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He was a giant of politics and war.

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The inspirational leader through Britain's darkest hours.

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We shall fight on the beaches.

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We shall fight on the landing grounds.

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We shall fight in the fields

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and in the streets.

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Soldier, statesman,

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builder of walls,

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smoker of endless cigars,

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but, above all, history's insatiable communicator

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who poured out countless books, articles and speeches.

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But there's another Churchill.

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The private Churchill.

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The Churchill of silences

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and that's not the Churchill of the grand house at Chartwell.

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That's the Churchill of a much humbler little place

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in the grounds just below the house -

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the painting studio, where he painted and fell, at last, silent.

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For almost 50 years, painting was Churchill's private passion.

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He was a man besotted, as I am,

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by challenges of colour, composition and creativity.

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When he was painting, he was completely engrossed

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in what he was doing.

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He found this thing, this pastime,

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that sort of really electrified him.

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There are two obvious questions.

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First, why did Churchill paint quite so much?

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He left us more canvases than many full-time professional artists.

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And, second, was he any good?

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This is the story of that other hidden Churchill

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and the under-examined role that painting

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played in his extraordinary life.

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BELL RINGS

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If you want to understand Winston Churchill,

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Britain's greatest Prime Minister,

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then his family home in Kent is a good place to start.

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Chartwell was his refuge from public life

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and nowhere was more small private

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than his painting studio in the garden.

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This is a building built completely of windows.

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There's the real windows all around us,

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flooding us with light and beautiful views,

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but there are also scores, if not hundreds, of oil paintings.

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Pictures all over them.

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Each one, a window into an aspect of Churchill's personality.

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If you want to inhale the essence of Churchill,

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this is the place to do it,

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not a library or a grand public building.

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This is Churchill confronting himself

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and we are surrounded by the paraphernalia

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of the private Churchill.

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His cigars, his whisky,

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his painting coat, still stained

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with the oil paint and the turpentine

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he was rubbing off from the brushes,

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and, on the easel here, is a painting of the goldfish pond,

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one of his favourite subjects.

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He signed it but it's not really finished

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or, if it's finished, it's remarkably loose.

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David Hockney always said, "Painting's an old man's game,"

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and there's Churchill, the old man,

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painting more loosely than he ever did before.

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The Chartwell studio is more or less as Churchill left it

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at the time of his death

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and these paintings are just a fraction

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of his prodigious output as an artist.

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He only took up painting in middle age

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but he produced more than 500 canvases

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during the last 50 years of his life

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and pictures like these, whatever their quality as art,

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give an unexpected glimpse into the mind and, at times, even the soul

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of this complex and conflicted character.

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There are two kinds of painting,

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looking around me in this room, really.

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There are the exuberant, colourful,

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happiness-filled, dancing paintings of places.

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Lots and lots of colour, lots of water, lots of light dancing around.

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This is a very, very boisterous, fundamentally optimistic man

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who had a thirst for life and a thirst for colour,

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but there are also very dark paintings

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and they tend to be the portraits.

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You get bright landscapes, dark people

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and none of the portraits is quite as dark

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as the one that hangs over the entire room staring down at us

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and it's a small, very, very early painting of Churchill by Churchill.

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Painted in late 1915 when Churchill was 40 years old,

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his self-portrait reveals a man coming to terms

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with harrowing experiences in the First World War.

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This is a thin, haggard, exhausted man

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surrounded by darkness, staring out at us.

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A dark night of the soul,

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and this gives us, I think, a big clue

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as to why Churchill did any of this at all. Why he painted.

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There it is.

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He'd only been painting for a few months when he made this picture.

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It was a creative response to a crisis in his political fortunes.

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A few months earlier, he'd been First Lord of the Admiralty,

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a government minister with a central role

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in Britain's conduct of the First World War.

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In the spring of 1915, he championed the plan

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to break the deadlock of the trenches

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by opening a second front against Turkey to the East.

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The so-called Dardanelles Campaign ended in complete disaster.

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More than 200,000 Allied troops lost their lives

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and Churchill rightly took some of the blame.

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He resigned from the government

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and enlisted to fight on the Western front.

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It was in the brief interlude before visiting the hell of Flanders

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that Churchill, encouraged by his family and friends,

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began painting for the first time since his childhood.

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This was one of his first attempts.

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A peaceful, sunlit image for a man who was close to despair,

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but look at those trees.

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A premonition, perhaps, of shell bursts?

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When he travelled to France in November 1915,

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Churchill's paintbox came, too.

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Here's a really interesting little picture

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which is not at all what it seems.

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It appears to be a sunny scene.

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There's a light blue sky, clouds scudding across it,

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a rosy little village lit by the sunlight, very pretty,

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and some greenery in the foreground.

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Then you look closer.

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Those are not badly painted clouds, those are shell bursts.

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That is not an inadequately painted church spire,

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that is a shattered church spire

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and, all over the village, there are ugly, black holes made by shellfire.

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This was painted by Winston Churchill in 1916,

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right on the front line,

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in a little Belgian village the British army called Plug Street,

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so he was sitting there, presumably in his helmet, at his easel,

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with shellfire bursting around him

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and he wasn't in a sunny mood at all.

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According to his fellow officers, he was in a foul mood,

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so this is a painting by a man starting to paint

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but the strangest thing about this is this -

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that just ten miles away, there's another group of soldiers,

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the Bavarians, and there's another loner,

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also not having a good war,

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also trying to draw and paint to keep himself sane

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but, in his case, less successfully so,

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because his name was Adolf Hitler.

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Churchill's family were convinced that this new hobby

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helped him to cope with the pressures of high office

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and frontline fighting

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and that makes sense to me.

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I've drawn and painted in a cheerfully incompetent way

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all of my life

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but the healing effects of drenching yourself

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in the difficult, intricate task of making marks on canvas and paper

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have become especially apparent to me since I had a major stroke

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little more than two years ago.

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Survey Churchill's life

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and, lurking in the shadows

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alongside the man's ardour and courage,

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there's an often haunting anxiety

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or the spectre of depression,

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what he called his Black Dog.

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I can smell it here in his beloved home at Chartwell.

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The house feels a little cold.

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A little quiet.

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It's February, it's quite dark, it's wet outside,

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so maybe not surprisingly,

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but there isn't a great sense of triumph or warmth about this house.

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It's not the house, I don't think, of a man who felt

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that he was triumphal and lionlike,

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however much he may have appeared to be so from the outside.

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Humans are the animal which makes.

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The wielding of power is an abstract and very strange kind of making.

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The politician, particularly in wartime, makes decisions.

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He scrawls his name and creates mayhem.

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It's interesting that, at moments of stress throughout his life,

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Churchill escaped to another kind of making,

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one that's so much simpler and, in a way, more innocent.

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Painting for him, was often the way to fling open the shutters

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and let the sunshine back in.

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Painting, to my grandfather, was a lifesaver.

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I really believe this.

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I think it got him through some very dark moments

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and the thing about painting and anything else sort of creative

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is that you can't think about anything else while you're doing it.

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I mean, this was something he could...

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Absolutely would take him into another world and he loved it.

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I mean, he so enjoyed it. It wasn't just an escape,

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it was also a huge pleasure.

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Churchill's hogs' hair paintbrush

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had helped him through the trials of war

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and it stayed very close to hand throughout the 1920s.

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The energy he threw into relaunching his political career

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was matched by the thrill of his new passion for art.

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He called these pictures daubs

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but that self-deprecation hid a growing fascination

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with the technical challenges of painting.

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Churchill characteristically downplayed

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the seriousness of his painting.

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He talks about it as a friend who makes few undue demands,

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but I think we should look, instead, at how he behaved

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and that tells a different story because he cultivated friendships

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with some of the most remarkable and important painters of his age.

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He hung around their studios and learned their techniques

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and had them to tea and talked to them relentlessly

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and, if you are interested in painting, as I am,

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and you have friends who are proper painters, as I do,

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and you talk to them, it is a revelation.

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You are introduced into a golden, intense, passionate world

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which everybody there takes completely seriously

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and I think, all his life, Churchill took painting completely seriously

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and his friendships, above all, show that.

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Churchill's oddly minimalist painting

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Tea in the Dining Room at Chartwell from 1927

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provides a snapshot of his fashionable, aristocratic,

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creative social circle at the time.

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There's the Roaring Twenties beauty Diana Mitford,

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Churchill's favourite scientist FA Lindemann,

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his wife Clementine

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and, beside Churchill, the artist Walter Sickert.

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Now, I don't suppose anybody hung around with anybody else

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during the 1920s and '30s

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but Churchill hung around a lot with painters

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and very substantial painters, too.

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Very substantial painters.

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He loved their company and he just felt at ease with them

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because they understood what he would was trying to do,

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which was a serious thing.

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Walter Sickert was one of several artists

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Churchill became friendly with during the 1920s.

