The Lady Magazine

23 January 2015

Dear Readers ‘They’ll never amount to anything, you know.’ It’s a familiar refrain, the bane of students and children the world over. Even Winston Churchill suffered from the younger generation’s curse. At St George’s School, Ascot, they said he had ‘no ambition’, that he was ‘a regular pickle… a constant trouble to everybody… always in some scrape or other.’ His father, Lord Randolph, was no more encouraging. Perhaps overlooking his own foibles, he warned the young Winston that he would end up no more than a ‘social wastrel’. How wrong they were. Exactly 50 years after his death, Churchill remains our greatest Briton, the man who transcended the bickering of party politics to take our nation through its darkest hour and beyond. On page 18, Leo McKinstry reveals just how he did it, remaining loyal to his beloved wife throughout. As her books Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies are adapted for the small screen, we also have double Booker Prize-winning author Dame Hilary Mantel on how the bloody Tudor dynasty was even stranger than fiction. Indeed, if you’ve ever thought of history as a little drab and dusty, turn to page 12 and prepare to be blown away. We have an audience with four of the remaining Bletchley Girls who tell us what it was really like cracking codes for a day job; The Lady reader Sally Munn on how she abseiled from London’s St Pancras International station – and raised £10,000 in the process, and a glittering glimpse of the exquisite jewellery of Van Cleef & Arpels. And if you’ve had your fill of the winter drudgery, why not start planning your big cruise getaway on page 47. Just don’t forget to pack your copy of The Lady. Matt Warren, Editor