Footballers’ wives and girlfriends, pop stars’ and politicians’ sons and daughters, are gilded by proximity to the golden ones, often regardless of their own intrinsic talent (or lack of it). It is unusual to find this phenomenon operating upwards through the generations, however. Jennie Churchill, despite her great beauty, charisma, notorious marriages, and reputed 200 lovers, would not merit a page in the history books were it not for the place deservedly reserved there for her son.
Anne Sebba dutifully makes a case for Lady Randolph Churchill’s achievements in her own right, but they do not exceed those of a legion of other contemporary politicians’ wives or society hostesses. There is a wealth of evidence testifying to the extraordinary animal magnestism she exerted upon the opposite sex (she was described as having ‘more of the panther than of the woman in her look’), and she would have been remembered for many years as a great beauty and object of desire, but her greatest claim to fame lies in being Winston’s mother and it is in this role that this exhaustive biography comes most vibrantly to life.
Regarding Jennie’s stewardship of Winston’s early life Sebba is even-handed, mitigating Jennie’s maternal failings by citing the time and energy taken up by her indisputable contributions to her husband’s political career, and — is this a mitigating factor? — her always busy extra-marital love-life.
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