In 1909 the Churchills had moved to 33 Eccleston Square, a cream terraced house on the Cubitt estate in the slightly scruffy, not-quite-Belgravia-smart area of Pimlico, just round the corner from Victoria Station. By 1911 they employed a manservant, a cook, two maids, and a nanny for the nearly-two-year-old Diana, who had been born in the house – this fairly modest household for such a senior minister, having recently been depleted: in April the butler Thomas Reynolds had left to make his fortune in New York (when a Mr Wild of 34th Street wrote to follow up Reynold’s references, Winston, ever a man reluctant to forego personal involvement, found the time to write back himself to confirm that Reynolds did indeed have a certain style, though he ‘was a little inclined to take advantage of easy going methods’). At about the same time the Churchills’ cook Mrs Scrivens had given in her notice to apply for a post with Margarita Warwick of Hyde Park Square. But despite staffing problems, Number 33 was a happy place. The decoration of the house reflected Clemmie’s gentle but elegant taste, though while briefly under the influence of Art Nouveau she had had her own room painted green, brown and orange, with a large orange tree laden with oranges appliquéd all over the walls. The French Ambassador, visiting one weekend, winced at the sight.

  The most agreeable room in the house was the large first-floor library where Winston spent much time with their new lodger, the Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey. Clemmie had been delighted when the widowed Foreign Secretary, wanting a London base, accepted her husband’s invitation to become a paying lodger at Eccleston Square, providing a welcome contribution to expenses to balance Winston’s worrying extravagance. Winston was secretly pleased to have the daily company of a man whose calm balanced the ebullience of F.E. He liked to describe Edward Grey in Wordsworth’s phrase, as ‘a central peace at the heart of endless agitation’. During late-night talks in the library over glasses of fine cognac (at £27 a bottle) and Romeo and Julietta cigars, the two ministers became close friends, and to Clemmie’s pleasure Grey accepted an invitation to become a godfather to the baby she was expecting any day.

  There was no coincidence in Winston’s decision to live in that pretty creamy terraced square. It was conveniently close to the Houses of Parliament, yet not much of a taxi ride from the clubs of Pall Mall and the dining room of the Ritz. And it was only a few doors away from F.E., who had moved into number 70 in 1907. F. E.’s own son had been born there, and Winston was Frederick Winston Furneaux’s godfather. F.E. was delighted when the compliment was returned and he was chosen – by perhaps only one of the new parents – as the new Churchill baby’s second godfather.

  Clemmie was not unjustified in her reservations about the Smith household, for the goings-on inside Number 70 were defi-nitely strange. F.E’s daughter Elinor, though only nine years old, had something of a reputation in the neighbourhood. One day during a visit to her grandmother in adjoining Warwick Square she had been sent out to play in the garden, and when hiding behind a tree was pulled from her hiding-place by a gardener with such force that in retaliation she kicked him. From that time she was regarded as a child with delinquent tendencies, forbidden to play in the garden again and confined to Eccleston Square, where everyone stared at her and no other children would have anything to do with her. And Elinor was not the only outlandish inhabitant. In 1908 her parents had taken a cruise to Jamaica with a few friends, among them the distinguished publisher John Murray. While they were staying at the Constant Springs Hotel in Kingston F. E. struck up an enthusiastic friendship with a Mr Simpson, a West Indian he considered to be of ‘ravishing appearance, a sable Apollo’. Persuading him to return with them to England proved difficult until F. E. agreed that Mr Simpson might bring with him the two gentle ponies he had adopted from the Blue Mountains. But something about the London air sent them mad: one attacked and destroyed a delivery cart in the street while the other fell into a deep depression and lay down in a heap to die under the dull English skies. No such loss of energy affected Simpson himself. Whispers that on arrival he had eaten several housemaids for dinner were never confirmed, but the cook swore it was true that one afternoon Simpson approached her insisting she provide him with a white cock for a ritualistic slaughter demanded by his religion. Ransacking the larder of Eccleston Square and finding no such bird, Simpson made a lunge for the throat of the cook’s green parrot Joey. Some residents were appalled at the ‘pagan behaviour’ that lurked behind the placid façade of number 70, but others felt Joey deserved his end, as he had an unpleasant habit of chuckling to lure the curious over to his cage, where he would snap at their noses through the bars.

