He cites as an example the day he was playing hare and hounds with his brother and cousin in Dorset, when they trapped him on a bridge, leaving him with no escape route. Spotting a fir tree next to the bridge, Churchill leapt onto it, fell to the ground and did not regain consciousness for three days, or leave his bed for three months. It was just one of countless episodes in which he could, and perhaps should, have lost his life, but which made him all the more prepared to take the sort of risks that made him the ultimate war leader.