinates, members of parliament and foreign monarchs. Robert Boothby, one of Churchill's most devoted followers during the "desert years of loneliness", the period when Churchill fell from power, recalled that Churchill did not care at all what people thought of him, and did not care at all how they felt. "It was this surprising lack of interest and affection that may have helped him become a great leader." Churchill "was often heartless," Boothby recalled, and then there was the war, and he had no time for tenderness.

Churchill refused to accept the changed place names; for him, Istanbul remained Constantinople (“Although for fools, you can write “Istanbul” in brackets”). Ankara remained Angora (he told the Foreign Office that he refused to call Angora cats anything else). Beijing remained Beiping, Sebastopol remained Sevastopol, Iran remained Persia. In addition, he preferred to use obsolete military terms rather than modern ones; said "gun", not "artillery", "musket", not "rifle", "frigate", not "destroyer". When he drafted a telegram to Franklin Roosevelt asking him to donate or borrow fifty old frigates, Jock Colville advised replacing "frigates" with "destroyers" because the president might not understand what the prime minister meant. In his youth and youth, especially in the company of the officers of the 4th Hussars, resplendent in their blue and gold uniforms, with impeccable table manners, he developed a lifelong love of tradition, custom, sumptuous festivities, official ceremonies and observance of conventions. . He attached great importance to protocol. Churchill told cabinet members: “Gentlemen, we are engaged in a very serious matter. We must deal with it in the most serious way.” He demanded that they address him in correspondence as "Dear Prime Minister", and his answers began with the words "Dear Minister of Foreign Affairs", "Dear Minister of Finance", etc. He ended the letters "Sincerely yours" only in those cases when he believed that he was actually sincere.

His ambivalence about the war was shaped by Victorian militarism, when casualties were few and victories huge. He said: "The war, which was cruel and majestic, has become cruel and miserable." While in power, none of the British prime ministers, and even Wellington, did not wear a uniform. Churchill wore the blue uniform of an (honorary) RAF Commodore and regretted that British soldiers no longer wore red uniforms.

Later, everyone who surrounded him in 1940 remembered the amazing inexhaustible energy of the Old Man. He was overweight and fifteen years older than Hitler; he never played sports, and besides, "he worked," in the words of Kathleen Hill, one of Churchill's typists, "all the time, every waking moment." Edward Spears, his old friend from the First World War, who saw Churchill in the spring of 1940 after long years of separation, felt "surprise, such as I had never felt before, at his strength and energy. I knew that he fully possessed these qualities, but now he radiated strength and confidence, radiated as if he was their source. The young Jock Colville was struck by "Winston's indefatigable industry" and wrote that it was "good to work with someone who did not become discouraged when a hitherto unseen danger hung over the country. He has an indomitable spirit, and even if France and England fail, I believe he will continue the crusade with a detachment of privateers.

To the British, he was 100% English, the epitome of the English Bulldog, with a jutting chin, a cigar between his teeth, a top hat, declaring that "foreign names are for Englishmen, not English for foreign names" (he always pronounced the last s in the name of the city Calais - Calais) and a passion for meat. In a letter to the Minister of Food, he wrote: “Almost all those whom I knew who had certain kinks in regard to food, those who eat nuts, etc., died young after a long period of infirmity. The British soldier is much smarter than the scientists. He loves meat most of all... The way to lose the war is to try to force the British to go on a diet of milk, oatmeal, potatoes, etc., etc., washed down, on solemn occasions, with lime juice.

Churchill himself never followed any diets, ate what he wanted and rarely paid for it, and drank what he wanted, usually alcoholic drinks, and when he wanted, and he wanted to drink quite often. One morning, Harry Hopkins (Franklin Roosevelt's closest and most trusted adviser) entered Churchill's bedroom and saw the Prime Minister sitting in bed for breakfast in a pink dressing gown, and on a tray, "among other things, was a bottle of wine." When Hopkins was surprised that Churchill was drinking for breakfast, he replied that he did not recognize canned milk, but "had no deep inner prejudice against wine, and therefore opted for the latter." In addition, the Old Man told Hopkins that he does not pay attention to the advice of doctors, since they are usually erroneous, that he has lived for almost seven decades and is in excellent health and “he is not going to stop drinking alcoholic beverages, weak and strong, not now , not later.

