Winston’s War (73 page)

So there are gaps in the historical record, and I have tried to fill them. Perhaps even the slightest meddling with the facts
will upset those who regard themselves as serious historians, but on the other hand I hope that many readers will have their appetites whetted and their imaginations fired by the deliberate intertwining of fact and fiction to the point where they will want to dig deeper and find out for themselves what really happened.

They might also be struck, as I have been, by the coincidence between the issues that Churchill faced at the time and those that continue to baffle us more than seventy years later—such as whether we should appease or confront the forces of terror, and whether a politician owes his prime loyalty to his party or his conscience. We tend to think of spin doctors as being a very recent invention but they were as mischievous and as amoral in the service of Neville Chamberlain as they have been for any modern prime minister, while the English still seem to be struggling to sort out their relationship with Europe and “Johnny Foreigner.”

And how many of today's leaders in Europe and the United States can be found echoing Chamberlain's plaintive words that their world had been turned upside down by “a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing"?

Researching and writing this book has given me as much fulfillment and personal pleasure as any I have written, and the debts I owe to those who have guided me and inspired me are as deep as ever. The entire project was set on its road by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, who treated me to an excellent lunch and finished it with some half-remembered and irresistible thought about a missing telegram. Rob Shepherd, a colleague of many years, allowed me to plunder his own great knowledge of this period and I have relied heavily on his splendid book,
A Class Divided
. Joe Shattan is another great friend who, in a different life, might have been Mac and is the main reason why the character was able to come to life, and I am also most grateful to Monty Park and to Trumper's, that
exceptional gentlemen's barbers that has changed so little since Mac's day and where Monty maintained the highest of standards for many years.

Sue Graham, Carol Bell, and Jeremy White gave a very special kind of support. With their backing I have been able to raise many thousands of pounds for the Spinal Injuries Association, even before the book was published.

So many others have helped, particularly my beautiful goddaughter Eugenia Vandoros, and others who deserve a big hug of thanks are Tîm Hadcock-Mackay, Ian Patterson, Christopher Burr, Anthony Browne, Sherard Cowper-Coles, Kate Crowe, and Glenmore Trenear-Harvey. Angela Neuberger found for me a press cutting that was especially inspirational.

I am also grateful to the following for permission to reproduce extracts from their publications and material: Miss Christine Penney at the Library of Birmingham University for permission to quote from Neville Chamberlain's letters; Hodder and Stoughton Limited for permission to quote from
The Fringes of Power
by John Colville; WH Allen Ltd. for permission to quote from
Abuse of Power
by James Margach; HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. for permission to quote from Harold Nicolson's

Diaries and Letters, 1930–1939
, edited by Nigel Nicolson.

There is little need to offer an extensive bibliography for those wishing to read further about this period since the sources are generally extremely well known, but I don't want to miss the opportunity to express my thanks to the staff at the London Library and to Phil Reed at the Cabinet War Rooms. The International Churchill Society and its magazine,
Finest Hour
, never cease to provide insights, and I am also grateful for the cheerful help provided by the archivists at Churchill College, Cambridge.

So I hope you will read and enjoy—and, while doing so, will remember that had the story of Winston Churchill found another ending, as it so easily might have done, our world
today would have been a place of shadows and dark despair, stripped of the freedoms and decencies we too frequently take for granted. The debt we owe to Winston Churchill, and to those who helped him, is beyond measure.

Churchill is a character who never capitulates, especially when the values he holds most dear are in the gravest danger, and especially when those he counts on most abandon him. Have you ever been in a situation where you were forced to uphold a belief or moral standpoint when almost everyone you knew walked out on you?

Burgess is a slave to the bottle; Churchill, in a similar manner, can only function with a cigar handy and a brandy within arm's reach. Do you think it's at all apparent how their fondness for booze and smoking affects their decisions and their lives? Do you think there is any way in which these vices actually help them?

There are many love stories in
Winston's War
, but none end happily. Why do you think the author chose to focus on unhappy love, and how does this choice reflect the era in which the book takes place?

The role of Kings in politics is not often one we consider today. But the King of England is a character in this story, and
one that takes the occasional dip into politics. Do you think he is able to influence the course of political events at all, or influence the minds of politicians, or is his role simply that of a passive commentator?

There is a fine line between fact and fiction. Michael Dobbs says, “This is unashamedly a novel, not a work of history.” But does a historical novelist have a responsibility to the truth? How far can a novelist change history before losing the trust of his audience?

Betrayal is a major theme of the book. Are any of the characters' betrayals justified? If not, are there any circumstances in which betrayal can be justified?

Mac, the barber, is one of the few characters in this book from the lower class. How does his work secretly gathering sensitive political information illuminate the relationship between the rich and poor? Do you think an upper class person doing the same type of work would have been more quickly discovered?

“How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.” With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that there was very little alternative to war with Hitler. However, Chamberlain was forced to make very important decisions without that benefit. Did this book make you feel more sympathetic to his attempt to appease Hitler, or do you still find his motivations to be completely wrong-headed?

Churchill and Chamberlain are very different men, and very different leaders. Michael Dobbs does not hesitate to explore the boorish and brutish sides of Churchill's personality. Do
you think there are any ways that this darker side of Churchill made him a better leader than Chamberlain, especially during this time of crisis?

Was Burgess, in any sense, a patriot? Is it possible to betray your government while staying true to your country? Do you think that Burgess's motivations to work for Russia were ultimately selfish, or that he was making a real attempt to live for ideals that he considered to be noble?

Of the major female characters in the book, two of them are dramatically different—one is a prostitute, the other is a spy. How do their roles in the novel reflect the social status of women at the time of World War II?

World War II, often called “the good war,” is widely considered to be a noble, just war that the Allies were right to fight. Yet the only character who is on the front lines throughout the book, Jerry, dies in an accidental and almost pathetic way. Why do you think Dobbs chose this death for the character, and how do you think it reflects the author's view of the early days of World War II?

JIM PASCOE

Michael Dobbs served as one of the chief advisors to Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major, and has also been a BBC presenter, Deputy Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi, and columnist for the
Mail on Sunday
, and during the Watergate years, a correspondent working in Boston for the
Boston Globe
. His previous novels include the bestselling
House of Cards
, which was made into a highly popular TV series in England. He has a doctorate in nuclear defense studies, and lives not far from a prominent church in Longshire.