Churchill’s love of the high life

Winston Churchill's love of living well meant he was always short of a bob or two.

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Winston Churchill lived a life beyond his means

Winston Churchill was famously sybaritic: he loved good wine, expensive cigars, polo ponies, racehorses and gambling. Surprisingly little has been written about this side of Churchill, but in No More Champagne, David Lough, a former banker, seeks to fill the gap, as does Simon Read in Winston Churchill Reporting, a book that covers the great man's adventurous early life.

The picture emerges of someone who was as great a risk-taker with money as he was in politics. His parents were not well off, though this didn't stop them living the high life, a habit they passed on to the young Churchill. During his early career as a soldier and journalist he developed, among other things, his taste for Havana cigars, during an assignment in Cuba. As a young politician, between 1908 and 1914, Winston's household spent an average of £1,106 a year on wine alone, about £104,400 in today's money.

His love of living well meant he was always short of money, lurching from one cash-flow crisis to another, and just managing, through his writing, to make ends meet. A new guide to his life, by the historian Paul Addison, to be published in the New Year, suggests that in the 1930s Churchill's literary earnings came to the equivalent of £600,000 a year. Even that was never quite enough. He took huge advances, but spent freely, convinced he could always earn more if the money ran out. In 1937 he even put his beloved house, Chartwell, on the market only to be rescued at the last minute by a financier who took over his debts.

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