  On 24 May, six days after The Other Club had demonstrated that it was possible for cross-party conversation to take place in private without damaging consequences, F.E. Smith decided to throw a cross-party party – a costume ball, in fact – partly for fun and partly to show the press that parliamentary harmony was achievable outside Westminster. His co-host was to be Lord Winterton, who as an Irish peer was only eligible to sit in the House of Commons. He owned seven hundred houses in the London borough of St George’s in the East, bringing him an enviable annual income of £15,000, and at 28 was not only the youngest Member of Parliament but one of the most outspoken and also the tallest, towering over Winston – a mere five foot eight – as he attacked him relentlessly for his policies. He exasperated Winston, who wrote to Clemmie that ‘Lord Winterton’s behaviour is detestable – he contributes nothing to any debate but his offensive insolence.’ Predictably, Winterton was a founder-member of The Other Club.

  By the third week of May, Clemmie Churchill’s baby was already two weeks overdue. An evening spent with F.E. Smith and Lord Winterton was not a welcome prospect at any time, but she was determined to make an appearance on this important symbolic occasion. The ball was to take place at Claridge’s Hotel in Mayfair, on the same evening as the second ‘Court’of the summer season. Those not attending the Court dined at one of several large parties given before the ball, including one by Lady Cunard at Claridge’s itself; Lord Winterton and the F.E. Smiths were among the guests at another given by the Duchess of Marlborough at Sunderland House. Afterwards guests made their way to Claridge’s, where the beautiful salon was decorated with blue hydrangeas and Madonna lilies, while the adjoining dancing room was ‘gay with rambler roses’.

  The joint hosts had chosen their outfits with care. Lord Winterton was splendidly dressed as a sergent de ville with a cocked hat and aiguillettes and greeted everyone in colloquial French, while F.E. was in a white satin suit and powdered wig, the distinguished and stylish costume of an eighteenth-century courtier. His wife was also in unrelieved white, her gown contrasting beautifully in its simplicity with the vibrancy of that worn by Lady Marjorie Manners, who had come as a rainbow. Lady Ripon, patron of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden and busy as sponsor with preparations for the arrival in June of the Ballets Russes, wore a flamboyantly embroidered Russian dress, and a Russian diadem encircled her head. The Duchess of Westminster was a gorgeous sight in yellow and red, the colours of the Spanish flag, her white mantilla fastened with crimson roses.

  Winston did not, however, appear comfortable with such an unashamed demonstration of parliamentary unity at an occasion as frivolous as a ball, and even Clemmie’s serene presence as a demure nun in a full white robe did not serve to lighten his mood that evening. He had arrived in a dashing cape of scarlet – ‘Has he come as a fireman?’ the guffaw went round, in less than subtle reference to the events at Sidney Street. The Tatler professed itself disappointed: ‘One expected so much and obtained so little, with only a red cloak flung hastily over his bowed shoulders,’ sighed the society magazine. The other senior politicians had confined themselves to standard evening dress, but mocking Winston was an amusing pursuit. He always provided excellent copy, and the papers were only just getting over his latest escapade, the case of a Dartmoor shepherd who had been sent to jail countless times for robbing the village church collection box. As ever, Winston could not resist becoming personally involved in the detail, awarding the shepherd a compassionate release and finding him work and a home on a Welsh farm. The gesture backfired: the shepherd missed the companionship of prison life, stole some Welsh shillings and, smiling beatifically, was returned to his familiar cell. Once again Winston had provided the House and the press with an excuse to poke fun at their favourite target.

  Winston and Clemmie stayed long enough at the Claridge’s party to mingle with the other guests, among them the captivating debutante Lady Diana Manners (whose face, easily as beautiful as Helen’s, his private secretary Eddie Marsh and Winston had both agreed, a ‘thousand ships would be worth launching for’; Clemmie Churchill was the only other woman on whom they had bestowed such an accolade). Other personalities gliding along to the music in the ballroom included a couple of princesses, several duchesses, the Prime Minister, the leader of the Conservative party, and Lord Curzon. At midnight the MP Waldorf Astor made a flamboyant entrance wearing a peer’s robes but with a workman’s trousers and boots. A card with the number 499 was attached to one side of his coronet and the words ‘one more vacancy’ were scrawled on a card pinned to the other side, advertising the votes required to pass the Parliament Bill.

