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- [00:00]
Afua Hirsch
Wondery subscribers can binge seasons of legacy early and ad free. Join Wondery plus in the Wonderry app or on Apple Podcasts.
- [00:14]
Peter Frankopan
Hello and welcome. This is the final episode of our series on Winston Churchill. We left you with the war against Germany won Churchill announcing to the nation that the fighting in Europe is over, but the continent and Britain are shattered. The UK is not nearly as badly affected as some countries, but it is still a bleak place. War dead number some 450,000 and the economy is in a hole. Britain is on the verge of bankruptcy.
- [00:47]
Afua Hirsch
It's time to start rebuilding and the nation decides Churchill's not the man for the job. The khaki election sweeps Labour into power and Churchill out of number 10. He's gone, but he's certainly not forgotten his time as Prime Minister. His views and his decisions are still being hotly debated today, nearly 80 years later.
- [01:11]
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- [01:37]
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- [01:59]
Peter Frankopan
From Wandery and Goalhanger. I'm Peter Frankopern. I'm Afua Hirsch and this is Legacy, the show that tells the lives of the most extraordinary men and women ever to have lived and asks if they have the reputation that they deserve.
- [02:22]
Afua Hirsch
This is Churchill, Episode four, Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat.
- [02:44]
Peter Frankopan
We begin this series with the country singing for He's a Jolly Good Fellow. But today there are plenty of people who'd like to pull down statues of Winston Churchill.
- [02:55]
Afua Hirsch
These clips are from news coverage of one of several Black Lives matter protests in June 2020. The clip shows crowds of protesters surrounding the bronze statue of Churchill, which stands outside the Houses of Parliament in London. His name is written on the plinth below and someone has used spray paint to add was a racist.
- [03:15]
Peter Frankopan
And there are counter protests too, with people turning up to defend the statue and the man.
- [03:21]
Tommy Robinson
It's part of our history. I know, like he had a few, but he did a lot of good too.
- [03:30]
Peter Frankopan
Is it okay to be positive we're.
- [03:31]
Tommy Robinson
Not racist, but we Want to stick up for what London means to everybody.
- [03:38]
Peter Frankopan
The far right activist Tommy Robinson and the group Britain first are among those promoting a major Defend our Memorials event. In response, hundreds are expected to travel to London despite the coronavirus restrictions in place at the time.
- [03:53]
Afua Hirsch
The statue and a neighboring one of Nelson Mandela are boarded up by police. As tensions rise when nobody here is to cause trouble.
- [04:03]
Tommy Robinson
We're just here to make sure our history and all of Europe's history is preserved and not taken away from us. Because if we forget our history, we'd be deemed to make the same mistake today. And Europe's history is a proud history.
- [04:26]
Afua Hirsch
In the end, tensions simmer, but don't boil over into full scale confrontation. The Black Lives Matter group cancel a planned demonstration saying we want the protests to be a safe place for people to attend.
- [04:38]
Peter Frankopan
Tommy Robinson also cancels his plans to come to the Capitol. He claimed to have received death threats and says, I realize my presence in London would be detrimental to racial tensions.
- [04:50]
Afua Hirsch
But Britain first vows that its members will still protect statues nationwide from left wing hooliganism. Over the coming months.
- [05:03]
Peter Frankopan
We'Ll come back to this route, but for now, let's remind ourselves of the real man behind the headlines. When the war ends in 1945, Churchill is 70. It might have seemed an obvious time to retire, but that's not his style. He remains leader of the Opposition and an international figure. For example, in 1946 giving a historic speech in Fulton, Missouri where he says, from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent. And in the speech he also coins the phrase special relationship that we talked about last episode when talking of the need for a strong US UK links.
- [05:45]
Afua Hirsch
In his spare time, as you do, he writes his six volume history of the Second World War. And in 1953 he receives the Nobel Prize for Literature.
- [05:57]
Peter Frankopan
Two years before that, the Tories had narrowly beaten Labour in the general election and Churchill, now approaching his 77th birthday, becomes Prime Minister for the second time during his tenure.
