The removal of Churchill's bust from the Oval Office appears to have upset some Americans. Churchill is much loved by Americans and seen as a stalwart of freedom, a bulldog of a man who stood up to Hitler and saved Western democracy from fascist Germany. There's even a National museum to him in Fulton. Mo. I was taken there by a friend, an ardent supporter, who told me with pride he had the full collection of Churchill's speeches and books in his study. He could not understand my relative indifference and my not joining in with his enthusiastic pride in the man's achievements. "Why on earth did they vote Churchill out of power at the end of the war?" he asked me quizzically.

I tried gently to explain that though I was brought up to respect Churchill's rhetorical skills and his pulling together of the nation at a time of imminent catastrophe, my uncles, father and grandfather had all participated in war and were wary of him. They regarded the farce at Gallipoli in WW1 as an example of Churchill's willingness to sacrifice British and Australian lives in the name of adventurism. My grandfather was carried badly wounded off the beaches and eventually recovered and returned to the Western Front. It was never forgotten that Churchill, when Home Secretary, had brought in the army to quell riots in London. Churchill saw unions as a socialist threat, an infection from the Soviet Union. Churchill was "old school" a representative of a wealthy, landowning classes who saw ordinary people as either army or factory fodder. The British colonies were to be "ruled" because the people there were not educated and didn't know any better. Westerners like the British were the guardians of civilization. He opposed Indian independence and was basically racist in his attitudes as many people were then.

Back in the 50s, when I discussed Churchill's contribution with one of my uncles, who had fought in the Far East and why he was so hostile to him, he explained that he thought that in 1939 ordinary people felt this was not their war – this was a war of the high-up people who used long words and had different feelings. He told me sarcastically after Churchill's speech in Parliament about fighting the Germans on the beaches, "Oh yes. We were prepared to fight on the beaches and in the hillsides but we knew that we would be the ones doing the fighting and the dying and if things went bad, Churchill and his lot would be on the boat to Canada." The British people did rally to the call, and they fought on sea, on land, and in the air, and with American help victory was achieved, but at a great cost of life. 384,000 British service men and women were killed out of a population of 46 million, proportionately a much higher loss than the US.

During WW2 the Churchillian blunders of WW1 continued. The Fall of Singapore was the biggest defeat of British arms in history. The big guns defending the city were facing the wrong way. The sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse, two top of the line battleships, were sent off to fight with no fighter escort and were easily sunk by the Japanese because High Command underestimated the effectiveness of Japanese airmen. Slim's forgotten army was left to fight its way through the jungles of Burma with few supplies. As in WW1 there were more bloodbaths in the eastern Mediterranean because of Churchill's crackpot idea of attacking the underbelly of Europe. Those who fought knew how dangerous his ideas could be and that Churchill cared little about the cost in human lives as long as he could achieve victory. Churchill was no Roosevelt. He was regarded by ordinary people as a representative of the ruling class and only wanted to see himself as a man of destiny. Public image for him was everything. If you watched The Crown episode where Lady Churchill burns the Sutherland portrait because it causes Churchill so much pain, look at the portrait again, there are replicas, and you will see that Sutherland caught in that picture something of the arrogance and indifference to suffering what many British people felt truer to the actual man than the rosy smiling politician waving his hat on the end of a walking cane and making the V sign. At the end of the war, he was voted out.

My father was far more virulent in his criticisms. "It was the sacrifice of ordinary men and women, willing to give everything, willing to work for victory despite the losses, who pulled together and achieved victory despite all the hardship," he would intone when, as a young college student, I asked him about those years. He never disputed the contribution Churchill made and was careful to distinguish between the rhetoric and reality. He believed that a political leader who cared about people, knew suffering himself and wanted, like Attlee, the man who replaced Churchill, to improve society for everyone was a good man. Attlee brought in the National Health Service and opened up educational opportunities for young people like myself, the sons and daughters of the men who had gone off to the four corners of the world to risk their lives for King and Country many of whom never came back but who fought Fascism and wanted a better life for everybody.