Hi, everyone. And welcome back to Famous Brits Under the Microscope. 欢迎大家回来【英伦名人八卦堂】.

Hi, 安澜.

Hi, Lulu. Hi, everyone.

It’s been a while since we did this particular segment.

Yeah, it's been quite some time, hasn't it?

And who are we gonna talk about today?

Well since it's Famous Brits Under the Microscope, I thought that today we could talk about the greatest ever British person as voted by the public and the BBC.

The greatest? it's a man, and it's not fictional?

He is not fictional, no.

I have a few names in my head. I'm not sure.

Well, he was also known as the British bulldog.

Are we gonna talk about Winston Churchill? 丘吉尔 the British bulldog. Is it just because of how he looked?

Well, partly is. I think it's also temperament, but there were also quite a few propaganda posters during the war that showed him as a bulldog. And I think he does actually look a little bit like a bulldog.

Churchill was a very complex sort of character, wasn’t he?

It's not really a simple black and white like he's a good or bad person.

No. Churchill, I would say very much was a man of his time, so he had views which nowadays we would not agree with, and some of these habits like his drinking and smoking, it's hard to really support nowadays.

Yeah. He is hardly the poster child or poster boy for healthy living or political correctness now. Exactly. But that doesn't mean that he was not a fascinating character to talk about.

Exactly, to be great doesn't necessarily mean you have to be a perfect person.

Exactly. So, let's get started. Let's start with his family background.

Yeah. Winston Churchill was born in 1874 and he was born to a rich aristocratic family. And not a lot of people know this, but despite the fact that he's known as very much a British person and very patriotic British person, he was actually half American. What? Churchill? Yeah, his mother was an American.

All right, because you sort of pictured Churchill as the quintessential British person.

Oh yeah, but he was half American. Later in his life, he actually became an honorary American citizen.

就是荣誉美国公民. Yeah. I see. And I've heard that he wasn't really doing that well in school. He was not a very good student.

No, he was actually quite bad student.

He was famously bad at languages. He also had a speech impediment. Really? Yeah. You can actually hear this in some of these speeches, very slight speech impediment.

And the only thing he was actually good at was history. He didn't get good enough grades to go into the regiment in the army he wanted to. So he became a cavalry officer and a part time journalist.

How did he rise to fame? Was it just during the World War II?

No, he first became famous at the beginning of the 20th century when we were fighting a war in South Africa, and he became famous because he escaped from a prisoner of war camp.

Oh, okay, I did not know that.

He was quite young, he escaped from this prisoner of war camp. And then when he got back to the UK, he went into politics, but it's important to note that Churchill wasn't a particularly successful politician.

This is going against a lot of my perception, my original perception of him.

He was not very a good politician. He made some very bad decisions, very bad choices. And he actually went out of office for 11 years in the 1930s.

This period of time is famously known as his wilderness years, because he was still influential. He was against the rise of Nazi Germany and he was against the policies of the government. But he didn't actually hold a political office.

I see. But what really made him the quintessential British or this character that a lot of British people still have a lot of respect for is during the World War II.

Yes. In 1940, Britain was facing lots of defeats during the World War II. The Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigned and Churchill became the Prime Minister. You're right. This is the time he was most famous for. It was only when he was in his 60s that his moment actually arrived.

I mean, for politician it’s not very rare.

No, so he was very famous for boosting morale through his speeches, representing the UK around the world.

Being the very stern figure.

Yeah, he was an amazing orator and nowadays we still study his speeches because he was a master of rhetoric. He was a master wordsmith. He was able to make and create these wonderful speeches and we'll discuss those a little bit later in the episode.

I remember when I was in school as part of my language learning, we also learned a few speeches by Churchill.

Yeah. But despite his success during the World War II and his popularity, when the war came to an end, he was actually voted out of office.

He was just fit for being a wartime Prime Minister?

Pretty much. Churchill was a conservative, very much in his outlook. He was also an imperialist. He was a man who was already becoming slightly out of date, but he became Prime Minister again in 1951.

OK.

And in 1953, he won the Nobel Prize for literature.

