Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill

by Sonia Purnell

For her part, Jennie had welcomed Winston’s choice of bride but this marked the beginning of a fraught relationship between the two women. Clementine saw how Winston adored his mother despite her faults. She had seemed a “fairy princess” to him as a child, and later he had harbored somewhat Oedipal feelings for her. Aged twenty he had written in a letter: “How I wish I could secrete myself in the corner of the envelope and embrace you as soon as you tear it open.”7 Even now Winston often chose to walk arm in arm with his mother, leaving Clementine feeling like an intruder.

Jennie considered him too “ugly,” “slouchy and tiresome”9 to bother with. Her selfishness and his lack of a settled home

“destitute.”10 For both Winston and Clementine a steady, loving childhood had been unknown.