No More Champagne: Churchill and His Money

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Picador, Nov 3, 2015 - Biography & Autobiography - 448 pages

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.

 

Contents

Introduction
1
Notes to the Reader
7
Prelude
9
The Churchills and Jeromes
11
Spendthrift Parents 187594
24
Distant Army Duty 18959
37
The Worlds HighestPaid War Correspondent 18991900
49
Bachelor Author MP 19005
63
Films Columns and Debts 19357
239
Bracken and Partner to the Rescue 19378
252
Struggling with History 19389
266
Early Burdens of War 193941
281
Film Turns the Tide 19425
298
Minting the Memoirs 19456
316
Selling the Memoirs 19468
333
Racing to the Finish 194850
348

Junior Minister and Marriage 19068
77
The HMS Enchantress Years 190914
91
The Legacy of War 191418
106
A Timely Train Crash 191821
120
A Country Seat at Last 19212
134
Out of Office 19234
148
Chancellor under Pressure 19258
164
Making and Losing a New World Fortune 19289
180
A Strategy for Survival 19301
196
Trading Futures 19323
210
Summoning More Ghosts 19345
225
Postwar Prime Minister 19515
365
A Third and Final Retirement 19557
381
Sunset 195865
391
Epilogue
405
Acknowledgements
414
Sources
419
Bibliography
422
Biographical Notes
431
Reference Notes
439
Index
520
Copyright

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About the author (2015)

David Lough studied history at Oxford under Richard Cobb and Theodore Zeldin. After a career in financial markets, he founded a business that advises families on looking after their investments, tax affairs and estates. No More Champagne is his first book.

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