During the war, he usually drank a glass of white wine at breakfast (instead of tea, since during the war there was only tinned milk, which he did not recognize). Then, during the morning, he drank heavily watered down whiskey and soda. At lunch I could drink port wine, always Pol Roger champagne (I preferred Hine, bottled in the last century), sometimes beer. After a short nap, he drank whiskey before dinner, preferring Johnnie Walker Red Label. During lunch he drank a lot of champagne, and at the end of the dinner - "a few servings", which did not prevent him from continuing to drink champagne. He was equally fond of food and drink. As his grandson, Winston S. Churchill, recalled, his grandfather's dinner began with madrilene (chilled, jelly-like meat broth) and minnows (small fish from the Norwegian Sea), followed by roast beef, thinly sliced, with Yorkshire pudding and fried potatoes, then came his favorite dessert bombe glacée (ice cream in the form of a ball). In the evening, when Churchill worked in his office before going to bed, the valet (during the war it was Frank Sawyers) poured him port wine, and at the final stage - heavily diluted whiskey. Any other person who drank so many alcoholic drinks a day would have been disgusted by food, but Churchill had an excellent appetite, and he almost never lost control of himself.

It is clear that he had a strong body that utilized alcohol extremely efficiently. His detractors and enemies hinted that he was a heavy drinker, and some, such as Hitler and Goebbels, openly declared that he was a "talker and drunkard." However, Robert E. Sherwood, Franklin Roosevelt's speechwriter and biographer, wrote that while his "consumption of alcohol ... continued fairly regularly while awake," it had "no visible effect on his health and mental performance." Those who suggest that Churchill was drugged by alcohol apparently never got into an argument with him late at night on any real issue ... ". Churchill, according to Sherwood, had a "unique" predilection and an "Olympic" aptitude for drinking.

Despite the long, constant, incredible consumption of alcohol, Churchill was not an alcoholic. But he was not an ordinary drunkard who consumed alcohol moderately, as follows from the memoirs and statements of his close friends and personal secretaries. His former employees spin tall tales that Churchill sipped heavily diluted whiskey all day, occasionally adding soda to his glass. This is true, but they are silent about other alcoholic drinks that Churchill drank throughout the day. Sometimes he went too far, as Jock Colville describes, who had to drag the Old Man to the bedroom at about three in the morning after excessive drinking. Both Colville and Churchill were having a good time when Churchill, about to sit down in a chair to take off his shoes, miscalculated and crashed to the floor, frantically waving his arms and legs. "The spitting image of Charlie Chaplin," said Churchill, trying to get back on his feet and find his balance. One day during the war, Churchill summoned Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, in the afternoon. Brooke, who often noted that Churchill was abusing alcohol, wrote in his diary that evening: "He was in a very bad condition, apparently from drinking a few glasses at dinner." Cases when Churchill got very drunk were extremely rare, but still there were.

Churchill did not go anywhere without a supply of whiskey, which was kept ready by his bodyguard or valet. When he visited the United States during Prohibition, he hid the whiskey (and his Webley revolver) while going through customs; thus, his love of drinking made him a Volstead Law breaker.

When Churchill was hit by a car in New York and suffered multiple fractures, he tricked his attending physician, Otto K. Pickardt, into writing a prescription for alcohol. Pickardt wrote that the treatment of injuries "requires the use of liquor, especially at meals." The quantity was not exactly specified, but not less than eight ounces. The British essayist Charles Percy Snow expounded on the paradox of Churchill's drunkenness, remarking that "Churchill cannot be an alcoholic, since no alcoholic is capable of drinking that much." One could, of course, argue that if he were an ideal of moderation—exercised more, drank less, behaved more prudently, smoked less cigars—he might have lived much longer than his allotted ninety years.

Churchill once summed up his relationship with drinking by saying, "I got more out of drinking than drinking out of me."

His lifestyle was beyond the power of the young. Every day at midnight or about midnight a courier arrived in Downing Street with the first issues of the morning papers—there were eight or nine of them. The old man looked through the newspapers before going to bed and sometimes, as Kathleen Hill later recalled, called the Daily Mail to find out about new developments in the story with a sequel.

