The Right Man

Churchill was treated as a has-been until the war handed him the role he had prepared for all his life.

• He refused to negotiate with Hitler when much of the establishment wanted peace talks
• His speeches steadied the nation through its most desperate months
• The Bengal famine and his imperial views remain serious moral stains

He was also famously fond of drink, reportedly taking champagne at breakfast and whisky through the day, yet kept up a huge work output into his seventies.