A historical 'howdidit'!

The question is this: how on earth did Winston Churchill become Prime Minister on 10 May 1940 when, three days earlier, there was no vacancy; if there had been one, he was a rank outsider (some rated him a 40 to 1 shot); he had just been responsible for one of the biggest military cock-ups in British history (the Norway campaign), and the appointment depended critically on the Labour opposition, who hated his guts? Well, if you want to know the answer there is no better way to find it out than by reading Nicholas Shakespeare's brilliant account in "Six Minutes in May". This is a history that reads like the plot of a thriller and, in fact, it is a thriller because, even though we know the outcome, how Winston is going to thread his way through the maze that was British politics at the beginning of World War II, and emerge as the nation's leader is in doubt almost to the very last page of the book. Shakespeare is a novelist and it shows: at no point did I want to put this book down get the domestic chores done, the narrative just flows and flows, and the story gets more and more incredible as it goes on. There is also a tragic and deeply sad aspect to the tale: Neville Chamberlain comes out of this book as a deeply wronged man. This was the man who insisted that British industry build Hurricanes and Spitfires over the objections of both Churchill and the RAF. He was hounded out of office, and has been vilified as the appeaser of Hitler ever since. It doesn't sound like a fair judgement based on this book, and it is hard not to feel immensely sad when you read about his bleak unadvertised cremation in November 1940 ,with no-one present except his wife and two servants. What a contrast to the razzmatazz that surrounded Churchill's laying to rest in 1965. But sadness is not the feeling you get when finishing this book, it is satisfaction at having read such a clear and entertaining account of suc

h an improbable chain of events.