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Born in Germany, Sickert moved to England as a child.

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He was in his 50s when he first met Churchill

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and a hugely influential figure in British painting.

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As a member of the Camden Town school of painters,

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he was a champion of aggressive social realism.

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So it sounded an unlikely friendship.

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The well-connected, aristocratic politician

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and the controversial artist

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fascinated by the grubbier corners of urban life,

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but the two men clicked

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and Sickert taught Churchill several new techniques

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to improve his painting,

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including the use of a slide projector or magic lantern

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to help him set out a composition on the canvas.

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So, all I'm doing here is I'm using the projected image,

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the photograph with the magic lantern, projected onto the canvas

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and I'm using that to trace the outline of the view.

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Giving me a shortcut to the final painting.

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I will then fill it all in.

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It's a technique that the innovative English painter Walter Sickert

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taught Churchill.

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Now, you may regard it simply as cheating

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and I can completely understand why,

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however, this is a form of shortcut

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which, as David Hockney has reminded us recently,

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was used by artists throughout history.

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A simple lens projecting an image onto a canvas to speed things up.

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We know that Vermeer used it. Caravaggio certainly used it.

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So did many other great artists and so did Churchill.

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Why? Above all, because it allowed him to cut to the chase

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and the part of oil painting which he particularly adored,

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which is the great globs of gooey paint,

259
00:14:08,720 --> 00:14:12,400
the colour, the impasto, the stench, the smacking it on.

260
00:14:12,400 --> 00:14:16,360
Using this allowed him to get to the fun part more quickly.

261
00:14:26,560 --> 00:14:28,960
That's as much I can do with that. It's very interesting.

262
00:14:28,960 --> 00:14:31,680
It's not that good, you know, because you've got your own shadow

263
00:14:31,680 --> 00:14:34,440
and you can't see the detail very clearly but that's...

264
00:14:34,440 --> 00:14:35,680
That gives the impression.

265
00:14:35,680 --> 00:14:38,880
That would then become a painting quite quickly, I think.

266
00:14:38,880 --> 00:14:40,960
Churchill was eager to learn

267
00:14:40,960 --> 00:14:44,280
from every leading artist he could get his hands on,

268
00:14:44,280 --> 00:14:47,240
cramming in the basics of an art school education

269
00:14:47,240 --> 00:14:50,000
between Cabinet meetings or foreign visits.

270
00:14:52,520 --> 00:14:56,120
Sir Paul Lavery, Paul Mays, William Orpen

271
00:14:56,120 --> 00:14:59,440
and, the greatest of them all, Sir William Nicholson

272
00:14:59,440 --> 00:15:02,400
were the cream of England's art establishment,

273
00:15:02,400 --> 00:15:05,880
pioneers of a distinctive new style of painting

274
00:15:05,880 --> 00:15:09,920
and they shared their secrets with this unlikely student.

275
00:15:12,640 --> 00:15:13,880
In the early 20th century,

276
00:15:13,880 --> 00:15:16,440
there were a group of specifically English painters

277
00:15:16,440 --> 00:15:19,120
who emphasised the skills of draughtsmanship

278
00:15:19,120 --> 00:15:20,760
and the techniques of brush

279
00:15:20,760 --> 00:15:23,280
over quite sophisticated, subtle effects

280
00:15:23,280 --> 00:15:25,760
on glass and pewter and flowers

281
00:15:25,760 --> 00:15:29,040
and their paintings tend to be very quiet in their effect.

282
00:15:29,040 --> 00:15:33,160
Introspective, completely different from the rather exhibitionist

283
00:15:33,160 --> 00:15:37,360
and much more colourful and muscular paintings in France at the same time

284
00:15:37,360 --> 00:15:40,600
and these guys were friends of Churchill

285
00:15:40,600 --> 00:15:44,080
and it's very interesting that it is the subtle, sophisticated

286
00:15:44,080 --> 00:15:47,320
quiet, introspective, almost depressive skills

287
00:15:47,320 --> 00:15:49,200
of the painterly English painters

288
00:15:49,200 --> 00:15:51,880
that first kick him off as a painter himself.

289
00:15:51,880 --> 00:15:55,400
He surrounded himself with some of the, really, most superb painters

290
00:15:55,400 --> 00:15:57,400
that Britain produced at that period.

291
00:15:57,400 --> 00:15:59,640
I'm thinking of Orpen and people like that.

292
00:15:59,640 --> 00:16:02,080
He measured himself against the best.

293
00:16:02,080 --> 00:16:04,680
I think measuring them is not necessarily the right word.

294
00:16:04,680 --> 00:16:08,440
He felt, in their company, great happiness

295
00:16:08,440 --> 00:16:11,360
because they respected him as an artist,

296
00:16:11,360 --> 00:16:15,080
and that was the best thing that happened to him, I believe.

297
00:16:18,480 --> 00:16:20,920
The most important to Churchill,

298
00:16:20,920 --> 00:16:23,320
because they became intimate friends,

299
00:16:23,320 --> 00:16:26,400
I think that's a fair point, is William Nicholson.

300
00:16:26,400 --> 00:16:29,120
He stayed at Chartwell for a considerable time

301
00:16:29,120 --> 00:16:30,880
and Churchill so respected him

302
00:16:30,880 --> 00:16:33,160
and they, of course, painted together.

303
00:16:33,160 --> 00:16:34,920
They did, and Nicholson,

304
00:16:34,920 --> 00:16:38,320
one of the loosest but most brilliant, fluid painters

305
00:16:38,320 --> 00:16:40,080
of that period by far,

306
00:16:40,080 --> 00:16:42,480
somebody who's coming back into his own at the moment...

307
00:16:42,480 --> 00:16:44,120
He is, thank God. Yes.

308
00:16:44,120 --> 00:16:47,120
It's interesting. There are some still lifes by Churchill

309
00:16:47,120 --> 00:16:50,280
that have that direct influence of Nicholson.

310
00:16:50,280 --> 00:16:53,480
Their greyness and their silver-ness and so on. Very beautiful.

311
00:16:53,480 --> 00:16:55,280
It was Nicholson's approach to painting

312
00:16:55,280 --> 00:16:56,880
that was the most important thing.

313
00:16:56,880 --> 00:16:58,640
Very serious

314
00:16:58,640 --> 00:17:00,520
yet light-hearted, I suspect.

315
00:17:01,680 --> 00:17:06,240
The seriousness with which Churchill studied the craft of painting

316
00:17:06,240 --> 00:17:09,640
was a constant throughout his life.

317
00:17:09,640 --> 00:17:14,880
A creative intensity that only close friends and family ever got to see,

318
00:17:14,880 --> 00:17:16,600
if they were lucky.

319
00:17:16,600 --> 00:17:18,920
You were with your grandfather when he was painting.

320
00:17:18,920 --> 00:17:20,120
What was going on?

321
00:17:20,120 --> 00:17:22,680
When he was painting, he was completely preoccupied

322
00:17:22,680 --> 00:17:26,200
and he, generally, if he was outside, he'd have his big hat on

323
00:17:26,200 --> 00:17:30,840
and he would be totally engrossed in what he was doing

324
00:17:30,840 --> 00:17:34,440
and he didn't really welcome anyone much around

325
00:17:34,440 --> 00:17:37,080
so, if you were there, you kept your distance.

326
00:17:37,080 --> 00:17:40,120
The studio was pretty much out of bounds

327
00:17:40,120 --> 00:17:45,280
in the same way that my grandfather's study was

328
00:17:45,280 --> 00:17:47,120
and we were not allowed in there

329
00:17:47,120 --> 00:17:50,920
because those were the places where he worked

330
00:17:50,920 --> 00:17:53,840
and he hated being disturbed.

331
00:17:53,840 --> 00:17:56,000
I mean, right through his life,

332
00:17:56,000 --> 00:17:59,720
there are famous stories of him bellowing at people

333
00:17:59,720 --> 00:18:03,080
who disturbed him while he was working

334
00:18:03,080 --> 00:18:08,480
and that included his loved but infuriating grandchildren.

335
00:18:13,640 --> 00:18:16,920
Oil painting, unlike, say, watercolours,

336
00:18:16,920 --> 00:18:19,680
oil painting requires complete concentration,

337
00:18:19,680 --> 00:18:21,760
physical, because it's a physical act.

338
00:18:21,760 --> 00:18:23,800
Churchill was a very physical man.

339
00:18:23,800 --> 00:18:25,680
He played golf,

340
00:18:25,680 --> 00:18:27,960
he hunted, he rode horses

341
00:18:27,960 --> 00:18:30,360
and this was what oil painting gave him.

342
00:18:30,360 --> 00:18:32,840
It allowed him to be distracted.

343
00:18:32,840 --> 00:18:34,560
It was a total, absorbing pursuit.

344
00:18:34,560 --> 00:18:37,000
Throwing him, his whole self, into it, mind and body.

