SOURCE: “Humid Fidelity,” in London Review of Books, Vol. 21, September 1999, pp. 25-6.

In the following review, Bradshaw examines Speaking for Themselves: The Personal Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill against the backdrop of historical events in the couple's life together.

My favourite moment in Martin Gilbert's Life of Churchill is when the Prime Minister is touring the ruins of Hitler's Chancellery in 1945:

In the square in front of the building a crowd of Germans had gathered. Except for one old man who ‘shook his head disapprovingly’, Churchill later recalled, ‘they all began to cheer. My hate had died with their surrender and I was much moved by their demonstrations, and also by their haggard looks and threadbare clothes.’

Winston had been cheered by pinched civilians in the streets of London on VE Day; he had been cheered by traumatised Tommies at the Western Front in 1918; now here he...