  This allusion to the delicate negotiations for the Parliament Bill was a provocation too far for one member of the Second Chamber. Two days after the ball, The Times published a letter signed simply ‘A Peer’ in which the writer denounced the ball for ‘being out of place in view of the alleged seriousness’ of the inter party and inter house tension dominating the day to day life of both Houses at Westminster. ‘It was’, stormed the peer in angry condemnation, ‘a painful surprise to read of smart ladies in every variety of costume from Cleopatra to a pink tulle ballet girl and among them elderly peers masquerading as Tudor kings.’ It was also reported, spluttered the un-named Lord (who had not received an invitation) that even the Prime Minister had been seen laughing at all the high jinks. Amused by the letter, Winston recovered his mood and telephoned through an order to his wine merchants Payne and Sons for a dozen half-bottles of Moselle, for he seemed to be running short, and the baby still had not arrived. Small wonder that Clemmie worried endlessly about the household expenses. The proposed salary of £400 a year for Members of Parliament was not scheduled to come into effect until August: traditionally, MPs had funded themselves, from a private income or earnings outside the House of Commons. When F.E. was facing a large bill, he simply took on a new legal case; Winston made some money from his books and articles, but had no such lucrative resource, his father having died leaving many debts.

  Life without champagne was inconceivable for Winston. He described the wine as imparting ‘a feeling of exhilaration, the nerves are braced, the imagination is agreeably stirred, the wits become more nimble.’ Nor was life imaginable without a regular supply of Havana cigars. Winston had been committed to them since a visit to Cuba in his twenties, and a new consignment, large and small, wrapped and naked, had just arrived from the Haymarket shop of Fribourg & Treyer. There was a romance about a cigar. ‘Smoking cigars is like falling in love,’ he wrote: ‘first you are attracted to its shape and then you must always remember never, never to let the flame go out.’ There were further drains on the Churchills’ precarious income. In early May Winston had ordered a jaunty red Napier car from the newly established workshop in the Lower Richmond Road. It would cost him £610, about three times the annual rent of Eccleston Square. His finely woven pink silk underwear from the Army and Navy Stores cost £80 a year. ‘I have a very delicate and sensitive cuticle which demands the finest covering,’ he once told Violet Asquith, rolling up his sleeve to show her.

  And yet for all his expensive and exclusive tastes, Winston had an exceptional grasp of what made up the social complexities of England which set him apart from the conventions and hedonism associated with a privileged birth. ‘All the glitter of the world appeals to me,’ he wrote, ‘but not thank god in comparison to serious things.’ During those long light summer evenings, Grey and Winston found Germany’s increasing desire to demonstrate her naval superiority in Europe becoming a dominant subject in their conversation. A couple of years earlier Winston had spent part of one Parliamentary recess in Germany at the personal invitation of the Kaiser, who was happy to show off his increasing military resources. Churchill had been impressed by and envious of the army’s size, and of its ability to march 35 miles a day. Grey realised during their talks that Winston was ‘exhilarated by the air of crisis and high events’, and was fascinated and concerned by the developing aggression across the Channel. Especially worrying was a conversation between King George and the Kaiser touching on German intentions in Morocco that Churchill had overheard during the Kaiser’s visit to London for the Memorial unveiling. George had given his cousin his approval for the Panther to be sent to monitor the French occupation of disputed territory in Agadir, although Grey had given the French Ambassador his word that Britain would support France if Germany attacked French soil.Two years earlier, while Edward VII was still on the throne, a popular song had been familiar on the streets of London’s East End:

  There’ll be no wo’ar

  As long as there’s a King like good King Edward.

  There’ll be no wo’ar

  For ’e hates that sort of thing!

  Mothers needn’t worry

  As long as we’ve a King like good King Edward.

  Peace with ’Onner

  Is his motter

  So God Save the King!

