John in Carolina (see his blog "Carolina" in my sidebar) has a delightful quote from a history of Winston Churchill:In the summer of 1887, 'Buffalo Bill' Cody was bringing his Wild West Show to London. As you would expect, the twelve-year-old Winston Churchill, considered by some teachers and relatives a bit 'wild' himself, was eager to see the show.
Churchill's biographer, Martin Gilbert, described what happened next: "[Cody’s] advertisement in The Times displayed its attractions in all capitals: GRANDSTAND FOR 20,000 PEOPLE. BANDS OF SIOUX, ARAPAHOE, SHOSHONE, CHEYENNE, AND OTHER INDIANS, COWBOYS, SCOUTS, AND MEXICAN VACQUEROS.
The ad went on to promise riding, shooting, lassoing and hunting, and attacks on a stagecoach and a settler’s cabin...
Churchill, then at boarding school in Brighton, wrote several times to his mother, urging her to write to the two sisters who ran the school to let him go up to London.
In the beginning Jennie said 'no', but Churchill, always a persistent campaigner, kept at it until he got a 'yes'. Needless to say, he enjoyed the show hugely and talked about it into old age.
Churchill didn't get to work with Buffalo Bill. But don't you agree that if, at some point in the show that day, Cody had called out for a few kids to come down and help him saddle a horse or something, one of the first to his side would been the red-haired school boy up from Brighton..."
from Churchill and America (Free Press, 2005) (pgs. 8-9)
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