June 27, 2013

FINEST HOUR 132, AUTUMN 2006

BY MICHAEL RICHARDS

ABSTRACT
“THE RANDOLPH IN OXFORD has location, location and location. It also costs £20 to park your car! We wandered into the bar at around midnight to find a fair number of dinner-jacketed chaps in expansive mood, champagne and cigars much in evidence. (My Guinness wasn’t too outrageous, but the price of a glass of house Rioja made me decide to skip the champagne….) It turned out said chaps were American members (I tell a lie, some of them were Texan) of The Churchill Centre, on an eight-day pilgrimage to sites associated with the great man. They’d pretty much done the lot, from dinner at Blenheim to visiting the grave of Churchill’s nanny, Mrs. Everest, ‘that most excellent woman.’ So we sat and swapped Churchill quotations, lambasted The Guardian and The Washington Post, and generally reinforced each other’s prejudices in a most agreeable manner.”
—”Laban” 

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Fifty-four Churchillians joined the 12th Churchill Tour on an eight-day journey to “Churchill’s England” between May 21st and 28th. It was the tenth Churchill Tour organized by Barbara and Richard Langworth since 1983 (Celia Sandys organized two others), and over 500 have attended to date. Everything went off like clockwork, thanks to Garry Clark of Stevenage, Hertfordshire, who handled UK arrangements and transportation. Hotels were the White House at Regents Park, London; the Holiday Inn Cambridge; the Old Bell at Hurley; and the Randolph Hotel, Oxford.

The first “Churchill” was in 1983, when fifty members met our Patron for the first time. Later tours have visited Churchill-related places in France, Australia, South Africa, Morocco, and throughout England, and Scotland as far north as Scapa Flow in the Orkneys.

Since that time English traffic has become worse, but much has changed for the better. The cramped Cabinet War Rooms have become the expansive Churchill Museum; Bletchley Park has been saved, preserved as a national historic site with wonderful Churchill exhibits; the Churchill Archives Centre has greatly expanded; and we have made friends with the owners of two private properties associated with Churchill, whose owners kindly invited us to visit. This last is a feature of Churchill Tours that just doesn’t exist anywhere else, and has always been one of the most popular aspects.

Saturday 20 May: Afternoon rendezvous at the Melia White House Hotel, Regent’s Park, London; welcoming dinner with Lady Soames.

Our Patron never stands on ceremony, and walked up to everybody, saying, “Hello, I’m Mary Soames.” If as one member said, “we were standing face to face with history,” it is because our Patron has always been the most approachable and keenly interested member of every Churchill Centre event.

Sunday 21 May: Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum; Thames lunch cruise; 28 Hyde Park Gate; wreath-laying at the grave of Nanny Everest.

Thanks to the vision of curator Phil Reed, and tremendous support from friends around the world, the original War Rooms now contain a state-of-the-art Churchill Museum which, in a word, is phenomenal: the interactive archives table, on which you can call up Churchill files and references for any date, is alone worth the price of admission.

Later we laid flowers (the rain stopped just long enough) on the grave of Nanny Everest (see page 50) at the City of London Cemetery. Winston and his brother Jack paid for her grave marker, whose upkeep is funded by the International Churchill Society (UK). We also walked by Churchill’s last London home at 28 Hyde Park Gate, which is privately occupied, but carries the official blue plaque.

Monday 22 May: Tour of the Houses of Parliament, by courtesy of the Hon. Nicholas Soames MP; the Churchill Memorial Screen, St. Paul’s Cathedral; luncheon visit to Stour, East Bergholt, Suffolk.

We visited both Houses of Parliament. The original Commons chamber, destroyed in a 1941 air raid, was rebuilt in 1950 to original specifications. Churchill successfully prevented any changes, such as “giving each member a desk to sit at and a lid to bang.” This, he explained, would render the House nearly empty most of the time (like the U.S. Congress). Left small, it will fill beyond capacity during a crisis, providing “a sense of crowd and urgency.

St. Paul’s Cathedral’s Churchill memorial screen, designed by blacksmith James Horrobin, is emblazoned with reminders of WSC’s life, the Garter, the Order of Merit, and the Shield of the Cinque Ports.

Stour was purchased for Randolph Churchill by the Churchill Trust in 1957. In Randolph’s time, the exterior was rendered in pink stucco; the original brick facade has now been restored. We were affably welcomed by Paul and Birte Kelly, the present owners, and Sir Martin and Lady Gilbert were also on hand. Martin showed us round, emotionally recalling his first glimpse of the boss:

“There was Randolph, in a deep arm chair, out of which he rose slowly, a large, rather cumbersome man, with a somewhat pasty, battered-looking face, ill-fitting trousers which he hitched up even as he was rising from his chair, and the look of an elderly patriarch he was full of charm, had an engaging twinkle in his eye, and expressed his appreciation that I had made the long journey from Oxford.” And the rest is history…

Tuesday 23 May: Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge; American Cemetery, Manningtree; dinner for our Archives friends, Cambridge.

The Archives Centre was built in 1973 to house 3000 boxes of letters and documents, ranging from WSC’s first childhood letters to his great wartime speeches, to the writings which earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature. Our hosts were director Allen Packwood and his staff, including archivist Katharine Thompson. They, along with former Keeper Piers Brendon, and his wife Vyvyen, joined us that evening for dinner. We saw Churchill College, the Conservation Department, and a special display in the Reading Room. The latter contains multiple terminals, where members experimented with on-line catalogue and other electronic resources.

