‘Chasing Churchill’

Stories of your grandparents' youthful travels may have a certain charm, but are probably not of international interest—unless, of course, you are Celia Sandys and your grandfather is Winston Churchill.  In the new three-part television miniseries "Chasing Churchill: In Search of My Grandfather" (airing on PBS beginning July 21st at 10pm) Sandys sets out to recreate her grandfather's globetrotting and explore how the places he visited turned him into a leader and a legend.  Newsweek's Amadea Britton spoke with Sandys about what it was like to follow in her grandfather's footsteps and unearth his private thoughts. Excerpts:

Newsweek: What initially inspired you to retrace your grandfather's travels?
Sandys: I had made some journeys with my grandfather in his later years, so I decided it would be absolutely fascinating to see what the other travels had been like.  By necessity I'd been traveling with him when he was a very old man and clearly there were other [trips] that were much more exciting.

How long did you spend researching "Chasing Churchill?"
It took a long time in terms of years, simply because I had to catch the stories as I could. I would do it by persuading people to invite me [to lecture]…otherwise sometimes I would do it on family holidays.  It was to the extent that eventually after a few years of this my children said, 'Mommy do you think we could possibly have a non-Churchill holiday?'

In the PBS series, you speak to a number of people who tell stories of their grandparents meeting and interacting with Churchill.  Were these stories really passed down through the generations or did you contact people and prep them beforehand?
I found that the very best stories were when I met people and they gave me [them] instinctively.  It was a question of people being spontaneous instead of people having learned a lesson they were able to repeat to me….Also there were occasions where I had really awkward situations. I'd find myself being shown a photograph album with a picture of what I was told was my grandfather in it…but the photograph was quite clearly not Winston Churchill.

After having followed his route, how do you think his travels shaped him?
He was someone who wanted to be in the thick of everything, he wanted to find things out for himself.  His visit to New York made huge impressions and I think sowed the seeds of the special relationship between Britain and America. In Cuba was the first time he was under fire and he had his first experience of battle.  I think he began to take life a bit more seriously after Cuba because he realized instead of just being a game it was for real. And then South Africa was a huge influence on him.  He came back from South Africa not just the son of a famous man, but an international figure in his own right.

Did you uncover anything that surprised you?
When he was in South Africa he was captured and when he was being taken to the prison he was guarded by one Boer solider—a very young man.  My grandfather was obviously doing his best to think of a way he could escape and the chap didn't let him do it, but they sort of struck up a conversation in the end.  Before he got off the train my grandfather wrote on this little tiny bit of paper in pencil saying, 'This man has been guarding me and he looked after me very well so if he should be captured by the British please look after him the way he's looked after me."  And the family had kept this note.