Winston Churchill

It is December 1899, in South Africa. A young man climbs onto a freight train in the dark. He has just escaped from a prison camp. Soldiers are looking for him. He has no map and very little food.

He rides the trains. He hides in a mine. In the end he makes it to safety in a nearby country. When the newspapers find out, his name is everywhere.

That young man was Winston Churchill. He was 25. Forty years later he would lead Britain through its darkest war.

Let's follow his whole life, and look at his birth chart along the way. You don't need to know anything about astrology. We'll go one step at a time.

Churchill was born on 30 November 1874 at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. It was his family's grand old home. His father was a politician. His mother, Jennie, was American.

A birth chart is a map of the sky at the moment someone was born. It shows where the Sun, the Moon and the planets were. Astrologers study that map and say it hints at who a person is.

The time on his chart is 1:30 in the morning. That time comes from his family or from records made at the time, so we can trust it fairly well.

Your Sun sign is the one most people know. It is the star sign the Sun was passing through on your birthday. Churchill's Sun was in Sagittarius, the sign of the archer.

Western astrologers say Sagittarius loves adventure. It wants to travel, to see the world and to say big things out loud. That fits a man who went to Cuba, India, Sudan and South Africa before he was 26, and wrote about all of them.

A chart is cut into twelve slices called houses. Each house stands for a part of life. His Sun sat in the fourth house, which astrologers give to home, family and roots. Churchill cared a great deal about his family line. Later he bought a country house called Chartwell, and it was his home for over forty years.

Young Winston did not see much of his parents. His nanny, Elizabeth Everest, looked after him. When she died, he wrote that she had been his "dearest and most intimate friend".

He was sent away to boarding school at seven. He was not a good pupil, and he behaved badly. He failed the exam for the army college twice before he passed.

Then, as a young soldier in India, something changed. His mother sent him boxes of books. He read Plato, Darwin and big history books, all on his own. He taught himself.

Now for the Moon. Your Moon sign shows your feelings, and what you need to feel safe. Churchill's Moon was in Leo, the sign of the lion. Western astrologers say a Leo Moon needs to be seen and cheered. It wants to shine. A boy who felt ignored at home grew into a man who loved a crowd.

His Moon sat in the twelfth house. That is the house of hidden things and private sorrows. Churchill had dark moods all his life. He called them his "black dog". He kept them fairly private, and he fought them by writing.

There is a softer side to his Moon too. Planets talk to each other through angles in the chart. Astrologers call these angles aspects. A trine is a smooth, friendly angle. His Moon makes a very close trine to Neptune, the planet of dreams and art. From 1915 on, he painted. He made hundreds of paintings, often under a made-up name, Charles Morin.

Your rising sign is the sign that was coming up over the eastern horizon at the moment you were born. Astrologers say it is the face you show the world. Churchill had Virgo rising.

His rising sign sat at the very last degree of Virgo. A few minutes later, the chart would have had Libra rising instead. So we hold this one a little more loosely than his Sun.

Western astrologers say Virgo likes to sort things out and fix them. It cares about small details. People forget this side of Churchill. They picture the war leader. But as a young minister he was a busy fixer of everyday life.

He became a member of Parliament in 1900. In 1904 he switched parties and joined the Liberals. One reason was that he spoke against a law meant to keep Jewish people from moving to Britain.

In 1908, aged 33, he joined the Cabinet. He helped bring in a minimum wage for some of the worst-paid jobs. He set up offices to help people find work. He brought in a rule that workers must get meal breaks. As Home Secretary he improved prisons and added libraries to them.

I think these quiet years tell you more about the man than any of his famous speeches.

His Sun makes a sextile to Saturn. A sextile is a helpful, easy angle. Saturn is the planet of hard work and rules. Astrologers say this mix gives a big dreamer the patience to build real things.

That same year, on 12 September 1908, he married Clementine Hozier. Their marriage lasted until his death, and she was his steady anchor.

In 1911 Churchill took charge of the Royal Navy. He was full of new ideas. He made up the word "seaplane" and ordered 100 of them. He helped pay for an early version of the tank.

Then came the First World War. Churchill pushed for an attack on Turkey, at a place called the Dardanelles. It went very badly. Many soldiers died at Gallipoli. Lots of people blamed him.

