All Behind You, Winston: Churchill's Great Coalition 1940-45

by Roger Hermiston

Overview

All Behind You, Winston tells the story of the most remarkable gathering of leaders in modern British history: the War Ministry that saw the country through its darkest - and finest - hour.

When Winston Churchill became Prime Minister on 10 May 1940, it was not with the unanimous support of Westminster or the country. For many, Lord Halifax was the obvious choice to succeed Neville Chamberlain, and Churchill's grasp of the Home Front appeared uncertain at best. He assembled around him, however, a Cabinet of 'all the talents'; which would variously mobilise, arm, feed, fund, shelter, evacuate, heal and, ultimately, save Britain. Among these remarkable men - and women - were Churchill's rivals Lord Halifax and Sir Stafford Cripps, the loyal and dogged Clement Attlee, titanic egos such as Lord Beaverbrook and John Reith, the popular department store owner Lord Woolton (the man who kept the nation fed), the propagandist and playboy Duff Cooper, and many of the statesmen who would go on to build the New Jerusalem in peacetime. By 1945 they had not only steered the country to victory, they had also ensured Churchill's inviolable position in our national myth - an outcome that had seemed far from likely five years earlier.

In a series of character-driven chapters, Roger Hermiston, a former deputy editor on Radio 4-s Today and the author of The Greatest Traitor, tells the behind-closed-doors story of the key figures and key ministries, delving deep into the archives to bring to life a Cabinet that was both the brain and the conscience of the nation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781781314845
Publisher:	Aurum Press
Publication date:	04/07/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

ROGER HERMISTON is a journalist and was assistant editor on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme from 1998-2010. It was there that he first encountered George Blake, when editing an interview with the former spy in 1999. His first book, Clough and Revie, was an acclaimed dual biography of two of English football's most famous and controversial managers.

ROGER HERMISTON is a journalist and was assistant editor on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme from 1998-2010. It was there that he first encountered George Blake, when editing an interview with the former spy in 1999. His first book, Clough and Revie, was an acclaimed dual biography of two of English football's most famous and controversial managers.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 1

Prologue 3

1 'A Ministry of all the Talents' 18

2 'No longer two nations but one' 43

3 The Beaverbrook Effect 64

4 A troglodyte existence' 88

5 'A New Magna Carta' 113

6 'Uncle Fred's Recipe for Survival' 137

7 'Riding the dung cart' 162

8 'The Ascendancy of Stafford Cripps' 187

9 'Ringing the bells of victory' 209

10 'Slaying the five giants' 232

11 A grand job to be done for the nation' 259

12 'Should we tell the Russians?' 282

13 'Buzz bombs and flying gas mains' 305

14 A light shining on every helmet' 331

Postscript 364

References 374

Bibliography 392

Index 400

Editorial Reviews

'No man, even the greatest , stands alone. This is the beautifully researched tale of those extraordinary men who stood behind Winston when it mattered most.' Michael Dobbs, Author of House of Cards.

"A must for anyone interested in British wartime politics… So much is known about Churchill and the struggles he faced during Britain’s darkest hours that it is almost unimaginable that there could be still more information out there. But Roger Hermiston has proved otherwise, brilliantly examining the fraught relations...and the relentless internal difficulties facing Churchill for five horrendous years." - Soldier Magazine

"By the book's end the reader will be in no doubt that Churchill did an amazing job in holding together and directing the nation during one of its most difficult eras." - Sky and Bullets

"Hermiston has written a gripping account, full of drama, personality and humour." - Tim Bouverie, Daily Telegraph

"In this highly readable account...the ideological differences and personality clashes between the large egos of Bevin and Morrison, Beaverbrook and Attlee are described in fascinating." - Maj Stephen Coulson, The Lady

"No man, even the greatest, stands alone. This is the beautifully researched fate of those extraordinary men who stood behind Winston when it mattered most." - Michael Dobbs

"Not only did this {Churchill's 1940-45 administration} Conservative-Labour-Liberal coalition steer Britain through its most perilous years and win the war, it also initiated social reforms that were to shape post-war Britain. These staggering achievements are brilliantly described in Hermiston's All Behind You, Winston." - Irish Independent

"Roger Hermiston’s bright idea [to explore the achievement of the coalition]... is so obviously right that it is surprising that no one, so far as I know, has done it before. His book is skilfully constructed… The sometimes tense relationships within the coalition make a good new slant on a familiar story, and Roger Hermiston tells it well." - John Campbell, Finest Hour magazine

"Summer Reads Pick: ‘Of all political coalitions, the piece de resistance must be the 1940-45 administration: warring egos held together by sheer will’ ‘Of all political coalitions, the piece de resistance must be the 1940-45 administration: warring egos held together by sheer will." - Sunday Telegraph

"The war was won on the front line, in the air, at sea and on the factory floor. However, it might not have happened without the influence of the coalition government...it is all here in this excellent book by Roger Hermiston. Highly recommended!." - War History Online

"[Hermiston recalls] personalities now widely forgotten, and with evocative illustrations." - Church Times

"[Hermiston] takes a firm grip, writes well and refreshes the [familiar] narrative with a substantial helping of original research. The result is an accessible political history, enlivened by shrewd, vivid portraits...Hermiston is excellent on the Labour contingent of Clement Attlee, Ernest Bevin, Herbert Morrison and Hugh Dalton, while showing how wrong it would be to claim that they dominated the home front." - History Today

"a forensic study...makes for gripping reading; it is a genuine page-turner, written in objective, but always absorbing, fashion." - Kentonline

'No man, even the greatest , stands alone. This is the beautifully researched tale of those extraordinary men who stood behind Winston when it mattered most.' Michael Dobbs, Author of House of Cards.

'Hermiston has written a gripping account, full of drama, personality and humour.'

'Not only did this [Churchill's 1940-45 administration] Conservative-Labour-Liberal coalition steer Britain through its most perilous years and win the war, it also initiated social reforms that were to shape postwar Britain. These staggering achievements are brilliantly described in Hermiston's All Behind You, Winston.'

'Hermiston has written a gripping account, full of drama, personality and humour'
'Not only did this {Churchill's 1940-45 administration} Conservative-Labour-Liberal coalition steer Britain through its most perilous years and win the war, it also initiated social reforms that were to shape post-war Britain. These staggering achievements are brilliantly described in Hermiston's All Behind You, Winston'
'In this highly readable account...the ideological differences and personality clashes between the large egos of Bevin and Morrison, Beaverbrook and Attlee are described in fascinating'
'The war was won on the front line, in the air, at sea and on the factory floor. However, it might not have happened without the influence of the coalition government...it is all here in this excellent book by Roger Hermiston. Highly recommended!'
'[Hermiston recalls] personalities now widely forgotten, and with evocative illustrations'

 
‘A must for anyone interested in British wartime politics… So much is known about Churchill and the struggles he faced during Britain’s darkest hours that it is almost unimaginable that there could be still more information out there. But Roger Hermiston has proved otherwise, brilliantly examining the fraught relations...and the relentless internal difficulties facing Churchill for five horrendous years.’
 

'Hermiston has written a gripping account, full of drama, personality and humour.' —Daily Telegraph
 

From the Publisher