PERSONAL COLUMN
A very personal matter
ROBERT RHODES JAMES
Writing a book is a very personal and intimate affair. For a long period—amount- ing in most cases to several years—the pro- ject is the personal companion of the author, never far away from his thoughts, and con- stantly obtruding itself upon his mind even when he is engaged on other matters. There are, of course, authors who from the outset see their work solely in terms of its final reception, and who set out with a particu- lar readership in mind, but in my case the project itself has always been the dominant factor, to the point that I am very doubt- ful that any would have been published at all but for financial reasons.
In these circumstances, publication day has always been for me an occasion nct of excite- ment but of depression. It is not unlike the experience of seeing one's small child setting out for school for the first time, a feeling of melancholy that something so close to oneself, something which one has come to regard as so preciously private, is now to be exposed to strangers and to become pub- lic property.
For several reasons, reviews have never held much interest for me. In the first place, such a long period elapses between comple- tion of a book and its publication that my interests have moved on. In the second, the standard of serious reviewing in this country is now so dismal that it is only relatively occasionally that one learns something of value. My most severe and valued critic is my former history master, who always writes at great length and with much shrewdness.
But I think that the most significant cause of my indifference to reviews lies in the sadness of the realisation that one's private project, one's constant companion and friend for so long, is now no longer private. Some authors feel this so intensely that their reactions to hostile reviews are violent and bitter, I cannot obliterate from my memory the occasion on which a very famous author indeed literally fainted when he read the comments of a severe critic on his latest book. Perhaps I do not anger so quickly, but I think that the principal reason is an overwhelming gloom at the public exposure of something so personal.
I do not recall these emotions ever being quite so strong as they have been of late, on the occasion of the publication of my ex-
tended essay on Sir Winston Churchill's career up to 1939 (Churchill: A Study in Failure, 1900-1939). This study began a long
time ago, in fact when I was working on my biography of Lord Randolph Churchill, which was published in 1959. I found myself musing over the similarities between their careers and their personalities, and started vaguely posing to myself two hypotheses: would Lord Randolph have 'come back' after his disastrous resignation of December 1886 if his health had not collapsed? and what would have been the verdict of history if his son had died in the late 1930s? I should perhaps add that at that time I had—and in some respects I still have—a greater admira- tion for Lord Randolph's talents than for those of his son, a perverse view, no doubt, but one shared by Rosebery and Asquith, among others. I should emphasise the word talents; in other terms. and particularly strength of character, the son was a better man than the father. It would be foolish to push the comparisons between the two men much further, but the musings which began when I was an undergraduate engaged on my first book slowly developed over the next five years.
This germination process is a strange thing. It was when I was working on Lord Randolph Churchill that I began to be fascinated by his friend Rosebery; from the age of thirteen, when I stumbled upon the official history of the Gallipoli campaign by C. F. Aspinall-Oglander, I was ensnared by that subject. A tentative letter to the present Earl of Rosebery resulted in an invitation to make use of his father's private unpub- lished papers; a chance conversation in the House of Commons with Mr Brian Bats-
ford, MP, led to my book on Gallipoli. In the case of Churchill it was Mr David Astor, again quite fortuitously, who acted as the catalyst putting into action a project which has been long in development.
It is worth emphasising that to me, and indeed to almost everyone under forty, Churchill is very much an historical figure, whereas to older people he is a contempor- ary personality. I met him, I heard him speak, I was present on that warm summer afternoon when he left the House of Com- mons for the last time, departing from a quarter-full House drowsily listening to the calm tones of Mr Kenneth Robinson speak- ing on the family doctor service. Indeed, it was I who opened the great door for Sir Win- ston—reflecting at the time that it was a curious coincidence that the second biogra- pher of Lord Randolph should perform such a service for the first. Yet, whenever I beheld him I could not escape a feeling of unreality that this man had heard Gladstone winding up the second reading debate on the Second Home Rule Bill in 1893, had been a senior Cabinet Minister long before the 1914-18 war, and had been to me as a child what Lord Salisbury had been once to him, 'Prime Minister since God knew when'.
But—why was it that he had had to wait so long? Why had he been out of office for the entire decade before the second world war? Why was it that a senior army officer had written in 1936, when Churchill was passed over by Baldwin as Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence, 'thank God it wasn't Winston Churchill'? Pondering on these, and many other questions, I thus embarked, without at the time being fully conscious of the fact, on a voyage of dis- covery, the results of which are now public, yet which is not complete; for it still re- mains. to me. a fascinating mystery.
It now appears that, in the eyes of some, I have committed an outrage hardly less awful than spitting at the Queen or sneering at the Brigade of Guards. Other reactions, of the 'about-time-someone-had-the-guts-to- tell-the-truth' variety, have been if anything even more dispiriting. Both might have been anticinated. particularly from those who have not taken the trouble to read the book. What was less foreseeable was criticism about the timing. Most of the events I have attempted to analyse took place long before I was born, and for which the official records are freely available: they form part—and an important part—of the history of the early twentieth century. Why, then, should there be dismay .., and surprise that, in 1970, a young historian should write of events which took place more than a quarter of a century ago?
I do not think that the answer lies in a general feeling that Sir Winston Churchill is beyond the reach of history, and that it is only fit to laud him—although it is clear that this view is held in some quarters. Per- haps it is that a nation which has been through so many traumas since 1940 must cling to some constant factors, and does not wish to have its prejudices and myths ques- tioned. If this is indeed so, then the prospects for our national survival are not encouraging. But my private musings, now public pro- perty, do not involve any denigration of Churchill. They are an attempt to answer some difficult and important questions. He belongs to that rare species of political figure —the man who grows in stature and fascina- tion the more he is examined. He has noth- ing to fear from objective study; the most severe peril to his reputation is the unthinking adulation which will inevitably provoke a distorted counter-reaction. If I were to be asked to describe my book in a phrase I would choose that of Rosebery on Parker's biography of Peel: 'Such a book as this could only be written of one of the Princes of Mankind'.
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