An anecdotal history of Winston Churchill's foreign journeys - for journalistic, political or holiday purposes, and in war and peace - as told by his granddaughter Celia Sandys, who travels in his footsteps.
With all his other remarkable achievements, it is easy to overlook the fact that throughout his long life Winston Churchill was an indefatigable foreign traveller.
As a young man, his thirst for fame and adventure took him to Cuba, the North-West Frontier, the Sudan and South Africa. He experienced battle at close quarters, was taken prisoner, and made a daring escape which brought him worldwide fame at the age of 25. As Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies and then as First Lord of the Admiralty he became perhaps the best-travelled British politician of his time, his unquenchable energy exhausting a succession of aides.
Even during World War Two, when he held his nation's destiny in his hands, there was little diminution in Churchill's foreign travel, as he made uncomfortable and hazardous journeys for face-to-face meetings with allies such as Roosevelt and Stalin, or to witness at first hand the progress of the conflict.
Perhaps above all there was his lifelong love affair with the United States, the country of his mother's birth, to which he made repeated visits. In later years his growing passion for painting provided the impetus for other travels.
