‘We shall never surrender’, ‘We shall fight on the fields and streets’, a fat man with a cigar: in some ways the endpaper for London War Notes is the antithesis of the things Persephone Books tries to stand for. But googling ‘reputation’ ‘Churchill’ one immediately finds this on C4: ‘It was Churchill’s understanding that Britain would not be able to watch the war from the sidelines, and the indomitable spirit he displayed during Britain’s darkest hour, that deserves praise. Quite simply, he was the right person at the time and no-one else would have done a better job.’ Quite. And it’s what Mollie Panter-Downes’s book is about.