345
00:18:37,000 --> 00:18:39,480
Absolutely, you've got it. Exactly.

346
00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:49,920
He painted whenever and wherever he could.

347
00:18:49,920 --> 00:18:52,400
At home, in his studio,

348
00:18:52,400 --> 00:18:56,880
or, best of all, out in the open under a warming sun.

349
00:18:56,880 --> 00:19:00,920
In 1920, Churchill made the first of many painting trips

350
00:19:00,920 --> 00:19:02,760
to the south of France

351
00:19:02,760 --> 00:19:05,800
and discovered a new way of looking at the world.

352
00:19:06,800 --> 00:19:10,600
For generations, the British upper classes have had to deal

353
00:19:10,600 --> 00:19:14,880
with the almost unimaginable horror of the British winter,

354
00:19:14,880 --> 00:19:18,680
and they've dealt with it, by and large, by moving south.

355
00:19:18,680 --> 00:19:21,240
From Edwardian times right the way through

356
00:19:21,240 --> 00:19:23,560
to the new Elizabethans of the 1950s,

357
00:19:23,560 --> 00:19:25,600
in their hundreds and thousands,

358
00:19:25,600 --> 00:19:28,680
they flocked down here to the south of France

359
00:19:28,680 --> 00:19:31,440
for its dappled sunlight and it's azure waters

360
00:19:31,440 --> 00:19:35,880
like so many ungainly, dark migratory birds

361
00:19:35,880 --> 00:19:37,240
and, in that, at least,

362
00:19:37,240 --> 00:19:42,480
Winston Churchill was absolutely a man of his time and his class.

363
00:19:46,320 --> 00:19:49,920
The lush and dramatic landscapes of the Mediterranean

364
00:19:49,920 --> 00:19:53,960
were a world away from the calmer, gentler scenes at home.

365
00:19:53,960 --> 00:19:56,680
They demanded a new palette of colours

366
00:19:56,680 --> 00:20:00,960
and they inspired a new direction in Churchill's approach to his craft.

367
00:20:01,600 --> 00:20:05,840
His first influences had been the understated English artists,

368
00:20:05,840 --> 00:20:09,440
but, now, Churchill took inspiration from the European

369
00:20:09,440 --> 00:20:12,280
impressionists and postimpressionists,

370
00:20:12,280 --> 00:20:15,880
Manet and Monet, Cezanne and Matisse.

371
00:20:15,880 --> 00:20:18,520
According to Churchill, they had

372
00:20:18,520 --> 00:20:21,840
"brought to art a new draught of joie de vivre."

373
00:20:21,840 --> 00:20:28,000
"The beauty of their work is instinct with gaiety and floats in the sparkling air."

374
00:20:31,640 --> 00:20:34,720
This is one of his early efforts to emulate their success.

375
00:20:34,720 --> 00:20:37,280
A view of Mimizin in south-west France,

376
00:20:37,280 --> 00:20:39,960
which reminds me, slightly, of an early Paul Dufy.

377
00:20:43,880 --> 00:20:48,120
The landscapes were spectacular but the romance of the impoverished artist

378
00:20:48,120 --> 00:20:51,640
never much appealed to Winston Churchill.

379
00:20:51,640 --> 00:20:53,240
When he painted abroad,

380
00:20:53,240 --> 00:20:56,400
he always made sure the digs were up to scratch.

381
00:21:01,320 --> 00:21:05,680
And this was one of his favourites, the Villa La Pausa,

382
00:21:05,680 --> 00:21:08,080
once the home of Coco Chanel.

383
00:21:09,400 --> 00:21:12,360
Churchill came from the well-off aristocracy.

384
00:21:12,360 --> 00:21:14,760
After all, he was born in Blenheim Palace

385
00:21:14,760 --> 00:21:17,520
but he never had very much ready cash of his own.

386
00:21:17,520 --> 00:21:19,800
He always dreamed of being a millionaire.

387
00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:23,160
Well, for decades, he could come down to the south of France

388
00:21:23,160 --> 00:21:25,680
and mingle with those who really were.

389
00:21:25,680 --> 00:21:28,440
He'd leave behind the problems of freezing London,

390
00:21:28,440 --> 00:21:30,080
which may feel familiar.

391
00:21:30,080 --> 00:21:33,280
He was dealing with Ireland, Russia, Iraq,

392
00:21:33,280 --> 00:21:36,400
and he'd throw it all to one side and he'd come down here

393
00:21:36,400 --> 00:21:39,360
and he'd loiter about with the likes of Coco Chanel,

394
00:21:39,360 --> 00:21:42,400
Aristotle Onassis, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor,

395
00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:44,880
Noel Coward.

396
00:21:44,880 --> 00:21:47,680
These days we tend to be quite critical of politicians

397
00:21:47,680 --> 00:21:51,560
who, after they've left office, hang around with the rich and famous.

398
00:21:51,560 --> 00:21:55,720
Well, for decades, Churchill did exactly that in the South of France.

399
00:21:55,720 --> 00:21:57,320
Eat your heart out, Tony Blair.

400
00:22:12,720 --> 00:22:16,120
It's not hard to understand the appeal of the Med

401
00:22:16,120 --> 00:22:19,000
but, for Churchill, I think it went a little deeper than just

402
00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:22,480
the glitz and the luxury of places like this.

403
00:22:24,480 --> 00:22:28,720
Churchill's imagination was, of course, first and foremost verbal.

404
00:22:28,720 --> 00:22:31,960
The great thinker, the great writer, the great speaker.

405
00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:33,840
But, for an intensely verbal man,

406
00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:37,320
he also had a strongly visual imagination.

407
00:22:37,320 --> 00:22:40,240
Why did he keep coming down to the south of France?

408
00:22:40,240 --> 00:22:42,200
For the sun on his face, yes, of course.

409
00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:44,560
For the glamorous friends, up to a point.

410
00:22:44,560 --> 00:22:46,800
But, above all, he came here, I think,

411
00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:50,720
for the extraordinary, intense, saturated colours,

412
00:22:50,720 --> 00:22:53,960
which fed his imagination as nothing else could.

413
00:22:53,960 --> 00:22:56,640
If you want to see how that works, you can turn to

414
00:22:56,640 --> 00:22:59,920
the only novel the young Churchill wrote.

415
00:22:59,920 --> 00:23:03,400
It's intensely romantic, quite interesting, not very good

416
00:23:03,400 --> 00:23:04,840
and it's called Savrola.

417
00:23:08,200 --> 00:23:12,200
He wrote it in his early twenties long before he began to paint,

418
00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:14,800
but the novel is full of clues to a romantic sensibility

419
00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:18,040
which later expressed itself on canvas.

420
00:23:19,800 --> 00:23:21,120
The hero of the novel,

421
00:23:21,120 --> 00:23:24,200
a barely disguised version of Churchill himself,

422
00:23:24,200 --> 00:23:28,560
is a man of action who fights a dictator who is blind to beauty.

423
00:23:30,680 --> 00:23:32,240
At a key moment in the story,

424
00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:37,280
he retreats to his study to look at Jupiter in the night sky

425
00:23:39,960 --> 00:23:44,480
"At last he rose, his mind still far away from Earth."

426
00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:47,360
"Another world, a world more beautiful,

427
00:23:47,360 --> 00:23:50,000
"a world of boundless possibilities,

428
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:52,160
"enthralled his imagination."

429
00:23:53,760 --> 00:23:55,280
And then, obviously,

430
00:23:55,280 --> 00:23:59,840
he and the central female character in the story fall in love.

431
00:23:59,840 --> 00:24:03,320
"With her, it was as if the rising sunbeam

432
00:24:03,320 --> 00:24:06,440
"had struck the rainbow from the crystal prism,"

433
00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:11,600
"or had flushed the snow peak with rose, orange and violet."

434
00:24:21,880 --> 00:24:28,000
This novel is a young man's fantasy, florid and melodramatic,

435
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:30,480
but the romantic sensibility it reveals

436
00:24:30,480 --> 00:24:33,600
was part of Churchill's make-up to the end.

437
00:24:33,600 --> 00:24:36,920
I think painting was one way of tapping into it,

438
00:24:36,920 --> 00:24:39,320
especially when he immersed himself

439
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:42,000
in the shimmering light of the Mediterranean.

440
00:24:46,760 --> 00:24:49,320
Churchill adored the south of France,

441
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:51,200
it was his personal playground.

442
00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:54,000
But the Cote D'Azure that Churchill loved

443
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:56,280
has now mostly been destroyed.

444
00:24:56,280 --> 00:25:00,080
Too much appalling development, too much money, too many people.

445
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:03,680
There are only a few places, like here on the Loup river,

446
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:06,720
which are, more or less exactly, as Churchill knew them.

