Soames, Mary 1922–

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SOAMES, Mary 1922–

PERSONAL:

Born September 15, 1922, in Chartwell, Westerham, Kent, England; daughter of Sir Winston Leonard Spencer (former prime minister of England) and Dame Clementine Ogilvy Churchill; married Christopher, Baron Soames (a statesman), 1947 (died, 1987); children: three sons, two daughters. Education: Attended private schools. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, sight-seeing, gardening.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Hampshire, England.

CAREER:

Biographer. Associated with political campaigns of her husband, Christopher Soames, 1950-66; National Fund for the Aged, president, 1978; Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, member of council, 1978-97, chair of trustees, 1991-2002; Royal National Theatre, board member, 1989-95. Church Army, associate, 1945-77; National Benevolent Fund for the Aged, patron, beginning 1978; British Association for the International Year of the Child, chair, 1979; International Year of the Child Trust, chair, 1980. Justice of the peace of East Sussex, England, 1960-74. Wartime service: Worked with Red Cross and Women's Voluntary Service, 1939-41, and Auxiliary Territorial Service, 1941-46.

MEMBER:

Royal Society of Literature (fellow), Grillions Club.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Decorated member, Order of the British Empire, 1945, and dame commander, 1980; Wolfson Prize for history and Yorkshire Post Prize for best first work, both 1979, for Clementine Churchill; honorary fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, 1983; D.Litt., University of Sussex, 1989, and University of Kent at Canterbury, 1997; named freeman, City of London, and honorary freewoman, Skinners' Company, both 1994; decorated chevalier, French Legion of Honor, 1995.

WRITINGS:

Clementine Churchill: The Biography of a Marriage (Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection), Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1979 (published in England as Clementine Churchill, by Her Daughter Mary Soames, Cassell, 1979), revised edition, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2002.

Family Album: A Personal Selection from Four Generations of Churchills, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1982.

The Profligate Duke: George Spencer-Churchill, Fifth Duke of Marlborough, and His Duchess, Collins (London, England), 1987.

Winston Churchill, His Life as a Painter: A Memoir by His Daughter, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1990.

(Editor) Speaking for Themselves: The Personal Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill, Doubleday (London, England), 1998, published as Winston and Clementine: The Personal Letters of the Churchills, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS:

In Clementine Churchill: The Biography of a Marriage Mary Soames, youngest daughter of Winston and Clementine Churchill, chronicles the life of her mother. Drawing from her parents' documents and long interviews with her mother, the author creates a half-century's history of one of England's leading families. She focuses particularly on Clementine and Winston's marriage, for as Soames related in her book, "From the day [Clementine] married him until his death fifty-seven years later, Winston dominated her whole life, and once this priority had been established, her children, personal pleasures, friends, and outside interests competed for what was left."

Despite Winston Churchill's dominating personality, Clementine was a woman with her own strong convictions. While in public she supported her husband absolutely; in private she often disagreed and instructed. Alfred C. Ames wrote in the Chicago Tribune Book World that "it is a bit exciting to learn that the wife of the man who for decades was dominant in the Tory Party was 'an old-fashioned radical' with a 'latent hostility toward the Tory Party.'" He continued: "A great biography requires a rewarding subject…. And Clementine Churchill is such a subject. Though she willingly accepted, as her most important role in life, being helpmate to Winston Churchill, she was a great lady and a subtle and noble human being in her own right." A Times Literary Supplement reviewer presence is always apparent in Lady Soames's comprehensive and charming life of her mother, it never takes over. Throughout the biography, it is Clementine Churchill's independence of mind and spirit that are rightly stressed, whether in politics or domestic life."

It was not surprising that the marriage of these two strong-minded people had its share of clashes and explosions—at one point Clementine became so exasperated with Winston that she threw a dish of spinach at his head. Yet personal letters included in Soames's biography attest that the two shared a profound, enduring, passionate love to the end of their lives. He called her "Kat," she called him "Pug," and the children were their "kittens." "Your love for me is the greatest glory & recognition that has or will ever befall me," Winston once wrote Clementine, "& the attachment I feel towards you is not capable of being altered by the sort of things that happen in this world."

In a Publishers Weekly interview with Philip Howard, Soames candidly admitted that Clementine Churchill was a better wife than a mother. The family shared few moments together, and the children suffered for it. Offspring Diana, Randolph, and Sarah eventually had a total of seven marriages between them; Diana committed suicide in 1963. Author Mary fared better and, being closest to her mother, tried to understand Clementine's reticence with her children. "Life with Winston was so demanding and full that she never had the time," Soames stated in the interview. "Clementine was shy. Her sad and difficult childhood made her, if not exactly an introvert, somebody able to keep her own council…. She was basically rather a lonely woman."

