Churchill's Black Dog and the Still Small Voice

In the summer of 1945, Winston Churchill — the man who had rallied Britain through its darkest hours, who had stared down Hitler when the world trembled — was voted out of office in a stunning electoral defeat. His wife Clementine suggested it might be "a blessing in disguise." Churchill replied, "At the moment it seems quite effectively disguised." What followed was a plunge into what Churchill called his "black dog" — a depression so severe he could barely paint or write.…