447
00:25:08,840 --> 00:25:11,640
Just a few miles north of Cannes,

448
00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:16,080
the Loup river offered Churchill a challenging juxtaposition

449
00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:20,960
of harsh, textured cliff faces and still, reflective water.

450
00:25:23,080 --> 00:25:26,920
Pictures like this spring from the same romantic imagination

451
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:29,400
on display in Churchill's early novel,

452
00:25:29,400 --> 00:25:32,880
but where his prose was overcooked and sentimental,

453
00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:36,680
the painting is, in my opinion, deft and sophisticated.

454
00:25:39,240 --> 00:25:43,360
Taken to the Loup river to film, I've decided to draw myself

455
00:25:43,360 --> 00:25:45,120
but a broader subject.

456
00:25:45,120 --> 00:25:47,840
To be honest, working here with pencils,

457
00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:51,160
I find water almost impossible to draw.

458
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:55,640
I've chosen a drawing subject which is technically quite difficult.

459
00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:58,720
Not because of the overall shape, that's straightforward.

460
00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:02,880
There's a cliff and there are trees coming down into the river bubbling through.

461
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:06,640
But because of the complexity and subtlety of the colour here.

462
00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:10,480
It's still nearly winter. There aren't many leaves on the trees.

463
00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:14,360
Everything is a kind of gungy brown or a slimy green.

464
00:26:14,360 --> 00:26:18,240
I'm drawing out the colours, and every time I look at it again, I see more colours.

465
00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:20,040
It's a complicated business.

466
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:23,120
I haven't completely messed it up this time. That's all I'll say.

467
00:26:23,120 --> 00:26:25,840
It's not great but it's not a total mess-up.

468
00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:39,760
What's interesting is that this is a difficult place to paint.

469
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:44,040
I'm surrounded by running water, dappled colours, speckle, flash.

470
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:46,760
He chose hard subjects.

471
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:50,160
He once said that painting was like taking a paintbox

472
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:53,960
off on a joyride, to lift the blood and tears of the morning.

473
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:58,320
Well, if so, all I can say is that Churchill's paintbox was a 4x4,

474
00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:01,600
which he drove to the hardest places possible. The most obscure.

475
00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:03,560
The toughest subjects.

476
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:17,800
I'm half happy. Which, for me, is quite a lot. Hmm.

477
00:27:21,320 --> 00:27:24,240
Churchill painted the Loup river several times.

478
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:26,560
He came here again and again.

479
00:27:29,120 --> 00:27:31,880
I think this version is the best.

480
00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:35,160
He gifted it to the Tate Gallery after a meeting

481
00:27:35,160 --> 00:27:38,600
with its director John Rothenstein, in his studio at Chartwell.

482
00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:43,400
Surrounded by Churchill's paintings,

483
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:46,560
the two men discussed the importance of art.

484
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:52,640
And Churchill turned to Rothenstein and he said,

485
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:55,640
"If it weren't for painting, I couldn't live."

486
00:27:55,640 --> 00:27:58,160
"I couldn't bear the strain of things."

487
00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:00,280
Horse's mouth.

488
00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:13,720
Churchill rarely spoke

489
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:17,960
so directly about the emotional importance of his art.

490
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:20,520
He only wrote publicly about it once,

491
00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:23,240
in an essay called Painting As A Pastime,

492
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:26,800
published shortly after that first expedition to France.

493
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:30,840
The essay celebrates the excitement and satisfaction of making art,

494
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:32,720
sensations that nourished him

495
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:37,600
during a series of incredibly difficult government jobs in the 1920s.

496
00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:42,200
He painted this calm interior in 1921,

497
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:43,840
the same year that he oversaw

498
00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:46,640
the partition of Ireland as Colonial Secretary.

499
00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:51,000
A task that earned Churchill many enemies in his own party.

500
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:53,760
And this fiery seascape was composed

501
00:28:53,760 --> 00:28:56,280
when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer,

502
00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:58,000
a post he held for five years

503
00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:02,960
during the upheavals of the general strike and economic depression.

504
00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:08,800
When the Tories were voted out in 1929, Churchill lost his job.

505
00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:12,280
With enemies on all sides of the House of Commons,

506
00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:15,160
he thought his career was over.

507
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:19,000
The 1920s had been all about excitement, and colour, and light

508
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:23,960
but, now, Churchill's fortunes demanded a more sombre palette.

509
00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:28,560
He was entering the decade that's been called his "wilderness years."

510
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:35,560
This is the period when Churchill's production as a painter starts to really accelerate.

511
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:38,000
About half the paintings we have from him now

512
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:40,720
come from this time, which is very interesting,

513
00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:42,920
if you look at what else is going on in his life.

514
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:45,400
In his political life he's made bad choices.

515
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:49,080
He's a bit of a political dinosaur, virtually an outcast.

516
00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:51,720
In his other life as a writer, now, I know, none better,

517
00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:55,760
that life as a hack journalist is very, very exciting

518
00:29:55,760 --> 00:30:00,680
but extremely unchancy and febrile and things are going very badly for him in that regard.

519
00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:03,440
Contracts have been cancelled, the money isn't coming in.

520
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:04,880
He's under huge pressure.

521
00:30:05,840 --> 00:30:07,920
And how is he behaving in this house?

522
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:10,080
Well, signs of pressure all around.

523
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:13,560
The brandies and sodas are starting from 11.30 in the morning -

524
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:15,280
a little bit early, even for me.

525
00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:18,240
And, by the evening, he is knocking himself out with booze -

526
00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:21,240
brandy and soda, whisky, champagne.

527
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:25,480
Day and night have almost ceased to exist for Churchill at this period.

528
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:27,480
He will get up in the middle of the night

529
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:31,320
and dictate to some poor, wretched secretary for three hours at a time.

530
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:33,040
He's wallowing around in his bath.

531
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:34,480
He's wandering around this house

532
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:36,920
dressed either only in a silk kimono,

533
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:39,520
with a great, big red dragon stitched on the back,

534
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:41,000
or with no clothes on at all.

535
00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:44,840
He's showing lots of signs of manic, pressured behaviour.

536
00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:54,560
"Never a dull or idle moment," Churchill once wrote.

537
00:30:54,560 --> 00:30:59,760
The 55-year-old outcast now flung his energies into Chartwell.

538
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:03,880
Winston rolled up his sleeves and he built cottages, walls,

539
00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:06,880
garden rockeries, and even a swimming pool

540
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:09,360
with his own bare hands.

541
00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:11,640
Described as "restless and meditative"

542
00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:14,400
by friend and politician Harold Nicolson,

543
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:17,560
Churchill also painted like a demon.

544
00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:19,280
One of his favourite subjects,

545
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:21,760
of who he painted many times over the years -

546
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:24,480
the pond in the garden, filled with goldfish.

547
00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:30,360
I have very strong memories of the goldfish pond.

548
00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:36,720
Because it was a great sort of little ceremony.

549
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:39,440
He used to... After lunch,

550
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:45,600
he used to walk down to the goldfish pond, with maybe grandchildren,

551
00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:47,520
with Rufus the poodle,

552
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:51,360
and he'd sit on the edge of the goldfish pond

553
00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:55,320
and he'd bang on the Yorkstone with his stick,

554
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:58,960
and the goldfish would come rushing over.

555
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:04,160
And then he'd feed them mealies out of this big box.

556
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:08,120
He created that space.

557
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:11,760
There was no goldfish pond when he arrived at Chartwell.

558
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:15,240
That goldfish pond looked as he wished it to look.

559
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:22,360
When the family were gone, Churchill would sit and sit and paint.

560
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:29,760
Perhaps it was the technical challenge

561
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:33,280
of representing light and shade, water and foliage

562
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:35,520
that fascinated him most.

563
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:38,400
Or was there more to it than that?

564
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:47,760
So this is a very important place to Churchill, this goldfish pond.

565
00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:51,880
And, at first sight, it seems a bit melancholy - it's dark -

566
00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:54,720
and you wonder if there's some kind of connection

567
00:32:54,720 --> 00:32:58,960
between his fascination with this very, very dark green water,

568
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:01,960
albeit with flashes of golden goldfish in it,

569
00:33:01,960 --> 00:33:04,320
and what's going on in his head at the time.

570
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:05,800
Because it is the reverse

571
00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:09,120
of the kind of sunny, sunlit, easy landscapes

572
00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:11,200
he liked to paint in France, for instance.

573
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:15,880
This painting of the pond was done in 1932,

574
00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:18,800
when Churchill was increasingly frustrated

575
00:33:18,800 --> 00:33:21,720
by his marginal role in public life.

576
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:27,680
Many say it's the best painting that Churchill ever did.

577
00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:31,640
Well, it's technically accomplished and beautifully composed.

578
00:33:32,760 --> 00:33:33,880
It's a mood piece,

579
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:37,320
which conveys something of the great man's melancholy -

580
00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:39,560
what his daughter in later life

581
00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:42,440
would describe as, "A void in his heart,

582
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:46,160
"which no achievement or honour could completely fulfil."

