Historic Announcement

Full-length Footage of ITN Bulletin Announcing the Death of Sir Winston Churchill in 1965 Now Restored.

The half-hour special announcement broadcast by Independent Television News (ITN) on 24 January 1965 announcing the death of Sir Winston Churchill was recently rediscovered in the ITN Archive and has now been fully restored with support from the International Churchill Society (ICS). The 16mm film reel was digitized by Cinelab Film & Digital to mark the sixtieth anniversary of Churchill’s passing. To view the resulting video in its entirety, please CLICK HERE.

The 30-minute bulletin, presented by ITV newsreader Andrew Gardner, was a special news broadcast that went out on ITV at 2:20 pm on 24 January 1965. After Gardner makes the announcement of Sir Winston’s passing that morning, there follows a 12-minute biographical retrospective using historic photographs. This concludes with newsreel footage from Churchill’s 90th birthday on 30 November 1964, when he waved to well wishers from the window of 28 Hyde Park Gate. Afterwards, we see his doctor, Lord Moran, standing in front of the house making an announcement about Churchill’s final illness. Also seen is footage of Sergeant Edmund Murray, Churchill’s bodyguard, standing eighteen-hour duty days at the front door while Churchill’s life moved peacefully towards its end.

Gardner then reads a sequence of tributes from Churchill’s successors as prime minister, including Attlee, Eden, Douglas-Home, and Wilson. Additionally, the Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster both paid tributes to Sir Winston. Perhaps most interesting is a five-minute segment in which the famous fighter ace Group Captain Douglas Bader speaks in the studio about Churchill’s greatness ending with the one-sentence summary, “He was one of us.”

The program concludes with Gardner reading tributes from various world leaders, including France’s Charles de Gaulle, Canada’s Lester Pearson, Yugoslavia’s Tito, West Germany’s Ludwig Erhard, and New Zealand’s Sir Keith Holyoake. Finally, India’s Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri is quoted as saying, “The lasting tribute that could be paid would be to continue to work for the principles of peace and democracy for which Sir Winston fought.”

ICS President Randolph Churchill said, “The International Society and the Churchill family are very pleased to participate with ITN in bringing to life this historic broadcast first aired on the day of my great-grandfather’s death sixty years ago and which will now be available for viewing by a world-wide audience.”

Bulletin #202 — Mar 2025