First Journey

London: Heinemann, 1964. First U.K. Edition, presumed First Printing. Hardcover. Good. Endpaper map largely of Africa (with some color). xii, [2], 225, [1] pages. Index. Cover has some wear and soiling. Winston Spencer-Churchill (10 October 1940 - 2 March 2010), generally known as Winston Churchill, was a British Conservative politician and a grandson of former Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill. During the period of his prominence as a public figure, he was normally referred to as Winston Churchill MP, in order to distinguish him from his grandfather. His father Randolph Churchill was also an MP. Before becoming a Member of Parliament, he was a journalist, notably in the Middle East during the Six-Day War, during which time he met numerous Israeli politicians, including Moshe Dayan, and published a book recounting the war. During the 1960s he covered conflicts in Yemen and Borneo as well as the Vietnam War.[2] In 1968, he visited Czechoslovakia to record the Prague Spring. In the early 1970s at Biafra, Nigeria, he witnessed both war and famine. Winston S. Churchill, son of Randolph Churchill and grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, was educated at Eton and Oxford. In 1960, at the age of 21, he began flying, and after only one year's experience he made his 20,000 mile 'First Journey' to Africa and the Middle East. Following paths well trodden by his grandfather, he piloted a single-engined Piper Comanche with his friend Arnold von Bohlen on an adventurous 20,000 mile journey over deserts, mountains and jungle which took them round the whole African continent. After visiting the Middle East, the pair traveled south through East and central Africa - many of the areas familiar in the past to Churchill's grandfather and great-grandfather. This story might indeed never have been written, for at one point they only escaped disaster at the last minute by finding a tiny air-strip in rapidly failing light in the midst of the jungle. From Cape Town they made their way back to England by way of the West Coast of Africa.