583
00:33:50,120 --> 00:33:52,600
There is a black dog swimming in that water.

584
00:33:54,080 --> 00:33:57,400
I'm not drawing water very well at the moment, but, um...

585
00:33:57,400 --> 00:33:59,000
I'm getting there, I guess.

586
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:10,600
If black dog was the problem, maybe colour was the cure.

587
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:19,320
The philosopher Isaiah Berlin once said of Churchill that,

588
00:34:19,320 --> 00:34:24,320
"He sees history and life as a great Renaissance pageant.

589
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:27,480
"The units out of which his world is constructed

590
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:32,200
"are simpler and larger-than-life, painted in primary colours."

591
00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:42,560
That might explain why he loved Marrakesh in Morocco so very much.

592
00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:48,000
In late 1935, Churchill made the first of many visits

593
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:50,360
to paint in the North African city.

594
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:56,000
"Sunseeking, rotten and disconsolate,"

595
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:59,280
as he once described himself in a letter to his wife,

596
00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:02,640
Marrakesh promised him desert adventure

597
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:05,720
and a trip back in time in primary colours,

598
00:35:05,720 --> 00:35:09,240
a place to absorb his mind and lift his spirits.

599
00:35:09,240 --> 00:35:11,520
PENCIL SCRATCHES

600
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:18,400
The capacity of art and its making to restore one's mental health

601
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:21,760
is something that I am coming to understand,

602
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:24,200
and I'm sure Churchill did too.

603
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:28,920
I'm really interested in the idea of flow

604
00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:31,360
as the essence of happiness, if you like.

605
00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:33,520
And flow is, we're told,

606
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:35,920
being engaged with full intensity in something,

607
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:38,640
doing it as much as you possibly can, as hard as you can,

608
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:41,880
but something you find difficult, and not easy, but you CAN do.

609
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:43,480
So, for me, it's drawing.

610
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:45,400
When I'm doing it, everything else

611
00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:49,280
just dissolves into mere colour and line,

612
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:51,360
and there is nothing except for colour and line

613
00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:54,160
in the world, ultimately. So that's what it does for me.

614
00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:56,440
I'm sure it was the same for Churchill too.

615
00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:02,760
I wouldn't say that art's kept me sane

616
00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:04,240
but I think, certainly for me,

617
00:36:04,240 --> 00:36:06,800
it's been a very, very important release valve.

618
00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:09,160
When things are going really badly,

619
00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:11,480
there's been too much pressure in personal life

620
00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:14,400
or in professional life, when I think I'm about to go pop,

621
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:17,920
then, frankly, going back to paints and easels and colours and shapes

622
00:36:17,920 --> 00:36:19,680
helps me hugely - always has.

623
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:24,160
None of us are Churchill.

624
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:26,480
We don't quite know what was going on in his mind,

625
00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:27,800
none of us ever will.

626
00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:30,080
But my best guess is that it kept him sane

627
00:36:30,080 --> 00:36:33,360
because it kept him connected to the vibrant,

628
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:37,240
kind of flickering, iridescent reality of being alive.

629
00:36:37,240 --> 00:36:40,160
It's about looking out and thinking, "I am alive."

630
00:36:40,160 --> 00:36:43,160
You're thinking about the shapes, you're thinking about the colours,

631
00:36:43,160 --> 00:36:45,200
and you're full of awe and amazement.

632
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:48,560
And his paintings are full of awe and amazement and joie de vivre,

633
00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:50,440
and a sense of being really engaged

634
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:52,760
in this extraordinary world around you.

635
00:36:52,760 --> 00:36:55,280
And, you know, in a pressured, difficult life,

636
00:36:55,280 --> 00:36:58,640
where you're full of gloom and full of worry and full of angst -

637
00:36:58,640 --> 00:37:01,680
he had these terrible depressions - I think it that is the kind of thing

638
00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:04,040
that can stop you blowing your brains out, frankly.

639
00:37:09,240 --> 00:37:15,440
Painting helped Churchill find a path through his Wilderness Years,

640
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:17,520
- which is just as well. 
- BOMBS WHISTLE AND EXPLODE

641
00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:22,920
Because, of course, history hadn't quite finished with him just yet.

642
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:29,000
CHURCHILL: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

643
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:36,000
In the past, he'd juggled politics and painting

644
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:41,440
but, when he became Prime Minister in May 1940, at the age of 65,

645
00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:44,440
Churchill's wartime duties were so intense

646
00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:48,040
that even his private release valve and solace

647
00:37:48,040 --> 00:37:50,320
had to be packed away for the duration.

648
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:56,200
There was just one occasion during six years of war

649
00:37:56,200 --> 00:37:58,680
when his brushes saw the light of day.

650
00:37:59,960 --> 00:38:01,920
It was the only time in his life

651
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:04,760
when his private passion for making art

652
00:38:04,760 --> 00:38:07,680
collided with his public role as a politician.

653
00:38:09,320 --> 00:38:11,280
It's 1943.

654
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:14,280
The World War is on a pivot and, for Britain,

655
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:17,640
everything depends on the intensity and the strength

656
00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:19,120
of the American alliance.

657
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:20,720
So what does Churchill do?

658
00:38:20,720 --> 00:38:24,240
He drags President Roosevelt halfway across North Africa,

659
00:38:24,240 --> 00:38:27,600
here to his beloved Marrakesh.

660
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:28,720
Why?

661
00:38:28,720 --> 00:38:31,880
Because, as he tells the American president, "I have to be with you

662
00:38:31,880 --> 00:38:36,320
"when you first see the sun set on the Atlas Mountains."

663
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:40,680
This is Churchill's diplomacy at its most personal and intense.

664
00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:42,200
While he's here, he does something

665
00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:44,240
he doesn't do at any other point during the war -

666
00:38:44,240 --> 00:38:46,160
he paints a picture of the Koutoubia Mosque -

667
00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:47,280
a lovely painting -

668
00:38:47,280 --> 00:38:50,040
and he immediately gives it to Roosevelt.

669
00:38:50,040 --> 00:38:53,040
This is not the ordinary kind of gift between leaders.

670
00:38:53,040 --> 00:38:57,840
This is Churchill giving Roosevelt a tiny slice of his own soul -

671
00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:00,640
ultimate soft power.

672
00:39:00,640 --> 00:39:03,360
Of course, in those days, the international art markets

673
00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:05,440
did not exist in quite the way it does today,

674
00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:07,400
and so where is that lovely painting now?

675
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:10,600
In the collection of Mr and Mrs Brad Pitt.

676
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:22,720
After the war had been won,

677
00:39:22,720 --> 00:39:25,480
Churchill returned to Marrakesh many times,

678
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:30,280
and always with his paints, which were now out of storage for good.

679
00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:31,880
His first visit came

680
00:39:31,880 --> 00:39:36,280
as a new Labour government was settling in back home.

681
00:39:36,280 --> 00:39:41,160
The wartime Prime Minister had been unceremoniously booted from office

682
00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:45,240
in a general election that was one of the most celebrated upsets

683
00:39:45,240 --> 00:39:47,360
in British political history.

684
00:39:47,360 --> 00:39:52,720
Exhausted and dejected, he decamped here to the Mamounia Hotel,

685
00:39:52,720 --> 00:39:56,040
with his entourage of family and staff.

686
00:39:56,040 --> 00:40:00,320
Alongside cases of Pol Roger champagne and whisky,

687
00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:04,680
frames, canvases and easels would be shipped out from London.

688
00:40:04,680 --> 00:40:08,120
And his hotel room would become a temporary painting studio,

689
00:40:08,120 --> 00:40:12,520
again and again, many times over during the next years of his life.

690
00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:15,840
So what you get from a place like this

691
00:40:15,840 --> 00:40:17,920
is your high balcony and a huge view,

692
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:20,760
stretching for probably 30 or 40 miles into the distance.

693
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:23,280
And you've got the Atlas Mountains in the far distance.

694
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:25,560
I can exactly see why Churchill enjoyed this balcony

695
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:27,200
and this particular view.

696
00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:29,640
The mountains are kind of...

697
00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:33,200
There's a kind of sense of Alpine cleanliness and fresh air.

698
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:35,160
It's a bracing view, I guess.

699
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:42,760
It opened the door to the total involvement of his mind.

700
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:44,120
He was a very intelligent man.

701
00:40:44,120 --> 00:40:47,200
Total involvement of his mind in making a picture,

702
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:48,920
which was a very complicated thing.

703
00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:50,160
And not only that,

704
00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:52,520
the total involvement, more or less, of his body.

705
00:40:52,520 --> 00:40:56,400
Cos, when you paint in oils, you need to use the whole of your body

706
00:40:56,400 --> 00:40:59,680
and, to be a successful painter, you need to use the whole of your mind.

