Like a Delinquent Dunderhead

WINSTON S. CHURCHILL by Randolph S. Churchill. 614 pages. Houghfon Mifflin. $10.

"Gadzooks, what a long way that seems to take one back!" Winston Churchill, in a letter to his mother, was musing on the long reign of Queen Victoria and her death in 1901. The reader may well say "gadzooks" about the first volume of the life of Churchill by his son Randolph, which goes back even farther. Churchill, then 26, missed Queen Victoria's funeral (he was in Winnipeg winding up a profitable lecture tour); there would not be a greater one in London until his own death 64 years later.

Little is unknown about the private life of the most famous public man of modern times. It may be wondered how even his son could add much to the animated image of the great man. Yet Randolph's biography succeeds. It is not just another item in the hefty shelf of Churchill memorabilia, and it is more than a son's pious exercise. Randolph, 55, is able to suppress his own rather gaudy personality, intrudes into the narrative only once or twice, and then only with the purpose of contrasting the generous treatment he received at the hands of his father with the harsh and demanding rule that Lord Randolph imposed upon the boy Winston. This is not the Churchill who was frustrated at Yalta but the Churchill who was flogged for stealing sugar from the pantry at his prep school, the Churchill who collected toy soldiers (at a few shillings a platoon).

Olympian Ultimatums. In Victorian times, the game of Fathers & Sons was a ruthless affair. Lord Randolph, Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1886, was type and exemplar of a caste--the British aristocracy, whose members had pride, privilege, titles to mark them off from lesser men, retinues of servants and the habit of ruling a vast household and an empire. They exacted a fearful price of admission from their heirs; the initiation rites were as painful as and more prolonged than those for an Apache brave. Before the little lordlings could dish it out, they had to learn to take it.

Lord Randolph, a genial wit to his public, was pretty much an ogre to his son. He believed that he had been cursed with a backward boy and treated Winston like a delinquent dunderhead. He hardly condescended to correspond directly with his son, and communicated his bleak Olympian ultimatums on Winston's tardiness, low school marks and other failures, through Lady Randolph. He did not even let little Winny know that he himself had gone to Eton (as, explains Etonian Randolph, had six generations of Churchills), and contemptuously shoved his unsatisfactory son into Harrow.

Harum-Scarum. Later he took more interest, especially as Winston was becoming more expensive. Winston had scraped into Sandhurst but only into the cavalry, which was not expected to have as much brains as the infantry. Horses and the higher style of living required of a cavalry cadet would cost Lord Randolph an extra -L-200 a year. Winston, high-spirited as always, had the nerve to express pleasure at his feat in getting into Sandhurst at all. His reward was a letter from his imperious papa which must rank as one of the nastiest ever written by a father to a son. After scolding Winston for his "slovenly happy-go-lucky harum-scarum style of work for which you have always been distinguished at your different schools," Lord Randolph added:

"Do not think I am going to take the trouble of writing long letters to you after every folly and failure. You need not trouble to write, as I no longer attach the slightest weight to anything you may say about your own acquirements & exploits. If you cannot prevent yourself from leading the idle and unprofit able life you have had during your schooldays & later months, you will become a mere social wastrel, one of the hundreds of the public school failures, and you will degenerate into a shabby, unhappy & futile existence."

Winston's own reply was a model of filial piety: "Thank you very much for writing to me. I am very sorry indeed that I have done so badly. Ever your loving son Winston S. Churchill. P.S. Excuse smudge, etc. as pens and blotting paper are awfully bad." It was not ironically intended. His real reply came later with his biographical apologia for his father, written in 1905. Lord Randolph would be incredulous if he knew that the only way anyone today remembers his name is because his doltish son wrote a book about him.

"I'm Bankrupt." Much of Winston's story is told in his letters to his mother. It would be nice to say that he had better luck in her than in his father. It was she who was lucky. A selfish great lady of fashion, a splendid horsewoman and a spendthrift, she had little time for her son until, from the evidence, her son taught her how to be a mother as well.

He begins with demands for more pocket money: at eleven, "I am bankrupt"; at 13, "the Exchequer would bear replenishing." He progresses to demand assistance in getting jobs with the army, the press and in politics. She had great influence in that oligarchical Victorian age, and Winston exploited it to the limit, getting "beloved Mama" to mention at dinner to the head of the army that Winston would like such and such a job. He wrote from school imploring (in vain) that she put herself out to enable him to be home for Christmas. Mama was pretty cool about it, and replied that she would not read more than the first page of his letter as "the style does not please me."

It was almost more than Winston could take. Next day he wrote:

"Never would I have believed that you would have been so unkind. I can't tell you how wretched you have made me feel--instead of doing everything to make me happy you go and cut the ground away from under my feet like that. Oh my Mummy! I am more unhappy than I can possibly say. Your unkindness has relieved me however from all feelings of duty. I too can forget. Darling Mama if you want me to do anything for you, especially so great a sacrifice don't be cruel to

Your loving son

Winny."

Glorious Ending. The sad story of a Victorian upbringing has been told many times in the rich literature of English diatribe against parents, such as Samuel Butler's The Way of All Flesh and Edmund Gosse's Father and Son. Here, the sad story has not only a happy but a glorious ending. Miraculously, little Winny became Winston Churchill. When, in 1932, Randolph first had the notion of writing his father's biography, he was offered -L-450 in advance royalties. In a telegram, Winston "deprecated" the "premature attempt" as improvident. "Just wait and you will make thousands instead of hundreds." As usual, the old man was right about money and timing. For once he understated things. Randolph may well make a million. The London Daily Telegraph has paid -L-200,000 for first serial rights, the British publishers have advance orders for 100,000 copies, and in the U.S., with the Literary Guild selection in the bag, preliminary sales are expected to reach 250,000 copies at the outset. And this book, taking Winston to age 26, is only Volume 1; four more installments are in prospect.

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