Education
Aber research sheds new light on Churchill
AN ABERYSTWYTH academic has jointly authored an article which details the marital infidelity of wartime leader Winston Churchill and sheds light on the way in which Churchill’s reputation and image have been carefully burnished and polished by those keen to present a myth rather than a complete human story.
Dr Warren Dockter is a Lecturer in the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth University. He is the author of Churchill and the Islamic World: Orientalism, Empire and Diplomacy in the Middle East and editor of Winston Churchill at the Telegraph.
Winston Churchill had a short affair with the dazzling socialite Lady Doris Castlerosse in the 1930s, according to his former private secretary.
A recording by Churchill’s former private secretary, Jock Colville, in which he disclosed that Britain’s war leader had engaged in a short affair with the society beauty in the South of France, has been revealed by Dr Warren Dockter of Aberystwyth University and Professor Richard Toye, Head of History at the University of Exeter.
Colville, a close confidant and trusted aide of Churchill, said in the taped 1985 interview for Churchill College, Cambridge, that the story that he had to tell was rather scandalous and that he did not want it disclosed for a long time to come.
He revealed that when he visited Winston and his wife Clementine in the late 1950s, Churchill’s literary assistant Denis Kelly had presented Clementine with a set of love-letters from Lady Castlerosse. Clementine Churchill, he recounted, read the correspondence and turned pale.
According to Colville, Clementine was anxious about the episode for months and told him she had never previously thought that Winston had been unfaithful to her.
The research, to be published in the journal in the Journal of Contemporary History – and featured in the Channel 4 documentary Secret History– includes testimony from Castlerosse’s niece, Caroline Delevingne, who disclosed that her family had known about the affair.
Documents in the family’s possession include – in addition to photos of Churchill and Lady Castlerosse together – a long and affectionate 1934 letter in which he compared her to a ray of sunshine.
Churchill apparently carried out the affair in the 1930s when he had four holidays in the south of France he took unaccompanied by his wife Clementine. He painted at least two portraits of the renowned society beauty – which were removed by Churchill’s friend the Press Baron, Lord Beaverbrook, after her death from an overdose of sleeping pills at the Dorchester Hotel in 1942.
From an ordinary suburban upbringing in Beckenham, South East London, Doris, Viscountess Castlerosse, became a notorious society figure, with a string of wealthy lovers. Tall, blonde and vivacious, she is said to have been the model for the fast young widow Iris Storm in Michael Arlen’s The Green Hat and, later, for the tempestuous temptress Amanda in Noel Coward’s Private Lives.
She married Valentine Castlerosse, a spend-thrift Viscount and gossip columnist, but they divorced after he apparently hired private eyes to follow his wife and report on her infidelities.
The research also cites papers of President Roosevelt’s right-hand man Harry Hopkins which show that at the height of World War 2, Churchill pulled strings to get Doris a hard-to-obtain airplane passage so that she could travel back to Britain from America.
Dr Dockter said: “This revelation about Churchill’s private life helps us locate the man inside the myth and reveals a more complete and nuanced understanding of his character. Beyond his relationship with Doris Castlerosse, the academic article for the Journal of Contemporary History further illuminates how Churchillian networks have curated Churchill’s memory.”
Professor Richard Toye, Head of History at Exeter University and who has written three books on Churchill, said the research provided a fuller picture of a little-known episode in Churchill’s life, and shed new light on his character.
“Although this doesn’t radically change our view of Churchill as a leader, it does give us a more complete view of his character and his marriage. The received wisdom is that he never strayed and that he and Clementine were devoted to one another. In fact, Clementine loathed the Riviera Set with whom he liked to spend his summers, and saw them as a bad influence on him.”
THE Welsh Government has announced today (Mon, Aug 17) that AS, A level, GCSE, Skills Challenge Certificate and Welsh Baccalaureate grades in Wales will now be awarded on the basis of Centre Assessment Grades.
This occurred after the outrage of students, causing protests outside the Senedd after hearing that a total of 42% of A-level grades predicted by their teachers had been lowered when the Welsh results were published last week. This was due to the decision to process these grades through an algorithm.
Education Minister Kirsty Williams said she took the decision to maintain confidence in the system.
Speaking on the decision, Kirsty Williams said: “Working with Qualifications Wales and WJEC we have sought an approach which provides fairness and balances out differences in the standards applied to judgments in schools.
“Given decisions elsewhere, the balance of fairness now lies with awarding Centre Assessment grades to students, despite the strengths of the system in Wales.
“I am taking this decision now ahead of results being released this week, so that there is time for the necessary work to take place.
“For grades issued last week, I have decided that all awards in Wales, will also be made on the basis of teacher assessment.
“For those young people, for whom our system produced higher grades than those predicted by teachers, the higher grades will stand.
“Maintaining standards is not new for 2020, it is a feature of awarding qualifications every year in Wales, and across the UK.
“However, it is clear that maintaining confidence in our qualifications whilst being fair to students requires this difficult decision.
“These have been exceptional circumstances, and in due course I will be making a further statement on an independent review of events following the cancellation of this year’s exams.
“Other Awarding Bodies across the UK are involved in determining the approach to vocational qualifications. This continues to be the case but it is important that I give assurance to GCSE, AS and A level student at the earliest opportunity.”
