Accomplished biographer Rachel Trethewey draws upon unpublished family letters from the Churchill archives to bring Winston and Clementine’s daughters out of the shadows and tell their remarkable stories for the first time.
Diana, Sarah, Marigold and Mary were well-connected, beautiful, and bright. In a normal family they would have led a charmed life. But they were the daughters of Winston and Clementine Churchill and they did not have a simple upbringing,
Sarah was glamorous and stubborn, Diana was diffident and difficult, and Mary was determined and dependable. They were surrounded by larger-than-life characters, which often saw them overlooked.
Marigold died very young, but her three sisters lived lives full of passion, drama, and tragedy. The Churchill Girls is a story about family, their lives lived in the complex dynamics of the twentieth century.
Rachel and I talked before the event and discovered our shared love of Sarah’s poetry. The poems look simple but they have deep emotional layers.
A Friend
A friend is someone neither to be leant on
Nor lent.
Lightly – that is
Purer than ‘Love’ itself
For, so much of ‘Love’ we know
Is Pride –
So much of Friendship –
Love.
Image Credits: kt bruce .