Piers Brendon.
piers brendon: WINSTON CHURCHILL BIOGRAPHY
CHURCHILL’S BESTIARY: HIS LIFE THROUGH ANIMALS (2018)
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The distinguished biographer Piers Brendon was formerly Keeper of the Churchill Archives at Churchill College, Cambridge. In this delightful book he relates Churchill’s remarkable admiration of, and relationship, with a wide variety of animals. At his Kent home Chartwell, he kept in the rolling grounds a veritable menagerie of pet animals - butterflies, fish, cats, dogs, and a budgerigar of which he was particularly fond. He would spend time with them, examining their behaviour and enjoying their company. He also owned larger and more dangerous animals, including a lion, a leopard, and a white kangaroo. He arranged that these should be kept at London Zoo. Brendon’s account shows Churchill in a new light, revealing his affinity with P.G.Wodehouse’s character Lord Emsworth who, to escape the pressures of life, would stroll to the bottom of his garden and engage in conversation with his favourite pig, the Empress of Blandings.
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Piers Brendon (born 1940) was educated at Shrewbury School and Magdalene College, Cambridge. His PhD was on Hurrell Froude and the Oxford Movement. After 13 years teaching history at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, he became Keeper of the Churchill Archives Centre, in succession to Correlli Barnett. He has published numerous historical and biographical books, including a biography of Dwight Eisenhower, and The Dark Valley - a history of the 1930s. He lives in Cambridge with his wife Vyvyen Brendon, who is also an author.