For literature? Yes, he was like a journalist. He was a part time journalist.

Well, not this time, he actually wrote the History of the English Speaking Peoples. So this massive piece of work about the history of the UK, America and other English speaking countries around the world.

I think I've seen that.

It's a very very very very big book.

It's like a huge collection, many volumes.

I wanna go back to a little bit with what you are saying that he was an imperialist. This is what we were saying, it's not a black or white character. Although he was probably a hero for British people during the World War II, but he was a racist and also imperialist.

Very much so.

Very much for British Empire.

He was very pro-British Empire. Even when at that time, people started to see that it was coming to an end and we shouldn't be continuing the empire. He was against the independence of India. He hated Gandhi. He was very much an imperialist. He was a Victorian in his outlook, and many of his views are racist. There's no other way describing him.

I remember reading a lot of his put downs. yeah. 就嘴也很毒. 那种毒舌的

Lots of people who knew Churchill. They admired him, but he used to really annoy them. He would say things that were particularly mean and hurtful. One of the famous put downs is a female member of parliament, MP, said to Winston, “Winston, you are drunk.” and he said, “My dear, you are ugly and what's more, you are disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be disgustingly ugly.”

Wow, that is mean! That is horrible, absolutely horrible.

I think I've read quite a few examples like this, but this one by far is the meanest. Yeah.

Another one of his famous put downs is to the new Prime Minister in 1945, a man called Clement Attlee. The one to replace him. Who replaced him.

And he said about him, “He is a modest man who has much to be modest about.”

Such a, I mean, silver tongue but really, really mean.

Very very mean. But he was also famous, as a say, for his cigars, he was constantly smoking, and also in particular, his drinking.

He was an alcohol-, he was a raging alcoholic.

That's the ultimate question, he always said, “All I can say is that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.” But nowadays we would be very concerned because his average day drinking would be having a whiskey and soda at breakfast. At breakfast?!

A pint of champagne or wine with brandy at lunch.

A pint. How much like a… half a bottle?

2/3 of a bottle, probably it would be a bottle. So he would have that for lunch and he will have the same again for dinner with other drinks during the day.

If you see now a lot of these TV shows or movies depicting Winston Churchill, he was always holding a drink. And that's also people's perception of him.

And sometimes people do actually try to copy like a day in the life of Winston Churchill, Couldn't take it. And they couldn't take it. It was just way too much alcohol. But then again, he did die at the age of 90.

See, that's the thing. I think it's all in fate or in genetics.

Yeah I really don't understand it either.

The way his lifestyle…and it also, he was overweight.

He used to eat a lot as well.

But he managed to live till the age of 90. And it… wasn't his last word something about being bored?

Yep. When he died apparently his last words were, “I'm bored with it all.”

So lights out. But that's probably what makes him a fascinating character because there are good sides and bad sides.

Absolutely. And let's finish off by looking at some of his famous speeches and particular his famous quotes. Now these are quotes known by pretty much every single British person.

So one of these most famous speeches went, “We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.”

I think I've heard this in a movie Dunkirk.

This is actually the speech that he made after Dunkirk. And when he actually became Prime Minister, he just said to the House of Commons or the House, “I have nothing to offer, but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

Yes, this one is a very famous, I've heard of that.

And he was also inspirational during the battle of Britain as well, the air battle during the World War II, and in this he said, “Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties and so bear ourselves that if the British empire and its commonwealth last for 1,000 years, men will still say this was their finest hour.”

A lot of his most famous quotes around that time.

Because he made these great speeches and you can still listen to them as well. You can actually hear his voice as well. He has a very deep, booming voice and a very kind of unique way of speaking as well, partly because of his speech impediment.

That made him, actually.

So on that note, we're gonna wrap up here. Just remember a lot of these famous people in history, they might have a lot of different sides. So they might have some good sides and bad sides, but it doesn't mean that we agree with everything they supported, but Winston Churchill does serve as a great specimen if you're learning language.

Absolutely.

If you can find some of his speeches and see how he delivers them.

Yeah.

And until next time.

We'll see you next time.

Bye bye.