Deborah Cadbury > Quotes

“George VI was dismayed to find that the Duke of Windsor appeared to have misled him about his very substantial savings at the time of his abdication. Before he left England, Windsor had extracted from the king the promise of an annual pension of £ 25000/-. But he also took with him twenty years of accumulated wealth through the Duchy of Cornwall as Prince of Wales, which amounted to a large sum, estimated at between £850,000 and £1.1 million. These savings were intended to ease the expenses of kingship when he ascended the throne. It provided the Duke a handsome annual income of between £60,000 and £80,000 – a fact which he failed to mention when he gave up the throne.”
― Deborah Cadbury, Princes at War: The Bitter Battle Inside Britain's Royal Family in the Darkest Days of WWII

“If we die, we want people to accept it. We’re in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the programme. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.”
― Deborah Cadbury, Space Race: The Battle to Rule the Heavens

“Each year they threw open the grounds of the manor house for a party attended by children from some of the roughest districts of Birmingham. They built a large hall known as The Barn in the park to provide tea and refreshments for up to seven hundred children. George Sr., with his love of nature, believed strongly that every child should have access to playing outside in clean air. Games were organized in the open fields, but the star attraction was the open-air baths. More than fifty children could bathe at any one time, and for the young visitors, most of whom had no access to a bath, it was thrilling. The sun on their backs, the sparkling water always inviting, the boys from the inner cities had no desire to leave and would stay in all day, until they were blue and shivering and cleaner than they had been in years.”
― Deborah Cadbury, Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers

“I only think, if it is possible, that in families all should be made up again, for life is so very uncertain,”
― Deborah Cadbury, Queen Victoria's Matchmaking: The Royal Marriages that Shaped Europe

“The end of the war had seen the Soviet Union broken and impoverished. Now, not much more than a decade later, their totalitarian system had, it seemed, produced a legendary flag to wave at the West.”
― Deborah Cadbury, Space Race: The Battle to Rule the Heavens

“there was a dramatic coup d’état against the moderate Girondins at the National Convention. Twenty-nine leading Girondists were arrested on June 2 and many were subsequently guillotined.”
― Deborah Cadbury, The Lost King of France: How DNA Solved the Mystery of the Murdered Son of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette

“A ruthless foe established on a space station could actually subjugate the peoples of the world,”
― Deborah Cadbury, Space Race: The Battle to Rule the Heavens

“Anybody spending $40 billion in a race to the moon for national prestige is nuts,’ declared Eisenhower.”
― Deborah Cadbury, Space Race: The Battle to Rule the Heavens

“man can live or work far beyond the earth’s atmosphere … the first nation to do this will control the earth.”
― Deborah Cadbury, Space Race: The Battle to Rule the Heavens