Daring To Hope

the diaries and letters of Violet Bonham Carter, 1946-1969

Plot

"'Winston has many faults', Lady Violet wrote in 1950, 'but he is the one great forest tree that still stands. When I am with him I feel the perspective of history'. She captures that 'perspective' vividly in her journals, which reveal not just Churchill, but virtually all of the leading figures of the day: Clement Attlee, 'feeling the Atlas weight of his responsibility' as prime minister; Anthony Eden, 'accomplishing his own destruction by the suicidal blunder of Suez'; Harold Macmillan, 'not "enjoying" office at all. He feels the decline of power in politicians and indeed of Parliament'; and President Kennedy, 'Above all I had the sense of greatness - in a greater degree than I have felt it about anyone since I first met Winston at the age of 19'.".