My Autobiography by Charles Chaplin (most read book in the world TXT) 📕

reception room when he appeared in the doorway with Hearst and stood Napoleon-like with his hand in his waistcoat, watching the dancing. He seemed lost and out of place. W.R. saw me and beckoned me over and we were introduced.

Churchill’s manner, though intimate, was abrupt. Hearst left us and for a while we stood exchanging the usual comments while people milled about us. Not until I talked about the English Labour Government did he brighten up. ‘What I don’t understand,’ I said, ‘is that in England the election of a socialist government does not alter the status of a king and queen.’

His glance was quick and humourously challenging. ‘Of course not,’ he said.

‘I thought socialists were opposed to a monarchy.’

He laughed. ‘If you were in England we’d cut your head off for that remark.’

An evening or so later he invited me to dinner in his suite at the hotel. Two other guests were there, also his son Randolph, a handsome stripling of sixteen, who was esurient for intellectual argument and had the criticism of intolerant youth. I could see that Winston was very proud of him. It was a delightful evening in which father and son bantered about inconsequential things. We met several times after that at Marion’s beach-house before he returned to England.

And now we were in London Mr Churchill invited Ralph and me to Chartwell for the week-end. We had a cold, bitter drive getting there. Chartwell is a lovely old house, modestly furnished, but in good taste, with a family feeling about it. It was not until this second visit to London that I really began to know Churchill. At this period he was a back-bencher in the House of Commons.

Sir Winston, I should imagine, has had more fun than most of us. On the stage of life he has played many parts with courage, zest and a remarkable enthusiasm. He has missed very few pleasures in this world. Life has been good to him. He has lived well and played well – and for the highest stakes and won. He has enjoyed power but has never been obsessed by it. In his busy life he has found time for hobbies: brick-laying, horse-racing and painting. In the dining-room I noticed a still-life painting over the fireplace. Winston saw me showing a keen interest in it.

‘I did that.’

‘But how remarkable!’ I said enthusiastically.

‘Nothing to it – saw a man painting a landscape in the South of France and said: “I can do that”.’

The next morning he showed me the walls around Chartwell which he himself had built. I was astonished and said something about brick-laying not being as easy as it looks.

‘I’ll show you how and you’ll do it in five minutes.’

At dinner the first night there were several young Members of Parliament who, metaphorically, sat at his feet, including Mr Boothby, now Lord Boothby, and the late Brendan Bracken, who became Lord Bracken, both charming and interesting talkers. I told them I was going to meet Gandhi, who was in London at that time.

‘We’ve catered to this man long enough,’ said Bracken. ‘Hunger strikes or no, they should put him in jail and keep him there. Unless we are firm we shall lose India.’

‘Jailing him would be a very simple solution if it would work,’ I interposed, ‘but if you imprison one Gandhi, another will arise. He is a symbol of what the Indian people want, and until they get what they want they will produce one Gandhi after another.’

Churchill turned to me and smiled. ‘You would make a good Labour Member.’

The charm of Churchill is in his tolerance and respect for other people’s opinions. He seems not to bear malice with those who disagree with him.

Bracken and Boothby left that first night and the next day I saw Winston intimately with his family. It was a day of political tumult, Lord Beaverbrook telephoning Chartwell all day and Winston being interrupted several times during dinner. This was during the election and in the midst of the economic crisis.

I was amused at meal-times, for Winston would politically perorate at the dinner table, while the family sat complacently unmoved. One felt it was a frequent procedure and they were used to it.

‘The Ministry talks of the difficulties of balancing the Budget,’ said Churchill, casting a furtive glance at his family, then at me, ‘of having reached the limit of its appropriations, of having nothing further to tax, when England is stirring its tea like syrup.’ He paused for the effect.

‘Is it possible that the Budget could be balanced by an additional tax on tea?’ I asked.

He looked at me and hesitated. ‘Yes,’ he answered – but not with conviction, I thought.

I was charmed by the simplicity and almost spartan taste at Chartwell. His bedroom was a combined library with an overflow of books stacked up against the walls on all sides. One side was devoted entirely to Hansard’s Parliamentary Reports. There were also many volumes on Napoleon. ‘Yes,’ he admitted, ‘I’m a great admirer of him.’

‘I hear you are interested in filming Napoleon,’ said he. ‘You should do it – great comedy possibilities: Napoleon taking a bath, his brother Jerome bursting in upon him, arrayed in gold-braided uniform, using the moment to embarrass Napoleon and make him acquiesce to his demands. But Napoleon deliberately slips in the tub and splashes the water all over his brother’s uniform, telling him to get out. He exits ignominiously – a wonderful comedy scene.’

I remember Mr and Mrs Churchill lunching at Quaglino’s restaurant. Winston sat looking boyishly disgruntled. I went over to their table to greet them. ‘You look as though you have swallowed the weight of the world,’ I said, smilingly.

He said he had just come from a debate in the House of Commons and did not like what was being discussed about Germany. I made an airy comment, but he shook his head. ‘Oh no, it’s very serious, very serious indeed.’

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I met Gandhi shortly after my stay with Churchill. I have