- [06:09]
Afua Hirsch
He will, as he has done before, make himself Minister of Defence as well as Prime Minister and later takes on the Foreign Office as well. After Anthony Eden falls ill. Churchill believes in himself and his abilities, it's fair to say, from start to finish.
- [06:26]
Peter Frankopan
You reckon? I mean, Apwe, if you were Prime Minister, I'd want you to be Minister of Defence and Foreign Minister, maybe Minister of Education and Health too. I mean, who needs anybody else?
- [06:35]
Afua Hirsch
Listen, we'll get to it, but one of the things I have most enjoyed from really Studying Churchill's life is the level of confidence that one person can be capable of possessing. It really is fascinating. And I actually think, think that someone like me can learn from that. So if you strip out the imperial white supremacist, in my opinion, genocidal adjacent ideas, there is also a lot that you can learn from somebody who just has such strength of conviction and sense of purpose in his destiny. If you apply those same things to, I personally think, fairer and more progressive causes, then you can do a lot.
- [07:16]
Peter Frankopan
But we're in a world where there is an absence of people who've got that strength of conviction. I understand that having that supreme confidence also is a narcissism. But you do have to believe that you're right to make a difference in the world. Backing yourself like that. There's a strong quality in there too.
- [07:33]
Afua Hirsch
And one of the things actually that the polarizing or the oversimplification of the legacy of someone like Churchill does is it stops a young black woman, for example, studying those traits that I think can be really useful. If you believe in something, it alienates you from the whole person's legacy. Whereas actually I think that if you really get into the nuance of who he was, there's a lot you can take from it. And also something I find quite inspiring about him is just the range of his intellectual curiosity. You know, whether it was nuclear physics in the 1920s when that wasn't a particularly sexy thing to be interested in, or space. I mean, in the middle of the Second World War, he starts theorizing about the potential for space travel and alien races. It's just so eccentric, but also interesting and prescient.
- [08:26]
Peter Frankopan
But he's still building something of the past. So he insists on the empire being the key of Britain's future. That doesn't win him any friends in Washington. He's absolutely insistent on that relationship with the United States, particularly as the Cold War locks into place. But Britain's position as a world power in a changing post war landscape is a real challenge. So he helps ties with Washington, supports the development of what becomes NATO. He's trying to help transition towards a peacetime economy. You know, the devastation of London and elsewhere in the UK and the lack of government money as a result of funding the war effort means that there are real problems. And those problems overseas, they start to build up quite quickly, not just because of voices calling for independence. And in fact independence that's achieved in India at the horrific costs of partition that followed too, are badly advised, badly thought through British policies. To split India and Pakistan into two. So it's a changing world, too, outside Europe, where India has become independent in 1947 with partition. That's created Pakistan as well. And then horrific scenes of bloodshed as those two countries split from each other. Back at home, the rebuild towards a peacetime economy of a government essentially out of money, having funded peace efforts. The Suez Canal that we've talked about, how important that is to British strategic vision of the world, not just in India, but beyond too, under pressure with President Nasser and the Commonwealth is an idea that sort of starts to build up as a potential empire by another name. So he's living through this decade after the Second World War, of huge amounts of change. And in fact, one of the most emblematic parts of that is that he's in office when King George VI dies and Elizabeth is crowned Queen.
- [10:17]
Afua Hirsch
It's mind blowing to think that he's lived through Queen Victoria and now Queen Elizabeth. I mean, his life really has spanned the Victorian, Edwardian and modern era. He's a link between a world that feels incredibly distant to me, to the one that my parents were born into and still feels so relevant today. And he does choose to resign in 1955, having had a stroke, which is kept secret from the public. And even then he resigns in 1955, but he remains an MP until 1964.
- [10:53]
Peter Frankopan
And then on 10 January 1965, Churchill suffers another stroke and on 24 January, he dies, aged 90. He's given a state funeral, like the Duke of Wellington and William Gladstone, and then his body lies in state for three days with hundreds of thousands of people paying their respects before he's carried down the Thames on a barge, cranes lowered in salute. He's buried in the family plot at Bladen in Oxfordshire.
