Title: The fringes of power
Description: This is undeniably interesting but hopelessly long at nearly 700 pages of text. It covers about a 15 year period when the author was one of the secretaries to Winston Churchill, and for 4 or 5 years to  Princess Elizabeth and then to Attlee, the British Prime Minster in the Labour Government of 1945-1951. The problem is that the writer was clearly immature  at the start , when he was only about 24, and continued to be thoroughly dislikeable  as an arrogant,unrepentant name-dropper, and an obvious a social  climber. Whether he ever really matured is a moot point .  I found myself reading down the middle of the page at a very early stage but did persevere to the end
Subjects: Biography, Diaries, Diplomats, Foreign relations, Private secretaries, World War, 1939-1945, Great britain, politics and government, 20th century, Diplomats, biography, World war, 1939-1945, great britain, Great britain, foreign relations, 20th century
Places: Great Britain
People: John Rupert Colville Sir
Time periods: 1936-1945, 1945-1964