Churchill Wanted Dead or Alive

Celia Sandys goes ‘in grandfather’s footsteps’ to retrace young Winston Churchill’s adventures during nine months of the Anglo-Boer War in South Africa – where Churchill served as war correspondent, combatant (at Spion Kop and Ladysmith), prisoner-of-war and escapee.

Celia Sandys has uncovered a hitherto neglected part of Churchill’s life using many previously untapped sources and giving many hitherto unknown facts and anecdotes.

In 1899, within two weeks of his arrival in South Africa to cover the Boer War as a journalist for London’s Morning Post, the twenty-four-year-old Churchill was taken prisoner when his train was ambushed by a Boer patrol. Churchill first enabled most of his companions to escape to safety before he himself was captured and taken to Pretoria, his daring escape prompting a massive manhunt. Evading recapture by taking refuge in a coalmine, then hiding in a goods wagon, his exploits propelled him overnight on to the international stage.

One hundred years after these events Celia Sandys followed in her grandfather’s footsteps, visiting campsites, battlefields, the site of his incarceration in Pretoria, and the route of his escape, uncovering a host of fascinating details about this tumultuous period in his early life. Churchill Wanted Dead or Alive is both a thrilling adventure story and a unique insight into the life of a young man who went on to become one of his country’s greatest leaders.