On June 18, Colville wrote: "Winston was furious because the morning papers he liked to look at before going to bed had not arrived, and knocked over the whiskey and soda on the documents."

The prime minister's day began at eight in the morning, when, after five or six hours of sleep, he would ring the bell for breakfast: eggs, bacon, or ham, or smoked meat, sometimes a piece of flounder, all washed down with a glass of white wine or a glass of black Indian tea. Then the typist would come, accompanied by a stenographer, usually Mrs. Hill or Miss Watson, to whom he would dictate letters and documents, and she would quickly type. Typewriters were advertised as being "silent". But they weren't. The great man reacted nervously to every stroke of the key and expressed displeasure to the typists. He couldn't stand any noise (there wasn't even a ticking clock in his room) that pissed him off and interfered with his work with the box.

It is no exaggeration to say that the box invented by Churchill contained all the documents related to the war of Great Britain against the Third Reich. It contained numbered folders containing documents approximately 16 x 13 inches in size. The first folder, called "the top of the box," contained documents that Churchill's secretaries referred to as requiring "special urgency"; in the words of one of the secretaries, John Peck, what mattered was “not only the actual degree of importance, deadlines and the like, but partly the prime minister's personal interest in the matter at the time. So we had to imagine and understand what he was thinking, and he hoped that we could do it.” Below were folders containing telegrams from the War Office and the Foreign Office, reports from the Chiefs of Staff (after they had been reviewed by General Ismay), answers to questions related to various aspects of British life that he raised - food supplies, crop yields, railway capacity, coal production. Nothing escaped his attention.

The keys to the box were held by Churchill's private secretaries, John Peck, Eric Seal, John Colville and John Martin. There was another buff box. The key to it was kept only by Churchill. This box contained the orders of the German command - first the Luftwaffe, later the Wehrmacht and the SS, and even later - the commander of the submarine fleet, Admiral Karl Dönitz, previously deciphered.

In the early days of the war, Polish intelligence officers managed to obtain a German cipher machine; Polish mathematicians studied the machine and smuggled a copy of it into Britain. British cryptographers working at Bletchley Park, a copper-roofed, red-brick, white-trimmed Victorian mansion north of London, called the machine "enigma". The enemy changed the cipher every day, and every day the Bletchley ciphers tried to break it, often to no avail. However, they managed to decipher quite a lot of messages quite often, which allowed Churchill to look into the plans of the German command (except for the plans of the German submarine fleet, which used a more sophisticated cipher machine). The wizards of Bletchley were mostly bearded, long-haired, dirty-nailed, unkempt young men. When he first saw them, the prime minister said to their leader, "Menzies, when I told you to stop at nothing, I didn't want you to take me so literally."

From the very beginning, Churchill warned the Secretary of the War Cabinet that "all instructions emanating from me are in writing and must be confirmed in writing upon receipt." Any verbal order is void. At first glance, the requirement seems insignificant, but it is not: such a state of affairs excluded confusion in the work that subordinates could allow due to distortion or misunderstanding of the order of the Prime Minister. The volume of paperwork confirmed the validity of Churchill's requirement that any document submitted to him, even a technical report on changes in tank production, should take up no more than one sheet of paper. During a meeting at the Admiralty, he once said: "This report, by virtue of its length, saved itself from critical analysis." But, in turn, it contributed to an increase in the volume of documents marked: “To do today”, “Report in 3 days”. Churchill's notes were called "Churchill's requests" because many of them began with the words: "Please tell me ..." or "Please explain ...".

Jacob Yen - Assistant War Cabinet Secretary (1939-1945), handled much of Churchill's war correspondence. At the end of the war he was promoted to lieutenant general. (Author's note)

John Wheeler-Bennett, Action This Day: Working with Churchill (London, 1968), 140; Cv/3, 267, 387; Kay Halle, Irrepressible Churchill: Stories, Sayings and Impressions of Sir Winston Churchill (London, 1985), 171.

Wheeler-Bennett, Action, 53–56; PFR/Winston S. Churchill, 5/04 ("summer sunshine"); GILBERT 6, 1214-15 (recollection of Elizabeth Layton).

