SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL

I have always been fascinated by this man. He marched to the beat of his own drum, had a whole section of the Nobel Peace Prize museum in Stockholm dedicated to him and was nobody's fool. I should add that my mother and father hated him. I think that they were old school socialists who couldn’t bring themselves to like a Tory politician. But that’s another story.

The other morning one of my colleagues was attemtping to quote one of her grandmothers stranger sayings. She couldn’t quite remember her exact words apart from it being something about buggering on at a wedding. Yes, I was confused too, but out of this random, mad conversation one thought led to another and I was reminded that on days when nothing seemed to be going his way, Churchill would start the day off by saying out loud: "KBO - Keep Buggering On!" ... Sadly, in my hugely complicated life, there have been many, many times when I have known the exact meaning of this sentiment!

This small exchange led me to reacquainting myself with some of his best known quotes and this one leapt out at me as being very relevant in today’s world. “I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities he excites among his opponents.” I wonder what he would have made of our dear PM and his massively under-esteemed cohort “The King Maker” Mandelson? I am sure that he would have had a few wise words to share with us don’t you?

Maybe he had a premonition about our PM when he said, “I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns”.

Or he could equally have written this for our current bunch of no-hope politicians “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened”. Now ain’t that the truth?

And here’s a good one for Tony Blair “Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events”.

This is fun, but unfortunately I have a life that I must now go and live. But I leave you with one last quote in which, I believe, he really homes in on one of life's most important things “From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put”. Amen to that.

And finally ….. I believe that true friendship continues to grow, even over the longest distance and the same goes for true love.