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Working with Winston: The Unsung Women Behind Britain's Greatest Statesman by [Cita Stelzer, Randolph Churchill]

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Cita Stelzer

Working with Winston: The Unsung Women Behind Britain's Greatest Statesman Kindle Edition

by Cita Stelzer (Author), Randolph Churchill (Foreword) Format: Kindle Edition

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An original and insightful look at Winston Churchill through the eyes of those who knew him best—the women who worked with him throughout his life.

All politicians adopt a public persona that they believe contributes to electoral success. Though they might reflect the character of the politician, they reveal only a part of the man. What we know less about are the characteristics that Winston Churchill revealed when he was out of the public eye.

Much has been written about Churchill, and of the important world leaders, politicians, high-ranking military personnel with whom he interacted. But Churchill also required a vast staff to maintain the intense pace at which he worked. When Churchill strode the world stage, the secretarial and support staff positions were inevitably filled by women. Though extraordinarily talented and valuable to Churchill and his work, these women remain unheralded. He was not an easy employer. He was intimidating, with never-ending demands who would impose his relentless and demanding schedules on those around him. And yet these women were devoted to him, though there were times in his political career in which he was decidedly unpopular. Many reflect upon their years working for him as the best years of their lives.

Intelligent and hard-working, these women were far from sycophants. Just as Churchill was no ordinary Prime Minister, these women were not ordinary secretaries. Indeed, in today’s terms their titles would be much grander, as their work encompassed ultra-secret documents and decrypting and reading enemy codes.

A treasure trove of insight and research, Working with Winston reveals the man behind the statesman and as well as brings long-overdue recognition to the “hidden army” that, like Churchill, was never off-duty.

Print length

393 pages
Language

English
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Publisher

Pegasus Books
Publication date

May 14, 2019
File size

49887 KB
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Cita Stelzer served as special aide to Mayor John Lindsay and to Governor Hugh Carey before joining an economic consulting firm. She is an advisor to the Churchill Archives Centre at Churchill College, Cambridge; a member of the Board of Advisers of the International Churchill Society; and a former trustee of Wigmore Hall. Her prior publications, Dinner with Churchill and Working with Winston, are both available from Pegasus Books. She lives near Phoenix, Arizona.

Randolph Churchill is the great-grandson of Sir Winston Churchill. After attending Harrow, Randolph served in the Royal Navy and subsequently attended Buckingham University. He is a Trustee of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, Honorary Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, Director of the Armed Services Charities Advisory Company, and Trustee of the Churchill Centre in both the United States and United Kingdom. A regular speaker at Churchill conferences and dinners, Randolph and his wife have four children and live close to Sir Winston's home at Chartwell in Kent.

Review

"Working with Winston is a wonderful tour behind the scenes of history and its vignettes portray a very human and attractive man." ― Times (London)

"Stelzer offers a unique and specific perspective by providing biographical profiles of the group of young women who played a great service to the British war effort by serving as secretaries and typists working closely with Churchill in his day-to-day preoccupations as he directed the war effort. It is truly a pleasure to meet these dedicated women and to herald the arrival of a new, worthwhile, lens-widening addition to the shelf of Churchill biographies." ― Booklist

"They say that no man is a hero to his valet. The people who knew Winston Churchill most intimately outside his own family—his secretaries and personal assistants—did think him a hero. Cita Stelzer explains why and floods fresh light on the man and his working practices.... A well-researched, well-written and hugely enjoyable book, which I highly recommend." -- Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking With Destiny

"Cita Stelzer has found an intimate way to reveal the secrets of this great man's life with exceptional skill and flair, giving voice to the silent army the helped him to lead the nation." -- Sarah Baxter, Deputy Editor of the Sunday Times (London)

"Stelzer offers up a revealing behind-the-scenes view of Winston Churchill. Churchill devotees will delight in yet another view of the British leader." ― Publishers Weekly

"A gripping read that tells the story of the extraordinary women, and one man, who were Churchill's secretaries. Out of their fascinating personal accounts emerges a brilliantly original and at times deeply touching account of Winston in all his multiple moods, colours and breath-taking accomplishment." -- Julia Boyd, author of Travelers in the Third Reich

"A sure bet for Churchill aficionados. Readers interested in the role of women’s work during World War II might also find much intriguing information here." ― Library Journal

"An absorbing, intriguing, and utterly fascinating study of the women who supported Churchill during the most challenging of his endeavors, from leading—and inspiring—Britain and the west during WWII to writing innumerable speeches and books of enormous importance on the most consequential political, historical, and social issues of Churchill's time. A masterful work!" -- General David Petraeus (US Army, Ret.), former commander of coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and US Central Command, and former Director of the CIA

"In his darkest hours Winston Churchill depended on his supporting cast: those who took down his words, managed his affairs, and provided the machinery to channel his prodigious energy to maximum effect. They were far more than secretaries, and Cita Stelzer has done us a great service in bringing them out of the shadows and putting them centre stage." -- Allen Packwood, Director of the Churchill Archives, Churchill College, Cambridge

"That was what it was like working for Churchill, as Cita Stelzer’s glorious new book, weaving together first-hand recollections by his secretaries, shows. You'd be summoned to the Presence—and if it was the morning, he'd be sitting in bed in his brocade dressing-gown, lighting his cigar from a candle, with his cat as a hot-water bottle, all nine daily papers strewn over the eiderdown and a whisky and soda to take him through to lunchtime." ― Daily Mail --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07GS5YC3J
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pegasus Books (May 14, 2019)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 14, 2019
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 49887 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 393 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #1,640,293 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #616 in 20th Century History of the UK
- #1,936 in Biographies of Presidents & Heads of State (Kindle Store)
- #4,335 in US Presidents

Customer Reviews:
43 ratings

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Cita Stelzer

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Cita Stelzer received a BA degree from Barnard College, with a major in history, worked in educational publishing, and has been a stringer for the Financial Times. She founded a public relations firm in New York City, and served as special aide to Mayor John Lindsay and to Governor Hugh Carey, before joining an economic consulting firm specializing in regulatory policy.