- [11:21]
Afua Hirsch
It's very Churchill and there are so many things named after him, just in case there was any danger that people would forget him. As well as the famous statue in Parliament Square, there is a Cambridge college named after him, a Canadian mountain range, no less a US Navy destroyer. And jfk, before his death made Churchill an honorary citizen of the us, he was the first person to receive that honour, and only one of two to be given it while still alive. The other, Peter, I don't know.
- [11:58]
Production Note
You have to help me.
- [11:59]
Afua Hirsch
Mother Teresa.
- [12:00]
Peter Frankopan
So sort of saintly status, really. As if to confirm it, the BBC did a poll of greatest Britons in 2000, 2002, and the person who came top was Winston Churchill. Mo Molam, the Labour politician, suggested that Britons wouldn't have been able to even have the debate were it not for Winston Churchill. So I wonder whether he would still be top of a poll like that today. I mean, what would you think? Do you think young people would resonate and vote the same way? Or do you think it's a passing of an era?
- [12:31]
Afua Hirsch
I don't see any reason why they wouldn't, because we're still constantly pumped with pro Churchill ideas. I mean, just recently we had the Dark Hour, a new movie about his life. We still have new movies about D Day, Dunkirk, about the Second World War, about the beginning of the Cold War. At school we study the Second World War far more than older histories of England and the uk of other parts of the world. It's still something we're addicted to and I completely see why. It makes people feel good about themselves. It makes Britain feel good about its identity and its track record. But I worry that it's not rounded and it makes it much harder for people to cope with the idea that his legacy was actually complex. It wasn't just a feel good story all the time. I know even saying that today, Peter will make people listening angry.
- [13:25]
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- [13:48]
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- [14:28]
Peter Frankopan
Those clips we played at the beginning are far from the only time that his statue has been defaced. In fact, in the anti capitalist protests of 2010, far worse was done to the statue in terms of graffiti than in the student protests of 2000. Somebody urinated on it, so it's often targeted by people protesting against governments for lots of different reasons. But maybe it's also an obvious target because Churchill is always going to be the poster boy for the right for the establishment. So if you attack Churchill, whether it's a statue or memory, it's guaranteed immediate outrage.
- [15:04]
Afua Hirsch
I Actually don't think Churchill would have taken it that personally, the way his statue is often singled out for attack, because, first of all, he was used to being attacked during his lifetime. I mean, the suffragettes attacked him for not backing women's suffrage, and he took it on the chin. He knew he wasn't supporting women's suffrage and he knew that people disagreed with him. And one of the things I actually do admire about him is he rarely spent much time worrying about what people thought of him. He may be bemused at the extent to which he's associated with the far right now, because he was actually quite liberal in his domestic politics. I think he would have found elements of modern conservatism pretty abhorrent, to be honest. So I think the reason he's conflated with that is not necessarily based on a deep appreciation of his life, but more the way his image and legacy has been appropriated by this patriotic far right. Britain first. And that's not actually necessarily fair to him.
- [16:03]
Peter Frankopan
Churchill gets it, I think, because he's so famous. And I don't mean that's because of protests, but people want to think about racism and empire and all the things we've talked about over the series, because Churchill is a kind of lightning rod. Whereas if you were to ask the names of members of his cabinet or people who are senior political figures at the same time, or Viceroys, smart, solid historians will be able to tell you that, but most people can't. So he stands for everybody who was like, it's a bit like what we talked about with Cecil Rhodes. The very first one we did on Rhodes was that he's so much more famous than anybody else who made his fortunes of other people's lives. Bodies, work, sweat, blood and tears. And in a way, that doesn't mean we shouldn't judge him as a result. But everybody else who did something very similar don't get judged.
