Every Cloud has a Silver Lining

Long before Sir Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of Great Britain, he went to South Africa to act as the Morning Post’s military correspondent during the Boer war. In the course of his duties there, he was arrested by the Boers along with a group of British soldiers, and, since the Boers made no distinction between military personnel and war correspondents, he found himself locked up in prison. Churchill promptly sent a message to the then South African Prime Minister, John Christian Smuts, urging his immediate release on the strength of the international agreement that newspaper correspondents on wartime missions were not to be jailed. Subsequently, at a dinner party at the White House in Washington, at which both Smuts and Churchill were present, Smuts wryly recounted how he had taken note of Churchill’s representation but had only just started to go into his case when he was informed that Churchill had already managed to escape.

Years later, when Churchill had become a member of the British Cabinet, Smuts reminded him of this incident, and was surprised to be told that Churchill had had no regrets over the delay in processing his case. He explained to Smuts that if he had been released immediately, he would have been the loser by £9,000. “You see, I sold the story of my thrilling escape from jail to a magazine for nine thousand pounds!”

One should always look at the positive side of a situation, for every cloud has a silver lining.