707
00:40:59,680 --> 00:41:03,080
This is the first time I've painted in oil since my stroke.

708
00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:05,080
Um...

709
00:41:05,080 --> 00:41:08,040
Obviously, oils are kind of harder, physically,

710
00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:11,280
than watercolours or drawing, because you got so much gunk.

711
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:13,680
I'll make a massive amount of mess today, I'm sure.

712
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:15,040
I'm effectively one-handed -

713
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:17,680
I can't hold the canvas and paint at the same time,

714
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:19,880
so my marks are going to be quite...

715
00:41:19,880 --> 00:41:22,360
basic and simple and brutal, if you like.

716
00:41:22,360 --> 00:41:24,200
And it's a very complicated scene,

717
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:25,920
with lots and lots of subtlety about it.

718
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:27,840
Am I going to be able to get that subtlety

719
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:29,320
or am I just going to make a mess?

720
00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:30,640
Very good question.

721
00:41:35,600 --> 00:41:38,080
He loved the South of France and he loved Morocco.

722
00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:40,920
He said he wanted to go somewhere "paintable and bathable"

723
00:41:40,920 --> 00:41:42,520
when he went on holiday.

724
00:41:42,520 --> 00:41:45,200
And, very often, he did find that.

725
00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:48,560
The line of the mountains is quite simple.

726
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:50,520
You've got a lot of trees, a lot of palm trees,

727
00:41:50,520 --> 00:41:52,960
a lot of movement going on. Battlements.

728
00:41:52,960 --> 00:41:57,320
The pleasure he got out of it was almost as a craft.

729
00:41:57,320 --> 00:42:01,360
You know, the technique of putting the paint onto the canvas.

730
00:42:01,360 --> 00:42:03,760
He loved the texture of the paint,

731
00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:07,520
the thickness of the paint for different effects.

732
00:42:07,520 --> 00:42:09,880
It was working with his hands.

733
00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:13,080
After his monumental efforts in the war,

734
00:42:13,080 --> 00:42:16,640
Churchill had become surplus to national requirements.

735
00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:19,080
Morocco was just one of the many places

736
00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:21,520
he travelled to in the late 1940s,

737
00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:26,280
as he embarked on a globetrotting life of semi-rejection.

738
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:29,000
From Miami Beach and the Mediterranean

739
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:30,600
to Belgium and Jamaica,

740
00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:34,760
he was always on the move and always painting.

741
00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:38,280
Was he coming to terms with the end of his career,

742
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:40,520
or was he recharging his batteries

743
00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:43,520
before he launched himself into it yet again?

744
00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:47,520
There comes a time in the life of every painting

745
00:42:47,520 --> 00:42:50,480
when it kind of finishes itself, when it announces to you

746
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:53,720
that, the more you paint, the worse it's now going to get.

747
00:42:55,040 --> 00:42:57,200
I'm thinking I made some good decisions.

748
00:42:57,200 --> 00:43:00,160
I've got a very strong vertical, a very strong horizontal.

749
00:43:00,160 --> 00:43:03,280
It's a very simple design. And, in this case, it's not bad.

750
00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:05,760
It's not a shameful painting. I wish I'd worked harder

751
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:07,960
before I started to put on the big slabs of colour.

752
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:09,560
Am I happy with this picture?

753
00:43:09,560 --> 00:43:10,920
No, I'm not.

754
00:43:10,920 --> 00:43:13,680
Have I ever been happy with any picture I've done?

755
00:43:13,680 --> 00:43:14,880
Never.

756
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:20,240
It seems Churchill was never really satisfied

757
00:43:20,240 --> 00:43:21,800
with his paintings, either.

758
00:43:21,800 --> 00:43:24,960
He was certainly very reluctant to show them in public.

759
00:43:28,400 --> 00:43:32,640
But, in 1947, when Churchill was in his mid-70s,

760
00:43:32,640 --> 00:43:35,880
the president of the Royal Academy, Sir Alfred Munnings,

761
00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:38,760
persuaded him to enter two of his paintings,

762
00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:42,400
including this view of Winter Sunshine at Chartwell

763
00:43:42,400 --> 00:43:44,760
for the Academy's Summer Exhibition.

764
00:43:46,120 --> 00:43:48,760
Churchill submitted the pictures under a pseudonym.

765
00:43:48,760 --> 00:43:52,200
He wanted them to be accepted and hung on merit,

766
00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:53,920
not because of who he was.

767
00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:55,640
The subject, of course, of the picture

768
00:43:55,640 --> 00:43:57,600
might have been a bit of a giveaway!

769
00:43:57,600 --> 00:43:59,160
At any rate, the following year,

770
00:43:59,160 --> 00:44:03,960
Churchill exhibited three pictures at the Academy under his own name.

771
00:44:03,960 --> 00:44:08,560
The Royal Academy Of Arts is the pinnacle, the bastion,

772
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:12,120
the palazzo of the official British art world.

773
00:44:12,120 --> 00:44:16,760
All up and down the country, in the 1940s and '50s, as now,

774
00:44:16,760 --> 00:44:20,600
hundreds and thousands of amateur painters and sculptors

775
00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:25,080
dream of seeing their work hung here in the Summer Exhibition,

776
00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:27,440
alongside the greats of the day.

777
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:29,840
And Churchill was no different.

778
00:44:29,840 --> 00:44:33,480
In 1948, he was made an honorary RA -

779
00:44:33,480 --> 00:44:37,160
an almost unique honour for a nonprofessional artist,

780
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:40,680
and he took great pride and pleasure in this.

781
00:44:40,680 --> 00:44:42,160
But it has to be said that,

782
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:45,800
characteristically for Churchill, this was a conservative honour.

783
00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:48,480
The RA has never been at the pinnacle,

784
00:44:48,480 --> 00:44:50,840
the forefront of world art.

785
00:44:50,840 --> 00:44:54,840
And Churchill and Sir Alfred Munnings famously discussed here

786
00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:57,920
how much they hated modern art and, in particular,

787
00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:02,080
which of them would most like to kick Mr Picasso up the bum!

788
00:45:03,240 --> 00:45:04,480
PROJECTOR CLICKS

789
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:06,200
He was enjoying the honours

790
00:45:06,200 --> 00:45:09,440
that often come to great men in retirement.

791
00:45:09,440 --> 00:45:12,760
But Churchill wasn't done with politics yet.

792
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:18,640
Astonishingly, in 1951, he became Prime Minister for a second time,

793
00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:23,720
and he soldiered on through a full term, despite several strokes.

794
00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:30,440
When he left Number 10 for good in 1955,

795
00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:33,000
Churchill travelled back to the South of France

796
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:35,160
to paint at the Villa La Pausa.

797
00:45:35,160 --> 00:45:37,520
The former home of Coco Chanel

798
00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:41,800
was now home of Churchill's literary agent, Emery Reves.

799
00:45:41,800 --> 00:45:46,840
In the past, painting had been an antidote to mental turmoil.

800
00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:49,720
Now the challenge was physical instead.

801
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:54,560
We know that Churchill sat in this more or less exact spot

802
00:45:54,560 --> 00:45:56,880
and painted this more or less exact view -

803
00:45:56,880 --> 00:45:59,360
a great deal better than I'm painting it, I have to say,

804
00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:01,880
but nonetheless... And you can see the attraction -

805
00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:04,800
it is just a riot of vivid colours, exploding to you.

806
00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:07,760
You've got the lovely little Mediterranean town of Menton

807
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:09,160
right in front of you,

808
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:13,120
a kind of symphony of pinks and creams and bright white.

809
00:46:18,280 --> 00:46:24,280
La Pausa, for my grandfather, was a haven, in a way.

810
00:46:24,280 --> 00:46:28,520
He was very lucky that he was able to spend so much time there.

811
00:46:28,520 --> 00:46:31,160
And he went there for lunch one day,

812
00:46:31,160 --> 00:46:35,560
and met Wendy and Emery Reves, and obviously expressed such enthusiasm

813
00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:37,960
that they put a whole room at his disposal.

814
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:41,960
In fact, a whole floor at his disposal, and he used it as his own.

815
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:46,880
And Wendy Reves would be amazingly helpful,

816
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:48,960
and she'd invent things for him to paint.

817
00:46:48,960 --> 00:46:52,040
It was a very agreeable, wonderful place for him to be.

818
00:46:54,560 --> 00:46:59,200
I think he was having a marvellous time at an easel.

819
00:46:59,200 --> 00:47:02,560
You know, fighting the paint into submission,

820
00:47:02,560 --> 00:47:07,960
puffing away on his cigar, forgetting the cares of the world.

821
00:47:07,960 --> 00:47:13,080
And having a lovely time with light and landscape,

822
00:47:13,080 --> 00:47:16,400
and it was something he could do wherever he went.

823
00:47:24,320 --> 00:47:26,760
I understand, from personal experience,

824
00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:29,480
the physical challenges of recovering from a stroke.