The most famous politician in England of modern times, Winston Churchill, was fond of repeating: “My tastes are extremely simple. I only like the best." This principle was fully extended to food, which had its consequences: with an unheroic growth of 1 meter 70 centimeters, Churchill reached a weight of 95 kilograms in his mature years. Churchill never exhausted himself with gymnastics, although in his youth he was a good fencer and rider; but throughout his life he carried the love of tasty and plentiful food. England knows not so many gourmets; perhaps the most famous was King Henry the Eighth, who for this reason reached an absolutely impossible size, which brought him to his grave ahead of time. On the contrary, Churchill, being a very overweight man, lived a long and generally healthy life, refuting all ideas about proper nutrition. Here is a typical breakfast of the British Prime Minister, which he consumed all alone, so that no one, not even his beloved wife Clementine, would prevent him from enjoying the first meal of the day.

So, Churchill's breakfast began with a melon, followed by an omelette or scrambled eggs and bacon. At this, the average person will consider that breakfast has already taken place, but such was not the descendant of the family of the Dukes of Marlborough. Having eaten the first course of courses, he proceeded to a mutton chop or asked for a chicken leg. The breakfast was completed with coffee with milk, which was served with toast with jam.

The truly gastronomic tastes of Winston Churchill were revealed during lunch and dinner, i.e., respectively, lunch and dinner in our opinion. Dinner began with oysters, a distinctly French habit that Churchill had become addicted to during his frequent vacations, which he usually spent in the south of France. This was followed by Savoy soup - a vegetable soup with potatoes and Savoy cabbage, flavored with crushed lard or bacon. Only after that came the turn of ... appetizers, in which our gourmet was quite unpretentious, preferring a can of sardines to some intricate pickles. Indeed, the main delights were yet to come. It can be said that Churchill's favorite dish was flounder fillet wrapped in smoked salmon, with a side dish of shrimp in garlic sauce.

After the fish dish, the meat dish was certainly served. It was quite often a venison roast stuffed with foie gras and truffle sauce - also, as you understand, not an English specialty, but a tribute to traditional French cuisine.

Actually English cuisine in the diet of the Prime Minister was represented not so much by dishes as by products. First of all, it was Churchill's favorite cheese - the blue English Stilton cheese. Let there be five thousand excellent cheeses in France; the British are proud of one, and the Stilton is worth it. Cheese at the prime minister's table was also served with a typical English drink, port wine, that is, Portuguese wine, which the subjects of the British crown taught how to make according to the own tastes of the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula. After vintage port came the turn of cake, ice cream and coffee with brandy. Modern nutritionists and doctors would be horrified to learn that Winston Churchill necessarily washed down all these dishes of considerable calorie content with a jug of heavy cream, to which he was a great hunter and which he especially liked to treat guests at the table. The meal ended with the host asking, "Does anyone else want cream?"

At bedtime, this cheerful man did not drink boring kefir, but a strong broth made from meat or game.

Even in a nightmare, one cannot imagine Churchill as a vegetarian. Few, however, knew that the Prime Minister experienced almost physical pain when a cow or a pig had to be slaughtered on his farm. One day he said to his wife, pointing to a roast goose pictured reclining on a silver platter: “Please cut it yourself. He was my friend."

Churchill's diet

In the world, Churchill had a persistent reputation as a glutton and drunkard. Gluttony was undoubtedly one of Winston's sins, and he was not indifferent to alcohol, as well as to Havana cigars.

However, he was neither a glutton, nor a malicious smoker (cigars are still safer than cigarettes), nor an alcoholic, otherwise he would hardly have lived to be 90 years old. Gastronomic pleasures were for him one of the main joys in life. Higher were for him the joys of political struggle. He did not adhere to any diets, he always ate tasty, but unhealthy food. Winston stated: “In my youth I made it a rule not to drink a drop of alcohol before dinner. Now that I'm older, I keep the rule not to drink a drop of alcohol before breakfast.

Churchill began the day with a hearty breakfast, and preferred to eat in splendid isolation. Winston was convinced that no family union could withstand such a test as joint breakfasts: “My wife and I tried to have breakfast together two or three times in 40 years of marriage, but it turned out to be unbearable, and we had to stop it.” The breakfast menu, which Churchill was often served in bed, usually consisted of melon, scrambled eggs or scrambled eggs and bacon, chop or chicken leg, toast with jam and coffee with milk.

