Valuable input. Thanks very much. On Jul 21, 2015 11:45 AM, "Richard M. Langworth" <[email protected]> wrote:
> To paraphrase P.T. Barnum, no one ever lost money overestimating the > research of Martin Gilbert. > > Ever since the producers of "The Wilderness Years" took liberties by > suggesting Churchill's key 1930s informant, Ralph Wigram, was a suicide, it > has been broadly accepted as fact. Indeed recently another myth was layered > on to this one: that Ralph's parents didn't attend his funeral in Sussex > because suicide was proscribed by the Church. > > Hugh Axton put that canard to rest in *Finest Hour* 163 page 62: "On the > morning of his funeral Wigram's parents were attending a memorial service > for him at Landkey Parish Church near Barnstaple, Devon. Ralph was > brought up in the area and many family friends attended who could not > have journeyed to Sussex and returned home at short notice in winter." > > William Manchester was a peerless stylist but had an unfortunate tic about > the seamy and judgmental (there is nothing to suggest Churchill was, as he > says, "less than generous" toward Wigram, in fact quite the opposite). And > his footnotes are often, as in this case, a mare's nest. > > On Wigram in *The Last Lion, v*ol. 2, *Alone 1932-1940 *(UK title *The > Caged Lion*) Manchester (193) quotes the biographer Henry Pelling: > "depression overtook him and he committed suicide." But Manchester's > footnote leads not to Pelling's *Churchill* (1974) but to Vansittart's *The > Mist Procession,* Churchill's *The Gathering Storm* and Gilbert's *The > Wilderness Years—*none of which contain any reference to suicide. > > In Pelling's book the comment is footnoted *The Gathering Storm* pages 73 > and 178 (English edition 1948). But Wigram is not mentioned there. > Churchill does recount Wigram's death (155) but does not call it a suicide. > Indeed in Gilbert's document volume we find WSC saying to his wife that > Ralph "died in his wife's arms," which doesn't strike one as likely in the > case of suicides. > > So the question is, where did Pelling get this impression? Until a valid > source is offered, the answer to anyone spouting this old story is the > tried and true one: "Prove it." > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "ChurchillChat" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ChurchillChat" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