- [16:52]
Afua Hirsch
A few things I would say, I think how this started for me is that in 2017, there were these protests in America about the Robert E. Lee and other Confederate statues. And I wrote a column saying, why in Britain are we so comfortable condemning the existence of these statues in America when we have statues that glorify? People had very racist ideas here. For example, Nelson's column in Trafalgar Square. I wasn't actually advocating tearing it down. I was saying I think it would be healthy if we understood more about the legacy of people like Nelson who supported the slave trade. And that triggered this huge backlash. People thought I was kind of Sitting outside my house, in my front garden in a bulldozer, ready to take Trafalgar Square. And it was the beginning of this very polarizing time. And I say that because I think the Black Lives Matter protests, many of which I was on, and the movement to introduce more nuance into our history is really that it's not let's go around raising statues. It's really saying, can we please introduce some facts into the narrative about these figures that we just glorify? And I don't think that's healthy in a democracy to have historical figures who you're not allowed to critique based on historical fact. That strikes me as something you'd expect to see more in a dictatorship or a totalitarian state. So I think people misunderstand what that movement is and think that they just want to go around smashing up statues. The second thing I would say about Churchill is exactly as you're saying. He is associated with the establishment, and that's fair. He was aristocratic. He was in Parliament for half a century. He led Britain through the Second World War, and he was an unapologetic imperialist. I think it's the last of those things that is triggering for people who want us to have a more nuanced conversation about empire. And that's really what it's about. It's not really about Churchill. Most people don't actually know that much about Churchill's life and the positions he took and the things he fought for. They know that he supported the racially hierarchical views about empire, and those views persist. It's because people still feel victimized by racism. They feel judged and limited by the ways our system has never overcome that inequality. It was created for a purpose, and that purpose still works. And people who understand that and think it has no place in modern society use Churchill as an entry point to a discussion about how little we talk about it.
- [19:22]
Peter Frankopan
Yeah. And as you say, Afro. You know, in some ways, then one could use the entry points that someone like Churchill offers in quite a nuanced way, because I suspect if we keep on making these podcasts for many years and decades into the future, which I hope we do, it's going to take a long time before we do Stanley Baldwin or Neville Chamberlain, because they don't have the same name recognition, even if the legacies might be just as important. So I think because Churchill is so totemic, he does give an opportunity to have these kinds of discussions. And as a historian, I can never see how those discussions can't be useful. People might not agree with each other. They might have radically different opinions, but that's the whole beauty of being able to talk with each other rather than insist that there's one way of doing things. And when there's discussions around Churchill and other statues like you, I was surprised how people were so determined to frame them in very simplistic ways. But also, as a historian of Russia and the Soviet Union, it doesn't trouble me at all that taking down statues of Lenin or Stalin was problematic, or that somehow that changed history or you might forget what they did. But I can absolutely understand in some parts of the world, like the Baltic states, Lenin and Stalin are hugely problematic to have. Peering down at you from a plinth, perhaps in central Moscow, not so bad. But it doesn't seem to me that there has to be the one size fits all answer. And people who kind of force it into that binary are trying to sort of shut down the best bit about the humanities, which are, why is there a problem about somebody having a different perspective? Churchill, in some ways, I think, opens those doors to allow these conversations about what was an appropriate progressive liberal with a little L view to have as being British, which, like we've tried to talk about in this series, should you be saying Churchill was a product of his time? Because actually, Churchill wasn't a product of his time. He was a product of the fact that an American mother had an aristocratic family, had expectations from a father who died when he was young. He was a product of lots and lots and lots of different things. And so when you were to say, who does he represent? There are plenty of people in that social category who are similar to Churchill, who didn't have the same views as him, in some cases much less liberal, in some cases much more so. So when one picks a single individual and say they speak for everything, it shuts down, discuss.
- [21:31]
Afua Hirsch
Have you seen the film the Darkest Hour?
- [21:33]
Peter Frankopan
Yes, with a Gary Oldman.
