Talk:Winston Churchill (1940–2010)

message: Ref 2 Express says London; ref 7 Guardian obit says Chequers. Jim Michael (talk) 06:07, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Well then it might make sense to cite this additional source. Otherwise, we need to agree with the sources cited. The infobox also said chequers. It certainly could be that the Independent got it wrong. So what is "GRO" anyway, something published by the General Register Office?    W Nowicki (talk) 18:39, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

text: John Colville (Churchill's wartime Private Secretary) in his diary on 12 October 1940, says he (Colville) was at Chequers that day and that Churchill's grandson had been born there two days earlier. I am not adding this reference because the article's information is correct (dare I say "true") and adequately referenced. Thincat (talk) 19:37, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Birthplace 

message: I'm sure many people would be interested to know the current state of the dynasty. His eldest son is not far off fifty. Do we know anything about him? Is there a new generation? 86.143.232.183 (talk) 22:57, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I certainly agree with you.  Time is getting on.--Brenont (talk) 04:59, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The younger younger Randolph is generally not a public figure but does have children, including an eldest son called Winston, continuing the Winton/Randolph alteration into a sixth generation.  Timrollpickering (Talk) 23:29, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Next generation? 

message: The article currently says:
: In the 1950s he covered conflict in Yemen and Borneo, and in the 1960s the Vietnam War.
Churchill was born in 1940, so for the entirety of the 1950s he was either a child or a teenager. Was he really off covering foreign wars (in Yemen and Borneo) as a journalist? Perhaps the wording could be modified by someone who knows the relevant details to give specifics about the years he spent there. --Saforrest (talk) 22:31, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.   The Daily Telegraph obituary which someone has included as a source refers to these journalistic assignments, but there is no indication that he moonlighted as a journalist while he was a schoolboy.   Several sources say he attended Eton, which normally would have covered him from ages 13 to 18, and then that he attended Oxford University where he got a fourth class degree.   I didn't know Oxford did fourth class degrees, but it's in the Daily Telegraph, so ... maybe they did back then.   Anyhow, that would normally have taken him three years, so from ages 19 to 22.   Which takes us well into the 1960s.   It's not impossible that he worked at some stage as a journalist in the university vacation, but it would be  ... very unusual.   Anyhow, it's not what the sources I found say.   I'll adjust the text appropriately unless someone else has got in first.   Regards Charles01 (talk) 20:05, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Journalism career 

message: Under the heading "Early life: political career", the third sentence of the second paragraph states "When visiting an engineering firm he was again met by the Rommel gag, highlighting as his father had told him of the comparative disadvantage in his name."  I am at a loss to understand what the phrase "the Rommel gag" means.  A Google search turns up essentially nothing for that phrase, so apparently it is not a common figure of speech.  Can anyone explain? Bricology (talk) 00:56, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: , see his Telegraph obituary here, . What it's saying is that, on introducing himself as Winston Churchill, he received the disbelieving/mocking response, "Yes and I'm Erwin Rommel". It could perhaps be more clearly expressed. Regards. KJP1 (talk) 14:26, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: The example in the Telegraph obit is from some squaddies after the Gulf War, not at an engineering firm early in his career. DuncanHill (talk) 15:23, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: But the "Rommel gag" is the same. I wasn't offering as a source, just as an explanation for the gag in response to the enquiry. KJP1 (talk) 15:32, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  The "Rommel gag"? 

message: There are a few statements in the "Political career" section of the article that could be seen as dubious. Firstly, the claim relating to his failure in the 1967 Manchester Gorton by-election "spite of the unpopularity of the incumbent Labour government, he lost, but only by 577 votes" suggests (perhaps unintentionally) that this was a poor result. In fact he still achieved a swing of over 9% and Gorton was considered a safe seat for Labour. Secondly the claim "Churchill resumed the family tradition of protecting Ulster Unionism" is contentious as his grandfather, Winston Churchill's record on this was mixed as he was seen as an opponent of Ulster Unionism in the years leading up to the Great War when he was in Asquith's Liberal Government. That said Lord Randolph Churchill had been a strong Unionist in the 19th century (and indeed in the 1910s Winston Churchill's attitudes were contrasted with those of his father). Most problematic is the claim "Boundary changes which took effect at the 1983 general election made his seat more marginal (it was subsequently taken by the Labour Party), and he transferred to the nearby Davyhulme constituency". Actually Davyhulme was a new constituency in 1983  which included parts of Churchill's Stretford seat, notably Urmston. The post 1983 Stretford was very different to its predecessor and the estimates produced for the BBC and ITN prior to the 1983 election suggested that had the new boundries been used in 1979 it would have been won by Labour with a majority of over 3,000. Saying it was more marginal is an understatement. Dunarc (talk) 19:07, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Political career - questionable statements 

message: In either 1958 or 1959, Winston was a summer intern on the copy desk of the Wall Street Journal. 74.105.130.157 (talk) 05:13, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wall Street Journal