8The popular image of Churchill grandson of a duke, drinking champagne and smoking a cigar conjures up a man of wealth and substance. The reality is that Britain s most celebrated 20th-century statesman lived for most of his life on a financial cliff-edge. Only fragments of information about his finances, or their impact on his public life, have previously emerged. With the help of unprecedented access to Churchill s private records, David Lough creates the first fully researched narrative of Churchill s private finances and business affairs. As he reveals the scale of Churchill s financial risk-taking, combined with an ability to talk or write himself out of the tightest of corners, the links between the private man and public figure become clear."