- [21:35]
Afua Hirsch
This is, I think, a great example of how we already selectively manipulate the legacy of someone like Churchill. So in that film Darkest Hour, there's a scene where Churchill gets on the tube, which historians agree, as far as I'm aware, he never did, and sits next to a Jamaican guy and starts up a friendly conversation. And it's so funny that that was one of the scenes the filmmakers decided to invent because it shows this need to portray Churchill as somebody who wasn't racist. He really was a nice guy. He really didn't have a problem with black people. It all seemed designed to soften this critique that his views were so problematic. So that's how his image is still being remade, to make it seem palatable to modern sensibilities. And then on the other side, something he actually did and actually stood for, which is unification in Europe, the creation of the Council of Europe, the creation of human rights standards that would be universally observed by democratic states, is conveniently being erased from his memory by a Conservative party that are still, as we record this, actively trying to undo those innovations. So I just find it interesting that things he didn't do are being added to his legacy to try and make him seem less problematic. And things he did do that were genuinely progressive are being erased because they don't fit with what they're right who want to claim him now have as their project. And I genuinely believe, and the more I learn about Churchill, the more I believe this, that he would be pretty appalled by the modern Conservative Party, many of the things they stand for. I can't think of any front bench Conservative politicians, except maybe one who would have had the courage he had to actually be on the front line in war, to take the risks he did, to say things that were unpopular because he believed they were true, even at the cost of electoral success. I mean, these are all qualities that I don't see in those politicians. And that's why it's very grating when they try to draw on his legacy to bolster their self image and their patriotic credentials.
- [23:41]
Peter Frankopan
I've got a question for you. Afoul. Let's say Churchill was alive today and was stripped of some of the views that were perhaps of his time. Which political party do you think he would stand for today? Would he be a Labour politician because he talks about workers rights, pensions, people's budgets? Would he be a Conservative thinking about British power abroad and that, you know, you should make your own fortunes? Or would he be a liberal thinking about social care, thinking about communities? What would you guess? Afwa?
- [24:09]
Afua Hirsch
It's such an interesting question, isn't it? I think that there are things about the Keir Starmer Labour Party, which is in power as we speak, that would have fit with his very centre, slightly left leaning, but not really and broadly supporting all the things you just described. But I don't think he had the parliamentary discipline to fit into a party like that that's very demanding of its MPs that they toe the line. I mean, he was too much his own man to put up with that kind of control. I don't think he would have found anything to align himself with in the modern Conservative Party, which is absolutely zero courage of its convictions. And the things that it does stand for are the things that he actually spent his life working against. So I don't think he would have fit there. I, you know, maybe he would have been a Lib Dem. It's not really that easy to imagine. I, I feel like the fact that he seems so at odds with the political culture today says something about how politics has become, which is in my opinion, quite divorced from conviction politicians, quite corporate in the way that party discipline is policed and whipped. And it's so much harder for our contemporary politics to accommodate really charismatic figures who say what they think and stand for what they believe in. I think he would have been quite alienated by the whole political culture. And I say that actually as a compliment to him because, because I think this is ironically one of the reasons people are so nostalgic about him and the Second World War era. People desperately yearn for politicians they can look up to and believe in who capture their imagination, who help them transcend their own short term suffering or wishes to feel part of a greater collective that stands for something. That was his unique achievement during the Second World War. He made British people feel they could cope with incredible hardship because they were standing for the greater good. They had a vision for it, they were able to see it through. And he really came into his own in that hour. He was the person who was able to create that and I think he deserves to be remembered for that.
- [26:14]
Peter Frankopan
Look afoul, one of the reasons I love doing this with you is that despite the fact you've given Churchill a sort of pretty tough mark on his homework, and I think rightly so, you always end by picking out the qualities. And I'm not gonna extend the game to ask whether you admire Churchill or would vote for him, but there is a kind of respect, I suppose, for the fact that he at least had convictions that he did follow through. But I do have a different question after the break, which is there's lots that he can be criticized for, but do we also need to confront what we owe Winston Churchill?
