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We were, surprisingly, allowed to criticise Churchhill at home in my teens. This is because of one of Dad 's pet subjects was the betrayal of Catholic Poland by the Protestant Churchhill. This confused me, as I had even heard of Churchhill 's heroic exploits as a kid in Canada, mainly him hiding from the Boers up a ladder.What I later realised, was that hating the beloved war leader was very popular. He was reviled by a series of different groups, starting with the Liberals for being a Conservative.
This was swiftly followed by the Conservatives who were aghast at his switch to the Liberals. He was already slightly detested internationally because of the Boer War around 1900, but then added the Turks when he later tried to storm the Dardanelles in WW1.
Moving on, he was loathed by the Australians and New Zealanders in quick succession, when they realised the Turks held the high ground. I 've been there ...it 's straight up. Mehmet Turk was well armed and it was racist arrogance to think we could win, against this determined, populous country.
There is a break until he rejoins the Conservatives after WW1, when the Liberals take up the baton again.We then had the miners, during the General Strike and the new Labour politicians, he clearly wanted some fresh talent to despise him for a change.
WW2 brought him more Germans,but also the Italians and Japanese, but mainly the Russians, who remembered him from the White Army period in 1919.
So we come to the Poles and my Dad. Dad thought that Stalin with 3 million Russian troops, fresh from an astonishing victory should have been challenged and added his name to a long list.