He lost his job at the navy. On 25 November 1915 he left the government. He went to fight in the trenches in Belgium. Once, a big piece of metal from a shell fell right between him and his cousin. It missed them both.

His chart has a square between Mercury and Uranus. A square is a tense angle, like two people pulling a rope. Mercury is thinking and talking. Uranus is the planet of sudden change and surprise. Astrologers say this gives a quick, bold mind that does not always look before it leaps. That sounds a lot like the Dardanelles plan.

Something good came out of that sad time too. In those months he picked up a paintbrush for the first time, and he never really put it down.

In 1922 Churchill lost his seat in Parliament. He also had his appendix taken out that same year. He joked that he was "without an office, without a seat, without a party, and without an appendix."

He came back, switched back to the Conservatives, and ran the country's money for five years. Then, in 1929, he was out of office again. These are called his wilderness years.

He wrote books to earn a living. He built brick walls at Chartwell with his own hands. And he began to warn about Adolf Hitler. Very few people listened. When Britain signed a deal with Hitler in 1938, Churchill called it "a total and unmitigated defeat".

Chinese astrology looks at the year you were born. Each year has an animal and an element. Churchill was born in a Wood Dog year. Chinese astrologers say the Dog is loyal and keeps watch. It barks when danger comes near, even if everyone wants it to be quiet. That was Churchill in the 1930s.

Numerology is another old system. You add up the numbers in your birth date until you reach one digit. That is your Life Path number. Churchill's adds up to 7. Numerologists say 7 is the reader and the thinker, the one who works things out alone. He wrote a great many books. In 1953 he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

On 10 May 1940, Germany invaded Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. That same day, Churchill became Prime Minister. He was 65. He later wrote that his whole life had been "a preparation for this hour and for this trial".

Things looked terrible. France was falling. The British army was trapped at Dunkirk. Ships carried more than 338,000 soldiers away to safety.

Churchill had a lisp. As a boy he could not say his S sounds well. He practised and practised. Now his voice became his best tool. He told Parliament he had nothing to offer "but blood, toil, tears and sweat." He said: "We shall fight on the beaches." He said: "We shall never surrender."

Chinese astrologers also look at the day you were born. The element of that day is called your Day Master. Churchill's is yin Metal. Chinese astrologers picture yin Metal as something small and polished, like a ring or a blade. It is sharp and it shines once it has been worked on. His speeches were like that. He shaped every line until it cut through.

In May 1945 Germany gave up. Churchill stood on the palace balcony with the royal family while huge crowds cheered. Then, only weeks later, he lost the election. People wanted change after the war.

His wife said losing might be a blessing in disguise. He said: "At the moment it seems very effectively disguised." But he did not blame the voters. "They have had a very hard time," he said.

Churchill was not a hero to everyone. He believed in the British Empire, where Britain ruled many other countries. He fought hard against India ruling itself. He spoke about Gandhi in a rude and mocking way. Some of his words about race upset people then, and upset people now.

In 1943 there was a terrible famine in Bengal, in India. Millions of people died. Bad weather, war, poor rule and the loss of rice from Burma all played a part. Churchill's government turned down many requests to send more grain. It said there were not enough ships. Later it did send some grain. How much blame his choices carry is still argued over by historians.

So the man who stood up to Hitler also held views many people find hard to accept. Both things are true. You can look at both.

The far-off planets move very slowly. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto can take years to cross one sign. Astrologers watch where they sit on big days and see which spots in a birth chart they touch.

The Midheaven is the very top of a chart. Astrologers say it stands for your job and how the world sees you. On the day he became Prime Minister, Jupiter, the planet of luck and growth, made a friendly angle to that spot and to his Moon.

On the day he lost the 1945 election, slow Pluto sat exactly opposite his Saturn. Pluto is the planet of endings and big change. Saturn is his planet of hard work. Astrologers would call that the end of a long, hard job.

Churchill went on to be Prime Minister again from 1951 to 1955. He kept cats, dogs, pigs, goats and even fox cubs. He bred butterflies. He died on 24 January 1965, aged 90, and was given a state funeral.

If you want to try this on your own chart, start with three things. Find your Sun, your Moon and your rising sign. Then ask a simple question. Where in my life do these show up? Churchill's archer, lion and helper all showed up somewhere. Yours will too.