- [26:50]
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- [27:20]
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- [28:29]
Peter Frankopan
One of the things about Churchill that we don't really think about too much with his legacy is about the fate of Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War. Now there was something known as the Tolstoy Conference in October 1944 when Churchill met Stalin in Moscow. And according to Churchill's memoirs, Churchill made a secret proposal to divide post war Europe into Western and Soviet spheres of influence. And that was done very crudely with Stalin using pencils where one was picked up and pushed to the other side and said, this is going to belong to Moscow or will be under your control. And that kind of mortgaging of the fate of peoples in Poland, the Baltic states, south and Central Europe too was something that I suppose if you were pragmatic, you'd say with the British had exhausted themselves. They couldn't offer guarantees of freedoms across these parts of Europe. I think the role that Britain and church in particular played has not been forgotten. It's brought up quite generously and delicately. But Britain went into the Second World War after the Germans invaded Poland, and the way that the war ended was that Eastern Europe was sort of sacrificed as a pawn to placate Stalin. And that led to horrors for tens of millions of people from 1945 until the Berlin Wall fell about 45 years later. And Churchill was aware what he so he didn't want it written down. He was extremely concerned that it would be seen as being a cynical move, which it was. And so that, I think sits in the way in which Churchill needs to be evaluated whether this was something that he thought was a price worth paying, whether the people of Eastern Europe really didn't matter, whether it was a strategic position that he felt he didn't have any choice. But by all accounts, I think Churchill was sort of hoodwinked by Stalin. He was over impressed, was worked into a position where he thought that he couldn't do anything else apart from make that concession. But that has a really important legacy today in Central Eastern Europe, particularly because, well, in 2024, we're 10 years into a Moscow invasion of Ukraine that started in 2014 and then obviously accelerated in 2022. But that idea that Moscow has a sphere of influence and a vision is something that really resonates. And I think here in the uk we tend not to think about what that means for peoples in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, Baltic states, but it's a really important part of their recent and lived history.
- [30:55]
Afua Hirsch
Here's a question for you, Peter. Is it fair to suppose that Churchill's history of imperialism and feeling comfortable arbitrarily drawing lines on the world map, carving up territories in Africa and the Middle East, Asia to serve the interests of the British Empire. Do you think that's an important background for him being able to tolerate a similar divvying up of land in Europe after the Second World War, albeit in obviously a different context. But I just wonder if the two are in some ways linked.
- [31:33]
Peter Frankopan
I think so. And I think also it's empire through maps in the classroom, right? Rather than what do people want on the ground? They don't deserve the right to decide for themselves. The decisions should be made by powerful elites. And I think that you'd expect Churchill, with his experience by this point, to be a long way away from that part of understanding that people might want to have their own freedoms. And particularly where, from the British perspective, the Second World War is a war of liberation against totalitarianism, authoritarianism, persecutions. But in Eastern Europe, the irony was that the killing fields in Poland in particular, which is home to some of the biggest and worst, not just concentration camps, death camps, extermination camps they were called, then suffered a second time by Poles being carted off and others being carted off into the Soviet Union into catastrophe too. So I think it was theory and practice. And as we talked about throughout this series, the theory of race, of empire, of authority, of control, of decision making, was one that didn't have a place in the middle of the 20th century.
- [32:39]
Afua Hirsch
It reminds me as well of something I believe really strongly, which is that while British people understandably feel so proud of that moment of victory after the Second World War, not just tactically overcoming Nazi and Axis aggression, but standing for liberty and democracy, These are things that Churchill constantly drew on in his speeches to add credibility and mission to this war that was being fought. Britain and Churchill in particular had absolutely no intention of applying those same principles to its colonies. Servicemen returned from the Second World War to countries like Ghana, where my mum's family come from, and and were then not even paid for their service, let alone given the rights they were then beginning to demand for sovereignty and self determination, the same things they'd helped Britain fight for in the war. So it was very selectively applied that Churchill stood for freedom and he stood for the right of people to make their own choice and choose their own government.
