A larger-than-life character, famous for his trademark cigar and his reputation as a drinker (which he joyfully exaggerated), Churchill was also a talented amateur landscape painter and pilot, soldier, farmer, and even bricklayer. When he retired from the House of Commons in 1964, he had spent over six decades in public life, a career that ran from the last great British cavalry charge to the nuclear age. | A larger-than-life character, famous for his trademark cigar and his reputation as a drinker (which he joyfully exaggerated), Churchill was also a talented amateur landscape painter and pilot, soldier, farmer, and even bricklayer. When he retired from the House of Commons in 1964, he had spent over six decades in public life, a career that ran from the last great British cavalry charge to the nuclear age. |