I . Caryl Churchill
(1938– )
an English writer of stage plays who is known for her plays about feminism and her use of methods which are not realistic. Her plays include Cloud Nine (1979), Top Girls (1982) and The Skriker (1994).
II . Winston Churchill
(1874–1965)
a politician who is remembered as one of Britain’s greatest statesmen. He was the son of the Conservative politician Lord Randolph Churchill and his American wife Jennie. As a young man he served as a soldier in India and Egypt, and as a journalist in South Africa, before entering politics. He was a Member of Parliament from 1900 to 1965, for five different constituencies . Between 1906 and 1929 he held many important positions in government, but went against the general feeling of his day in opposing Hitler’s moves to increase Germany’s supplies of weapons. When Neville Chamberlain was forced to resign in 1940, Churchill became Prime Minister and Minister of Defence. His radio speeches during World War II gave the British people a strong determination to win the war, especially at times of great crisis. Examples of Churchill’s phrases still often quoted today are ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat’, when he became Prime Minister, and ‘Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few’, about the Battle of Britain . The Conservative Party, led by Churchill, lost the election of 1945, but he became Prime Minister again from 1951 to 1955 when he retired, aged 80. He was made a knight in 1953, the same year in which he won the Nobel Prize for literature. Churchill was also a skilled painter. He was famous for smoking a large cigar, and making a V-sign for ‘victory’. He was often referred to simply as ‘Winnie’ and is remembered with great affection in both Britain and the US. In 1963 Congress made him an honorary US citizen.