825
00:47:29,480 --> 00:47:32,080
But, for Churchill, in his mid-70s,

826
00:47:32,080 --> 00:47:35,400
to paint again after all he had been through

827
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:39,240
speaks volumes for his sheer bloody-mindedness.

828
00:47:39,240 --> 00:47:44,000
He had many faults, but you would never call him a quitter.

829
00:47:44,000 --> 00:47:47,200
Churchill never lost his ambition all his life -

830
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:49,040
he remained, in his old age,

831
00:47:49,040 --> 00:47:52,000
as determined to change the world as he ever was.

832
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:54,040
He wanted to get rid of the nuclear bomb,

833
00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:56,560
he wanted to have a new peace treaty with the Soviet Union,

834
00:47:56,560 --> 00:48:00,160
he was full of ambition, and they stopped him doing it.

835
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:03,880
He was too old, too ill, rambled on too long.

836
00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:05,560
They made him go.

837
00:48:05,560 --> 00:48:08,160
Now, we know what happens when politicians are forced out -

838
00:48:08,160 --> 00:48:10,120
it's always bloody, it's always difficult.

839
00:48:10,120 --> 00:48:11,480
Think of Margaret Thatcher.

840
00:48:11,480 --> 00:48:13,160
Well, Churchill didn't rage.

841
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:15,440
He didn't sort of try to enter politics.

842
00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:18,120
He didn't make stupid speeches. He carried on.

843
00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:21,080
One of the ways he carried on was simply sitting here, painting.

844
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:23,040
I mean, he... He had one thing that he could do

845
00:48:23,040 --> 00:48:25,720
that they couldn't take away from him, I suppose.

846
00:48:25,720 --> 00:48:27,040
And it was this.

847
00:48:40,720 --> 00:48:43,840
Besides his family, there was no-one better placed

848
00:48:43,840 --> 00:48:47,280
to understand what art gave to Churchill at this time

849
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:49,280
than his bodyguard.

850
00:48:49,280 --> 00:48:51,600
PROJECTOR CLICKS

851
00:48:54,840 --> 00:48:58,760
From 1950 until his death, Sergeant Edmund Murray -

852
00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:01,600
ex-Foreign Legion, ex-Metropolitan Police -

853
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:04,680
travelled everywhere with Churchill.

854
00:49:04,680 --> 00:49:07,720
Murray was a keen amateur painter himself,

855
00:49:07,720 --> 00:49:11,120
and he soon became Churchill's painting assistant as well.

856
00:49:14,320 --> 00:49:17,480
Bill, your father was Churchill's close protection officer

857
00:49:17,480 --> 00:49:18,720
during the 1950s.

858
00:49:18,720 --> 00:49:20,800
Tell us a little bit about him first.

859
00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:23,360
My father was a Metropolitan Police officer,

860
00:49:23,360 --> 00:49:29,280
and he joined Special Branch in 1949. And, er...

861
00:49:29,280 --> 00:49:32,760
he came up for protection duties, and was shortlisted.

862
00:49:32,760 --> 00:49:36,600
I think perhaps because he'd spent seven or eight years

863
00:49:36,600 --> 00:49:38,480
in the French Foreign Legion,

864
00:49:38,480 --> 00:49:42,400
and he could speak French fluently, and also Arabic as well.

865
00:49:42,400 --> 00:49:44,200
So Foreign Legion, French, Arabic.

866
00:49:44,200 --> 00:49:47,280
- But, beyond all of that, he was a painter too. 
- He was, yes.

867
00:49:47,280 --> 00:49:48,680
And is it true that he would

868
00:49:48,680 --> 00:49:51,200
actually scope out places for Churchill to paint,

869
00:49:51,200 --> 00:49:53,440
then find the places that Churchill then painted?

870
00:49:53,440 --> 00:49:55,000
Yes, that's right.

871
00:49:55,000 --> 00:49:59,840
He had a camera that was given to him by Sir Winston,

872
00:49:59,840 --> 00:50:03,840
and Dad had to go around the sites and find the right places.

873
00:50:03,840 --> 00:50:06,520
But obviously had to think of security,

874
00:50:06,520 --> 00:50:08,600
and also think of access as well.

875
00:50:08,600 --> 00:50:10,720
Because, certainly in the later years,

876
00:50:10,720 --> 00:50:13,160
Sir Winston wasn't really very mobile.

877
00:50:13,160 --> 00:50:16,280
And they'd paint together, side-by-side, from time to time?

878
00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:17,400
Sometimes.

879
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:20,680
Usually, that would have been at Chartwell or occasionally abroad.

880
00:50:20,680 --> 00:50:22,800
There was such a lot of equipment to carry around

881
00:50:22,800 --> 00:50:25,920
that, really, there was only enough equipment for Sir Winston to paint,

882
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:27,080
and not my father.

883
00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:31,000
Right from the early days of my father being the bodyguard,

884
00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:32,760
Sir Winston gave instructions

885
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:36,440
that no-one else was to set out his paints other than my father

886
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:39,480
because he knew what Sir Winston wanted, what he needed,

887
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:42,080
the colours he needed, the equipment he needed.

888
00:50:42,080 --> 00:50:44,040
So that's real luxury for any painter,

889
00:50:44,040 --> 00:50:46,120
to have somebody else lay out the paints,

890
00:50:46,120 --> 00:50:47,760
clean the brushes, sort you out.

891
00:50:47,760 --> 00:50:50,400
- Exactly right, yes. 
- Fantastic. 
- Yeah, that's true.

892
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:52,760
And they clearly shared so much.

893
00:50:52,760 --> 00:50:55,880
As a result of which, you have Winston Churchill's paints,

894
00:50:55,880 --> 00:50:58,360
and some of Sir Winston's own brushes.

895
00:50:58,360 --> 00:51:01,400
It's quite moving, because you can still see the gobs of paint

896
00:51:01,400 --> 00:51:03,840
and bits of the brush where he has worn them away

897
00:51:03,840 --> 00:51:06,200
by stabbing and slashing at the canvas.

898
00:51:06,200 --> 00:51:09,800
And his special painting spectacles, and his great painting hat.

899
00:51:09,800 --> 00:51:12,320
His painting hat, one of his painting hats.

900
00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:16,400
Because, certainly in the sunny, sunny climates

901
00:51:16,400 --> 00:51:19,040
of the South of France and Morocco and Jamaica,

902
00:51:19,040 --> 00:51:21,120
the hat was really important and essential.

903
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:24,120
You wouldn't want to burn your head. It's a very, very fine hat.

904
00:51:24,120 --> 00:51:27,160
It's a little it's too small for my head! "Bighead Marr"!

905
00:51:27,160 --> 00:51:29,840
And, above all, we've got this extraordinary painting here,

906
00:51:29,840 --> 00:51:32,280
which is like an abstract picture.

907
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:35,000
It's a mysterious, dark, abstract painting,

908
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:38,880
- but it's actually of the goldfish pond at Chartwell. 
- Yes.

909
00:51:38,880 --> 00:51:41,080
Probably in his late 80s,

910
00:51:41,080 --> 00:51:43,840
my father managed to get Sir Winston out

911
00:51:43,840 --> 00:51:45,880
to do one last painting.

912
00:51:45,880 --> 00:51:47,880
And we think it was that one.

913
00:51:47,880 --> 00:51:51,920
It's definitely of the goldfish pond at Chartwell.

914
00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:55,480
By that time, Sir Winston's eyesight had got quite poor.

915
00:51:56,680 --> 00:52:00,080
It's very blurred, it's very streaky. It's a strange painting.

916
00:52:00,080 --> 00:52:02,720
But, at Chartwell, the goldfish ponds are dark.

917
00:52:02,720 --> 00:52:05,840
You can imagine a very, very old man staring through

918
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:09,320
the sort of dark, turbid waters, down into the flashes of gold.

919
00:52:09,320 --> 00:52:11,440
- It's like a vision of something, isn't it? 
- Yeah.

920
00:52:11,440 --> 00:52:12,640
There's something moving.

921
00:52:12,640 --> 00:52:16,200
It's like an old man looking through reality for some brightness beyond.

922
00:52:16,200 --> 00:52:20,920
- But this could be the last painting he ever made? 
- I think it is. Yes.

923
00:52:20,920 --> 00:52:24,560
Churchill painted almost to the end.

924
00:52:24,560 --> 00:52:28,720
But it was only after he died in January 1965

925
00:52:28,720 --> 00:52:33,520
that the full extent of his artistic endeavours became clear.

926
00:52:33,520 --> 00:52:36,120
More than 500 canvases -

927
00:52:36,120 --> 00:52:38,880
an extraordinary creative counterpoint

928
00:52:38,880 --> 00:52:42,800
to one of the 20th Century's most extraordinary lives.