This was a decision welcomed by Suzy Davies, Shadow Education Minister.
Commenting on the Decision, Suzy Davies said: “This has been an exceptional time, and this news will come as a very welcome relief for the thousands of A-Level students who last week were looking at grades lower than they were predicted to receive. It will also be a relief to pupils expecting results this week as well as an acknowledgement of quite how much effort teachers put into this.
“It is reassuring that the Minister has listened to the Welsh Conservatives and other parties in the Welsh Parliament, but especially pleasing that she heard the voices of young people up and down the country.
“These students – at A, AS, GCSE, Skills Challenge Certificate, and Welsh Baccalaureate level – will now have the confidence to plan their future education or career aspirations, and reach their potential.”
The Education Minister also promised an independent review of the events “following the cancellation of this year’s exams”.
Students who received higher grades than those predicted by teachers will keep them.
Swansea University is pleased to announce that Bleddyn Phillips has been appointed as its new Chair of Council.
Mr Phillips, who joined the University’s governing body in May 2017, has been appointed Chair for a four-year term replacing Sir Roger Jones, whose term of office came to an end in September 2019.
Mr Phillips said: “It is a great honour to be appointed Swansea University’s Chair of Council. As a Welsh-speaker, with strong roots in Llanelli and Gower, and with both parents having studied at Swansea, I have long felt an affinity with the University and have been delighted to serve on the Council.
“I want to acknowledge the contribution made to the University by Sir Roger Jones over almost 14 years and I very much look forward to working with, and serving, the University as it celebrates its centenary in 2020 and beyond.”
Professor Paul Boyle, Vice-Chancellor of the University, said “It will be a privilege to work with Bleddyn as we develop our new strategic plan and look forward to beginning our second century in 2020.”
Mr Phillips is a lawyer by profession, a former commercial director at oil companies BP and Total, and later Global Head of the Oil and Gas practice at the international law firm, Clifford Chance LLP. He is Director of Llanelli Scarlets RFC and was a trustee of the Wales Millennium Centre from 2012-2018.
The Council is the University’s governing body, which approves the mission and strategic vision of the University, long-term academic and business plans, key performance indicators and overall standards. The Council assures that the University discharges its duties in accordance with the Welsh Quality Assessment Framework.
PROMINENT academics have criticised the Welsh Government’s bill to criminalise parental smacking during a public debate at Swansea University.
Tonight, experts from the fields of sociology and criminology and parenting studies poured scorn on the plan during an Academy of Ideas debate on state intervention in the family.
A panel of three academics discussed the merits or otherwise of the smacking legislation, which is due to be debated by AMs for a third time in January next year.
Dr Stuart Waiton, a senior lecturer in sociology and criminology at Abertay University and outspoken critic of the Scottish smacking Bill, said: “No longer treated like citizens, as adults who have an opinion and a basic level of autonomy to raise our children, we have culture change imposed from on high – we are made ‘aware’ by the new authoritarians holding the stick above us.
“The smacking act is a disgrace. It is a form of brutality that undermines parents, weakens the meaning of freedom, and will go on to destroy many loving families who dare to think and act differently to the modern elitists.”
Dr Waiton added: “The brutality of the smacking act will mean that a light smack on the hand or bottom of a child will be a criminal offence. Hard smacking is already illegal, but to the middle-class anti-smacking zealots that was not enough. Children, they argue, need equal protection from assault. The very language they use is alien to the millions of parents who occasionally smack rather than assault their children.
“Parents know that smacking a child is a form of discipline often done out of love and concern rather than something that is abusive and criminal.”
Criticising the way politicians at the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly have engaged with parents on the smacking legislation, he said: “The new elite think a lot about consultation and inclusion. The reality is a process run by a small section of society, politicians and professionals, who exist in their own bubble and are distant and disconnected from ordinary people.”
Ellie Lee, Professor of Parenting Research at the University of Kent also spoke out on the Welsh Government’s plans.
“Within the context of an authoritative child rearing relationship, aversive discipline including smacking is well accepted by the young child, effective in managing short-term misbehaviour and has no documented harmful long-term effects.”
She added: “It should be the concern of professionals who work with parents to respectfully offer them alternative disciplinary strategies rather than to condemn parents for using methods consonant with their own, but not the counsellors beliefs and values.”
The Professor accused the Welsh Government of using the “full force of the criminal law to attack people who disagree on the comparative merits of using smacking rather than something like timeout”, saying it is a “bureaucratic imposition on parents”.
Only one academic – Dr Gideon Calder, Associate Professor in Sociology and Social Policy at Swansea University – spoke in favour of Government interventions like the smacking ban.
Dr Calder argued that intervention is justifiable in some instances and said something like the smacking ban is not necessarily authoritarian. He said: “the point of the legislation is to safeguard children from potentially harmful interactions.”
Commenting on the debate, Jamie Gillies, spokesman for the Be Reasonable Wales campaign, said:
“The criticism levelled at the Government’s smacking plans tonight by experts in the fields of sociology, criminology and parenting studies should be a wakeup call to Ministers.
“Experts are not convinced that the plan to outlaw parental smacking is viable, needful or helpful in terms of improving child protection.
“I hope AMs hear the concerns of these academics as well as their constituents and scrap the smacking ban bill when it’s voted on in January.”