Soames also explained to Howard that she tried to portray the principals in her chronicle faithfully, without bias. "I can truthfully say that I have not consciously concealed any blemishes or scandals," she remarked. "Because I loved and admired both [parents] … I suppose that I have given them the benefit of the doubt on some occasions, and perhaps some day another author will redress the balance. It was a labor of love, but I trust not of blind love."

Many critics commended the author's dispassionate approach to her intimate subject; they commended her writing skills as well. Abigail McCarthy, in the New York Times Book Review, observed that this first work of Soames "is a solid achievement and one of which a professional historian might be proud. The author has mastered a wealth of material and has given us an affectionate, insightful and honest picture of her mother—and, inevitably, of her father and of the people who surrounded them." Another reviewer observed in a Times Literary Supplement article that Soames "has written at great length, but in sound proportion, and if at times her style pardonably betrays a gentlewomanly enthusiasm, it is balanced by an edge which enables her to view her parents critically, not least in her account of their relationship with their children." Ames concluded: "It is not the events that make 'Clementine Churchill' memorable, or even the large and brilliant cast of characters. Nor is it primarily Winston Churchill. It is Clementine Churchill herself—steadfast, disciplined, efficient, admirable in both the strength and quality of her character. It is Clementine herself, as presented by a daughter possessed not only of unique documentation but also of great judgment in the selection and organization of material and of high talent in expression."

Soames assembled a second biographical work, Family Album: A Personal Selection from Four Generations of Churchills, three years after publishing the biography of her mother. Resembling a scrapbook, the album contains photographs, letters, cartoons, and press clippings that reflect a century of the Churchill family saga—moments of triumph, defeat, majesty, and intimacy. Chicago Tribune critic Jon Anderson pointed out that "its star, of course, is Winston Churchill. What sets this book above the usual family collection of beach pictures and trips to Quebec is his brooding presence."

The photographs capture public moments—Churchill immersed in political battles, socializing with historical figures, rallying the nation in wartime. They reflect private times as well, showing the statesman gardening, fishing, building a snowman. Soames revealed in the Chicago Tribune that she hoped her album would address the "mythologizing" of her father that has occurred. "I found that my father's image has become embalmed in his own fame. There are so many stories, many not true, that the family felt that the real Winston Churchill, the real human being he was and always remained, was being lost…. So I wondered if, by doing an album, I could retrieve the father and the man I knew."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

books

Soames, Mary, Clementine Churchill: The Biography of a Marriage, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1979.

periodicals

British Book News, August, 1987, review of The Profligate Duke: George Spencer-Churchill, Fifth Duke of Marlborough, and His Duchess, p. 511.

Chicago Tribune, August 13, 1979, review of Clementine Churchill: The Biography of a Marriage; December 6, 1982, Jon Anderson, review of Family Album: A Personal Selection from Four Generations of Churchills.

Chicago Tribune Book World, December 9, 1979, Alfred C. Ames, review of Clementine Churchill.

Christian Science Monitor, December 3, 1979, review of Clementine Churchill; December 7, 1990, review of Winston Churhcill, His Life as a Painter: A Memoir by His Daughter, p. 10.

Detroit News, December 16, 1979, review of Clementine Churchill.

Economist, June 3, 1979, review of Clementine Churchill.

Encounter, July, 1988, review of Clementine Churchill, p. 38.

Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), November 27, 1999, review of Winston and Clementine, p. D22.

Illustrated London News, November, 1987, review of The Profligate Duke, p. 90.

Library Journal, February 1, 1991, review of Winston Churchill, His Life as a Painter, p. 78.

Maclean's, December 10, 1979, review of Clementine Churchill.

Newsweek, November 26, 1979, review of Clementine Churchill.

New Yorker, November 19, 1979, review of Clementine Churchill.

New York Times Book Review, October 28, 1979, Abigail McCarthy, review of Clementine Churchill.

Publishers Weekly, November 12, 1979, interview by Philip Howard, pp. 6-7.

Saturday Evening Post, November, 1999, Ted Kreiter, review of Winston and Clementine: The Personal Letters of the Churchills, p. 44.

Spectator, December 5, 1987, review of The Profligate >Duke, p. 56.

Times Literary Supplement, January 4, 1980, review of Clementine Churchill; November 1, 2002, Michael Brock, review of Clementine Churchill, p. 36.

Washington Post Book World, November 18, 1979, review of Clementine Churchill; January 16, 1983, review of Family Album; March 6, 1988, review of Clementine Churchill, p. 12.