She is an Advisor to the Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge, a member of the Board of Advisers of the International Churchill Society, a former Trustee of Wigmore Hall, the venerable chamber music venue in London, and has been a member of the Board of Trustees and Vice Chairman of the Aspen Musical Festival and School. Her first book, Dinner with Churchill: Policy-Making at the Dinner Table, was published in 2011.

Why I wrote Dinner with Churchill: Policy-Making at the Dinner Table

By Cita Stelzer

In the course of many years spent reading biographies of and books about Winston Churchill I realized that I had learned little about how this man planned the meals at which he had accomplished so much. After all, most of the deals that were struck at the famous international conferences held during WWII were made at or facilitated by dinners at which the leaders were more relaxed than at formal sessions.

So I began digging into the Churchill Archives at Churchill College, Cambridge. Not only did I find menus for the more famous dinners with Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, and Stalin. But there were details of Churchill careful setting of the stages for dinners with his generals, political friends and foes, leading academics and a host of other interesting people. In addition, I found bills for dinners at Claridges, the Ritz and The Savoy, with guests lists, amended wine selections, letters from Churchill and his staff complaining about over-billing, letters from Churchill thanking friends for the gifts of foods and wines, all in the Archives as set out in my book.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

43 global ratings

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Frank

Nothing new but still a good read.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 3, 2021

Verified Purchase

A nice read. It's a book of the reminiscences of the secretaries that worked for Winston Churchill and what it was like working for him. Nothing earth shattering or surprising here. Pretty much what we already know and that is it can be somewhat demanding working for someone who was demanding of himself as well.

One person found this helpful

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Homeporter

A Fascinating Glimpse of Winston's Women Workers

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 15, 2019

Verified Purchase

Cita has written another fascinating book about Winston Churchill. I loved her first book, Dinner with Churchill. Working with Winston gives us yet another perspective on the greatest leader and statesman of the twentieth century. Both books are well researched and well written. I met Grace Hamblin in 1987 and I learned a great deal more about her in Cita's authoritative work. It was no simple task working for Churchill. Although he was always harder on himself, he was a demanding taskmaster! Yet he earned their respect and won their love and affection for him.

4 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

Marvelous insight into the personality of Winston Churchill.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 22, 2020

Verified Purchase

I enjoyed the intimacy of the associations of these individuals with one of the greatest leaders in history.

One person found this helpful

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Þorsteinn Sæmundsson

Excellent book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 4, 2019

Verified Purchase

The book gives an intimate view of Churchill and shows what a great statesman he was.

2 people found this helpful

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Jill V.

Nice read:

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 12, 2020

Verified Purchase

Never saw this side of Churchill, very interesting, also saw pictures I have never seen before. Recommend this book for those wanting a different view if The Last Lion.

2 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

The secretaries point of view.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 5, 2019

Verified Purchase

Wonderful book, enjoyed it very much.

2 people found this helpful

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M. Schwinn

Too Much Uninteresting Detail

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 19, 2020

Two and a half stars.

All of the women (and one man) are exceptionally competent and admirable and refute the phrase “just a secretary,” but they’re interesting solely because of their proximity to Winston Churchill. Unfortunately, the most vivid memories that crop up in these oral histories concern their trips with him, impressions that have little or nothing to do with Churchill. Each person’s story is told chronologically within a chapter, but it’s not necessary to know which other secretaries are in the work rota, the prior education and experience of each secretary, or (usually) a timeline of Churchill’s life (Most anecdotes don’t tie in to a particular event or time).

There’s a sprinkling of anecdotes but more often a general impression of what working for Churchill was like, and here the author runs into two problems. First, it emerges late in the book that Churchill disliked small talk, so that even when a secretary kept him company during a solitary meal, the table was silent; moreover, he didn’t regard them as his social equals and was uninterested in anything about their lives. Considering their limited interaction with Churchill, the scarcity of anecdotes isn’t surprising.

Second, all the secretaries held the same opinion of Churchill as an employer: momentarily irascible, charmingly contrite, unexpectedly kind and considerate; they also had essentially the same daily routine. This makes for a lot of repetition as each secretary reiterates these points. The epilogue sums up their impressions and is the most valuable part of the book. The book should have been organized as it was, with, say, a chapter on the usual daily work routine, a chapter on his kindnesses, and so on. That would have resulted in a much shorter but more interesting book.

4 people found this helpful

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Bruce M. Beehler

Seeing Churchill's Greatness Through the Eyes of Those Who Worked For Him

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 18, 2019

This is Cita Stelzer's second book about Winston Churchill. The first, Dinner with Churchill, showed how Churchill used the diplomacy at the dinner table to achieve policy wins for the UK. This book presents a series of detailed biographies of the (mainly women) who worked tirelessly on behalf of Churchill throughout his career. These workers became devoted to the brilliant and demanding leader, through good times and bad. The stories illuminate Churchill through the eyes of these devoted typists, short-hand-scribes, and assistants who, in some instances, traveled the world with him to keep his writing and political career afloat under the challenges of war and depression and politics. What we learn is that Churchill was a superficially stern task-master, who was, under it all, a soft-touch with a love of animals and a penchant for sentimentality. A great read that speaks of a personality that the UK and the US would dearly welcome in a position of leadership today.

2 people found this helpful

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