- [33:41]
Peter Frankopan
But for Western Europe, Churchill and his legacy is one of liberation and freedom for Jews, not just in Europe, but in what became Israel. Churchill was selective, it wasn't a kind of blanket rule. But your point, I think is very well made. Afua about the double standards of Ireland on the one hand, India on the other, the catastrophic views about race that sound so grotesque today and at the time maybe sounded normal to Churchill, but like we kept saying, not to everybody in British society at the time. That's why it's important to try to be measured when one thinks about this, you know, no question the liberation of the shadows of Nazism and the horrific persecutions. As far as Britain, France, Italy, western Germany and beyond went, obviously this was the moment where Britain and the west were saved from darkness. But equally, the homework looks different depending where you stand. Even in the continent of Europe too, and particularly now, where the foundations of the European Union really lay in the idea that we must never fight against each other anymore. That it's perhaps no surprise that it's the Brits through Brexit and other things have also stepped away from some of that. So it's been a great, I think, mark of British pride that we've been involved so much in Ukraine to stand by European partners, but again, all over Europe, that idea that the British think that we're too good for them is something that has echoes of some of the things that we've been talking about in this series and that Britain is.
- [35:05]
Afua Hirsch
Not just standing for Ukraine, but also standing against Russia, something that Churchill would, I'm sure have recognized. It's that time. What are your three words? And I know you're going to come up with something that captures the complexity and significance of his legacy. You always do.
- [35:26]
Peter Frankopan
All right, I'm going to go for the three signatures. And they're not three words, but they're three sort of ideas. I guess I will go for Gallipoli, Second World War, WW2. So that sneaks into being one word and complexity. How about that? What about your three? Aphor. I know that's not my strongest three words. I get a shout out in the middle of the night. Three better ones. What are your three?
- [35:50]
Afua Hirsch
Okay, this is the closest you'll ever hear me doing to a Churchill impression. Never give up. That's my three words.
- [35:57]
Peter Frankopan
That's much, much better than mine.
- [35:59]
Afua Hirsch
Yeah, I'll credit him with that.
- [36:01]
Peter Frankopan
I love it. Thank you all for listening to this series of Legacy. Next week we're back with a brand new character, Charles Dickens. Perhaps the most famous Victorian novelist. His childhood was not unlike some of his characters.
- [36:15]
Afua Hirsch
A factory worker at 12 years old, Dickens moved to London and became a writer and passionate proponent of social reform. From A Christmas Carol to Oliver Twist, he left a legacy of legendary fiction that continues to inspire readers today. But what about the true story? Follow Legacy on the Wondery app, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge seasons early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondery.com survey from Wondery and Goalhanger this is the final episode in our series about Winston Churchill.
- [37:41]
Production Note
A quick note about our dialogue we can't know everything that was said or done behind closed doors, particularly when we go far back in history. But our scenes are written using the best available sources. So even if a scene or conversation has been recreated for dramatic effect, it is still based on biographical research.
- [37:59]
Afua Hirsch
We've used used many sources for this series, including Churchill Walking With Destiny by Andrew Roberts and Winston Churchill His Times, His Crimes by Tarek Ali. Legacy is hosted by me Afwaharsh and me, Peter Frankenpan. Scene writing by Jack McKay for Goalhanger.
- [38:19]
Production Note
Our series producers are Kate Taylor, Jane Morgan and Anoushka Lewis. Robin Scott Elliott is Associate producer Producer. Our production managers are Izzy Reid and Alex Hack Roberts. The executive producers are Tony Pasta and Jack Davenport.
- [38:34]
Afua Hirsch
This series of Legacy was sound, engineered and designed by Emma Barnaby and Rob Spate.
- [38:40]
Production Note
Music supervision is Scott Velasquez for Fris and Sink.
- [38:43]
Afua Hirsch
Our producer for Wondery is Emanuela Quinote Francis and our managing producer is Rachel Sibley.
- [38:49]
Production Note
Executive producers for Wondery are Estelle Doyle, Chris Bourne, Morgan Jones and Marshall Louie. Next week we are back with a brand new character, Charles Dickens, perhaps the most famous Victorian novelist and possibly the man who invented Christmas. So it's timely too. His childhood was not unlike some of his characters.
- [39:14]
Afua Hirsch
A factory worker at 12 years old, Dickens moved to London and became a writer and passionate proponent of social reform. From books like A Christmas Carol to Oliver Twist, he left a legacy of legendary fiction that continues to inspire readers today. But what about the true story of his life?