By lunch, the main meal of the day, the British prime minister was much more serious. He considered such a dinner to be worthy, when at first it was possible to eat deliciously, and then tastefully discuss what was eaten, and “after the good food has been comprehensively dismantled, you just need to talk about a pleasant topic. The main condition is that I have to lead the conversation. Dinner consisted of savoy soup and oysters, followed by appetizers, followed by a fillet of flounder wrapped in smoked salmon, garnished with shrimp and garlic sauce. Next came the venison roast stuffed with foie gras and truffle sauce. And finally, Stilton cheese, cake or ice cream and coffee with brandy and a jug of cream. At dinner, Churchill could also taste traditional English dishes - game, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, although he preferred French cuisine more. He also loved raw oysters and Petite Marmite yeast paste. In the summer of 1915, he wrote to his farm brother, Ho Jack, that there was everything that a normal life required: "A hot bath, cold champagne, fresh peas and old cognac." Most of all, Churchill liked Pol Roger champagne. He also drank port wine, cognac and brandy and whiskey with pleasure. For dinner, Winston only drank consomme - a strong broth made from meat or game, and before going to bed, he ate several sandwiches, washed down with the same champagne.

At dinner, conversations usually revolved around current political issues, with Churchill himself speaking for the most part. When one day Randolph's son, in his opinion, spoke too long, his father tried to interrupt him with the words: "Don't interrupt me when I try to interrupt you."

Churchill's talkativeness has become proverbial. His wife advised the Prime Minister's friends and colleagues: “Whatever you want to say, give it to him in writing. He does not listen at all or does not want to listen when he thinks about something of his own. But Winston will always consider everything that is written on paper.

In June 1953, Churchill suffered a stroke. The left side of the body was paralyzed and speech was difficult. A few weeks after the strike, Cabinet Secretary Lord Normanbrook visited Churchill. He recalled: “John Colville and I dined with the prime minister, who was in a wheelchair. After dinner, Winston said, "Now I want to get on my own feet."

We began to dissuade him, but Winston did not want to listen to us. He kept repeating, "I want to get up and do it!"

Realizing that it would not be possible to convince the prime minister, we decided to stand behind the stroller in order to catch him in case of a fall. Noticing this, he waved his cane at us and said sharply: “Step back, I want to stand up on my own!”

Then he put his feet on the floor, grabbed the handles of the wheelchair and with great effort, so that even drops of sweat appeared on his forehead, he lifted himself up. After demonstrating to us that he was able to do this, Winston got back into the carriage, smiled and lit a cigar. Possessing tremendous vitality and willpower, Churchill managed to recover from the blow and already in October spoke to the public. And on November 30, he celebrated his 80th birthday on a grand scale. On the eve of this anniversary, Winston confessed to Charles Wilson: “Life no longer seems interesting and attractive to me. There's nothing fun about her anymore. People are either base or too stupid to cope with the new challenges of the modern world.” At that moment, Winston realized that it was time for him to leave the political arena. On December 10, 1953, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, primarily for his six-volume war memoirs, with Swedish academics preferring him to Ernest Hemingway.

Those who claim that during his second term as prime minister Churchill was too decrepit physically to adequately fulfill his duties are wrong. As the British historian Henry Pelling rightly notes, while Churchill was the owner of the residence on Downing Street, it was he who "set the government in motion", and his "carefully considered speeches determined the political course." In one of his speeches in the House of Commons as Prime Minister, Churchill declared: “Perhaps the day will come when tolerance and love of neighbor, justice and freedom will triumph, then the suffering generations will find peace, having overcome and rid themselves of all the misfortunes that darken our Existence. Until then, don’t give up, don’t give in to discouragement, and never despair!”

When Churchill decided to retire in April 1955 and resigned, the Queen offered him a ducal title. Winston told his secretary John Colville: “You know, during my conversation with Queen Elizabeth, the incredible happened. She invited me to become a duke.

"And what did you say?" the secretary asked.

“I was ready to agree. I was so touched by her beauty, charm and kindness that at first I decided to accept this offer. But then I realized that I must die with the name given to me at birth - Winston Churchill.