  And despite ‘Good King Edward’s’ death a bright optimism persisted, a belief that England, with its history of peace and its pre-eminence in the world, was almost divinely protected from foreign aggression. Some people considered the ‘German Peril’ laughable. Lord Charles Beresford would follow a cheery ‘Good morning’ with a jocular ‘One day nearer the German War!’A new best-selling book, The Great Illusion by Norman Angell, argued that a war with Germany would be impossible because of finan-cial deterrents on both sides. Viscount Esher, Edward VII’s closest advisor and friend who remained an influential presence at Court, had been particularly convinced by Angell’s thesis. The current King’s ministers felt differently.

  As a senior Cabinet minister Winston could not avoid the Royal Courts, and chose to attend on Friday 9 May, the day after the inaugural meeting of The Other Club, and again six days later, on Thursday 25 May. The familiar music of Strauss and Lehar and the quadrille, waltz and polka on the dance programme seemed more than a little tired to Winston, who lacked any enthusiasm for such social occasions. Without his wife by his side he would much rather have stayed at home. The French Ambassador was also bored – in Paris they were learning to tango.

  Winston was not known for his elegance of dress (the Tailor and Cutter magazine had described the clothes he wore at his marriage as ‘one of the greatest failures as a wedding garment we have ever seen, giving the wearer a sort of glorified coachman appearance’), but arrived at Buckingham Palace wearing ‘full dress uniform’, according to Lady Ottoline, wife of the MP Philip Morrell, at whose house in Bedford Square in Bloomsbury he had dined earlier. Lady Ottoline thought he looked like a ‘Mock Napoleon’. Among the other guests at dinner that evening were a young and beautiful writer, Virginia Stephen, and Roger Fry, the artist responsible for bringing the controversial Post-Impressionist exhibition to London the preceding winter. Winston dominated the party, speaking of politics in detail and making the subject sound to Ottoline ‘like high mathematics for he is very rhetorical and has a volcanic complicated way of talking.’Winston did manage to abandon politics for long enough to placate her by admiring two etchings by Picasso that were hanging in her hall. Later, at the Palace, he had an agreeable conversation with the King, who promised him a seat for Clemmie in the Royal Box at the Coronation. She did not expect to feel well enough after the baby’s birth to sit through the ceremony in the packed, claustrophobic pews of Westminster Abbey, and was very touched when she learned of the King’s thoughtful gesture.

  Two distressing pieces of news over the next couple of days momentarily distracted people from parties and politics. On Sunday 21 May, at the French end of the Paris–Madrid aeroplane race, one airborne competitor banked too steeply over the heads of those watching on the ground, and lost control. One blade of the propeller came loose and flew into the crowd, shearing off the arm of Monsieur Berteaux, the French Minister of War, and killing him outright. The Times, aware that British Royalty frequently attended demonstrations of new breakthroughs in the science of flying, warned of ‘the consequences of the slightest mishap when machines of such terrific energy are forced through the air.’Winston was one of many who had began to develop a passion for flying, and in a rare moment of united concern Clemmie persuaded F.E. to beg him to give up this hazardous hobby. Winston was not convincing in his reluctant agreement to look out for his own safety, but the next day tabled a motion in the House that the flying of aircraft over central London during the Coronation celebrations should be banned. Flying technology was clearly not reliable enough, and it would be folly to risk the annihilation of most of the crowned heads of Europe, shortly to be gathered in the capital. Stately-home owners were also given a cautionary scare when on 23 May a dreadful fire destroyed Sledmere, the Yorkshire home of Sir Tatton Sykes. The aged baronet, who appeared more corpulent than he really was from his habit of wearing four or five overcoats at once, sat on the lawn in an armchair lamenting his unsalvageable luncheon cutlet and watching as servants, farmers, villagers and children lugged ‘a marble statue of Apollo weighing a ton’ from the flames.

  On Sunday 28 May at Eccleston Square, four days after the fancy-dress ball at Claridge’s, and conveniently for the demands of a sitting Parliament and a husband who was a busy Minister, Clemmie at last gave birth to a boy, a brother for Diana. Although officially the baby was to be called Randolph, after Winston’s father, he was nicknamed the ‘Chumbolly’, the name of a beautiful flower found in north-west India and also the Persian word for a healthy and chubby new-born baby. The Churchills were liberal with affectionate family nicknames, and now there were four: Randolph the Chumbolly, Diana the Puppy Kitten, Winston the Pug, and Clemmie the Kat.