929
00:52:42,800 --> 00:52:46,480
Now, you had the great good luck, David, of being the first person

930
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:49,720
to properly catalogue Churchill's paintings in the 1960s.

931
00:52:49,720 --> 00:52:51,880
What did that teach you about him?

932
00:52:51,920 --> 00:52:54,840
Absolutely knocked me out, and still knocks me out,

933
00:52:54,840 --> 00:52:56,120
if I could use that word,

934
00:52:56,120 --> 00:52:59,360
was the overall sensitivity of this work.

935
00:52:59,360 --> 00:53:01,440
Now, I grew up during the War,

936
00:53:01,440 --> 00:53:03,920
I was well aware of Churchill's, er,

937
00:53:03,920 --> 00:53:07,040
fame as a warrior, as a leader and so on,

938
00:53:07,040 --> 00:53:09,840
and I never expected that sensitivity.

939
00:53:09,840 --> 00:53:12,880
And yet it's through the whole of his art.

940
00:53:12,880 --> 00:53:15,680
I think it's wonderful and still do.

941
00:53:15,680 --> 00:53:20,280
'In late 2014 came a moment that Churchill would have loved.

942
00:53:21,440 --> 00:53:25,080
'Some of his paintings were auctioned at Sotheby's in London.'

943
00:53:27,560 --> 00:53:31,200
He saw himself as a politician and a writer.

944
00:53:31,200 --> 00:53:35,320
He didn't see himself as a painter, particularly,

945
00:53:35,320 --> 00:53:38,480
but he found this thing, this pastime,

946
00:53:38,480 --> 00:53:42,080
that sort of really electrified him.

947
00:53:42,080 --> 00:53:45,800
'You see that spirit in his paintings and you hear it

948
00:53:45,800 --> 00:53:50,480
'in the only public statement he ever made about his art.'

949
00:53:50,480 --> 00:53:54,080
"To restore psychic equilibrium, we should bring into use

950
00:53:54,080 --> 00:53:58,920
"those parts of the mind which direct both eye and hand."

951
00:53:58,920 --> 00:54:02,280
"Painting is complete as a distraction.

952
00:54:02,280 --> 00:54:07,440
"I know of nothing else which, without exhausting the body,

953
00:54:07,440 --> 00:54:10,160
"more completely absorbs the mind."

954
00:54:11,160 --> 00:54:13,920
"One sweep of the palette knife removes the blood

955
00:54:13,920 --> 00:54:15,800
"and tears of a morning."

956
00:54:15,800 --> 00:54:16,880
"Innocent."

957
00:54:16,880 --> 00:54:18,040
"Absorbing."

958
00:54:18,040 --> 00:54:20,000
"Recuperative."

959
00:54:20,000 --> 00:54:23,280
'Now, Churchill's paintings, so revealing of his private

960
00:54:23,280 --> 00:54:27,360
'obsessions, struggles, passions and eccentricities,

961
00:54:27,360 --> 00:54:29,840
'are being taken more seriously than ever.'

962
00:54:31,760 --> 00:54:34,120
Having spent most of my life with them,

963
00:54:34,120 --> 00:54:36,640
I somewhat took them for granted.

964
00:54:36,640 --> 00:54:40,120
You know, I haven't been sitting at home all our lives thinking,

965
00:54:40,120 --> 00:54:43,360
"Gosh, you know, they're valuable," or "They're this..."

966
00:54:43,360 --> 00:54:46,800
They're just my parents' pictures, or grandpapa's pictures,

967
00:54:46,800 --> 00:54:49,600
or pictures by grandpapa, or, erm...

968
00:54:49,600 --> 00:54:56,200
And my knowledge of them to start with was the miniscule end of minor.

969
00:54:59,160 --> 00:55:03,120
'The star lot at Sotheby's, his Goldfish Pond at Chartwell,

970
00:55:03,120 --> 00:55:05,960
'raised almost £2 million.

971
00:55:05,960 --> 00:55:09,280
'It's a price that says as much about Churchill's fame as it does

972
00:55:09,280 --> 00:55:12,800
'about his skill, although he's a much more accomplished painter

973
00:55:12,800 --> 00:55:14,840
'than I'm ever likely to be.

974
00:55:17,680 --> 00:55:21,480
'But it has to be said that the quality or cost of Churchill's

975
00:55:21,480 --> 00:55:24,000
'pictures isn't really the point -

976
00:55:24,000 --> 00:55:28,120
'their value isn't gauged by money or even critical opinion,

977
00:55:28,120 --> 00:55:33,000
'but in understanding what the act of creation meant for him,

978
00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:35,000
'and, by extension, for history.'

979
00:55:36,200 --> 00:55:39,000
No-one could question what he'd put on the canvas.

980
00:55:39,000 --> 00:55:41,040
That was how he saw it.

981
00:55:41,040 --> 00:55:45,480
And that was the way he could show the beautiful things

982
00:55:45,480 --> 00:55:49,760
that he saw around him and at the same time express himself.

983
00:55:49,760 --> 00:55:54,240
I think the paintings are expressive of yet another dimension

984
00:55:54,240 --> 00:55:59,920
to my rather amazing grandfather's extraordinary breadth.

985
00:55:59,920 --> 00:56:02,680
Here is a man who will try anything.

986
00:56:02,680 --> 00:56:05,520
Here is a man of great courage.

987
00:56:05,520 --> 00:56:08,520
You know, give him a blank canvas and he'll have a go.

988
00:56:09,560 --> 00:56:13,000
Erm, he'll sort of fight it into submission.

989
00:56:13,000 --> 00:56:14,840
He genuinely loved it.

990
00:56:16,800 --> 00:56:20,440
In my experience, my grandfather as I knew him

991
00:56:20,440 --> 00:56:22,840
wasn't this great fierce bulldog.

992
00:56:22,840 --> 00:56:27,840
He was a very benign person who loved having us all around,

993
00:56:27,840 --> 00:56:34,080
and so I think that the paintings perhaps come from that side of him.

994
00:56:34,080 --> 00:56:35,440
And as he said,

995
00:56:35,440 --> 00:56:39,960
"I would like to spend my first million years in Heaven painting."

996
00:56:39,960 --> 00:56:43,440
Apart from that showing terrific confidence in what will

997
00:56:43,440 --> 00:56:45,600
happen to him at the Pearly Gates,

998
00:56:45,600 --> 00:56:50,400
erm, er, you know, he absolutely loved it,

999
00:56:50,400 --> 00:56:54,680
and he couldn't spend too much time at the easel.

1000
00:56:54,680 --> 00:56:58,000
Now, we all know, don't we, that Churchill liked to deal with

1001
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:02,720
some of the gravest, most serious matters by making jokes about them.

1002
00:57:02,720 --> 00:57:04,120
So, for instance...

1003
00:57:04,120 --> 00:57:08,160
"Success consists in going from failure to failure

1004
00:57:08,160 --> 00:57:10,800
"with undiminished enthusiasm."

1005
00:57:10,800 --> 00:57:14,840
Or there's his wartime motto, KBO, "Keep Buggering On."

1006
00:57:14,840 --> 00:57:18,760
But, in truth, there comes to all of us at a certain time in life when

1007
00:57:18,760 --> 00:57:21,720
the accumulated failures and the mistakes

1008
00:57:21,720 --> 00:57:25,080
and the disappointments and the blows, in his case the worst of them

1009
00:57:25,080 --> 00:57:29,400
self-inflicted, are so great, that simply keeping going,

1010
00:57:29,400 --> 00:57:31,920
getting out of bed in the morning, putting on your clothes

1011
00:57:31,920 --> 00:57:35,000
and carrying on becomes a kind of problem.

1012
00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:38,240
For all of us in a small way, for Churchill in a grand way.

1013
00:57:38,240 --> 00:57:42,760
And the more I look around and the more I read, the surer I am that,

1014
00:57:42,760 --> 00:57:47,040
for Churchill, painting was his great secret in all of this.

1015
00:57:47,040 --> 00:57:51,480
It was the thing that allowed him to get away from himself, to relax,

1016
00:57:51,480 --> 00:57:53,560
to keep going, to say to his ego,

1017
00:57:53,560 --> 00:57:55,640
"You push off, I'm busy for a while."

1018
00:57:55,640 --> 00:58:00,160
That primal business of simply recording the world around him.

1019
00:58:00,160 --> 00:58:03,320
And, therefore, he was still available, still standing,

1020
00:58:03,320 --> 00:58:05,400
still courageous, still with zest

1021
00:58:05,400 --> 00:58:09,200
and enthusiasm in 1939-1940 to lead this country.

1022
00:58:10,240 --> 00:58:14,360
And so, if Churchill saved the country, and he did,

1023
00:58:14,360 --> 00:58:18,400
and painting saved Churchill, stopped him from going mad,

1024
00:58:18,400 --> 00:58:22,000
what does that say about the importance of painting?