Daughter's Tale

At ninety years old, Mary Soames is the only surviving child of Winston and Clementine Churchill. A Daughter s Tale follows her early life from an idyllic childhood in her own Garden of Eden at Chartwell to her ATS service in mixed anti-aircraft batteries during the war. With glimpses into her fascinating personal diary, published here for the first time, she draws us into a world where the experiences of a packed family, social and romantic life unfold against a background of cataclysmic events.When Chamberlain s declaration of war in 1939 shatters Mary s world, she begins to share the anxieties and stresses suffered by her family through her father s position. The mutual love between Mary and her parents is evident on every page, from her Chartwell years to Winston s defeat at the 1945 general election, when she recounts her own devastation on her father s behalf. As she meets her future husband Christopher Soames at the end of this charming memoir, it is clear that, at twenty-four, Mary has lived a full life and is well prepared for her future as wife and mother.