How many ships could a woman’s face launch? This question seems to have preoccupied Winston Churchill. As a young officer attending gala balls and events, he rated women on a scale of 1000 – based on the legend of Helen, whose beauty triggered the Battle of Troy.
It was in Hyderabad, 1897, that he first found a woman worth warring for. He first met Pamela Plowden at a Polo tournament in Hyderabad, where Churchill bragged of beating a first-class team 9-3. He does not mention the encounter in his autobiography, but it came to light after later biographers mention it as a key moment in his life.
He wished to take her around Hyderabad on elephant-back – a mode of transport that avoided the occasionally hostile natives of Hyderabad. The ride kicked off a romance by post, as he would later write to her in earnest:
I have lived all my life seeing the most beautiful women London produces… Never have I seen one for whom I would forego the business of life. Then I met you… Were I a dreamer of dreams, I would say… “Marry me – and I will conquer the world and lay it at your feet.
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