Wednesday 24 May: morning and lunch at Chartwell, Westerham, Kent; afternoon and tea at Lullenden Manor, East Grinstead, West Sussex.

We arrived at the heart of Churchill’s England crisply on time, thanks to a prompt and early start, beating the regular visitors and getting through the house before the crowds. The garden “gleamed with summer jewelry,” and we spent time in the studio, with its vast collection of Sir Winston’s paintings.

Mary Caroline “Minnie” Churchill, co-author with David Coombs of Winston Churchill: His Life through His Paintings, was our luncheon speaker. “Many people don’t realize that Winston Churchill’s greatest pastime was painting,” she said, “He once wrote: ‘Happy are the painters, for they shall not be lonely. Light and colour, peace and hope, will keep them company to the end, or almost to the end, of the day.'”

As we drove out to Chartwell from Westerham High Street we pointed out a house named “Hosey Rigge.” Churchill lived here some months while overhauling Chartwell in 1922. He nicknamed the house “Cozy Pig.”

Lullenden, where we were hosted by Sally and Matthew Ferrey and their family for a visit and afternoon tea, is an Elizabethan house with all the yeoman qualities of its most celebrated owner, who lived there from early 1917 to November 1919. Although they found it in a “state,” Sally and Matthew have devotedly restored and improved the house and grounds to what struck us almost as museum quality. Yet it is a comfortable family residence. Several of WSC’s paintings were of Lullenden; the Ferreys own one, and we left them with a nicely framed print of another, taken from the cover of Finest Hour 116.

At dinner that evening at the Old Bell at Hurley, we welcomed Randolph and Catherine Churchill, he now actively involved on the committee of ICS (UK).

Thursday 25 May: Harrow School, Harrow-on-the Hill; mid-morning & lunch at RAF Uxbridge; afternoon visit to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.

Churchill attended Harrow from 1888 to 1892, and we enjoyed a thorough tour of the school and grounds, including the Speech Room, where WSC appeared for “Songs,” and the ancient form room where his and Jack’s names were carved alongside many others. Before lunch we visited Headquarters, 11 Fighter Group Uxbridge, where Churchill arrived at the height of the Battle of Britain:

“I now asked: ‘What other reserves have we?’ ‘There are none,’ said Air Vice-Marshal Park. In an account which he wrote about it afterwards he said that at this I ‘looked grave.’ Well I might….The odds were great; our margins small; the stakes infinite.”

This historic, original site, eighty feet below ground, is not a public exhibit but can be visited by special arrangement: a museum to the men and women who worked there, and the air crews in the skies above. The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where we spent the afternoon, has had many famous alumni including Sir Winston, who received his commission in 1895. It was a pleasure to enjoy our private tour of the buildings and grounds, and to come across a portrait of Sir Eyre Crowe, a famous ancestor of a Churchill Centre honorary member General Colin Powell.

Friday 26 May: Morning and lunch at Bletchley Park, Bucks.; Oxford by afternoon. Reception and Dinner (black tie) at the Great Hall, Blenheim Palace.

Secretly at Bletchley Park, the Government Code & Cypher School broke the “unbreakable” Enigma coded signals used by the Germans. Although nearly 9000 were employed in this task during the war, no one ever revealed what they did. Churchill referred to them as “my geese who laid the golden eggs and never cackled.” We were shown round the premises by a delightful former WRN, Jean Valentine, who was one of the 9000 who actually worked there, and who amused us with her feisty accounts of life in WW2 (and today!). Jean left us at Bletchley’s Churchill Rooms with their creator, our old friend Jack Darrah, of ICS (UK), and his late wife Rita.

Our black tie dinner at Blenheim was the culmination of our visit, and a night to remember. Our party swelled to eighty with UK participation, and every available Churchill. The dinner’s purpose was to thank the family for their many kindnesses, appearances and speeches over the years: our hosts, The Duke and Duchess of Marlborough; our patron, Lady Soames and her son Nicholas; trustee Celia Sandys; Minnie Churchill and Simon Bird. We also hosted the Kellys from “Stour” and Ferreys from “Lullenden,” and honorary member Robert Hardy. Nicholas Soames made a fine speech of welcome. Our special thanks to former Blenheim administrator Paul Duffy, resplendent in red, our superlative toastmaster.

The Marlboroughs have long encouraged the work of The Churchill Centre, making the Great Hall or Orangery available three times, and providing facilities for our 1998 symposium on Churchill’s Life of Marlborough. The Duke is an honorary member of the Centre.

Saturday 27 May: morning and lunch free to enjoy Oxford; afternoon drive through the Cotswolds with honorary member Robert Hardy; visits to Ditchley and Bladon; farewell dinner, Randolph Hotel.

Timothy Sydney Robert Hardy, one of Britain’s most popular actors, made himself famous as the Yorkshire veterinarian Siegfried Farnon in the TV series All Creatures Great and Small (1978-90); today he plays Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge in the Harry Potter films. It is always an honor to share his company, made especially so at Bladon, where he read the poem recited in 1965, as Sir Winston’s coffin was lowered into the ground. An excellent programme containing the poem was provided by the Rector of Bladon, Roger Humphreys, who presided at a memorial service.

During the Blitz, the Prime Minister’s official country residence at Chequers, conspicuous at full moon, was a prestigious target for the Luftwaffe. Ronald Tree MP offered his house at Ditchley Park, which we visited in the afternoon—the most beautiful house on our tour. It is now owned by the Ditchley Foundation, an Anglo-American educational trust which seeks to further transatlantic understanding through conferences and seminars.

At the Randolph on Saturday night, our farewell dinner speaker was novelist Michael Dobbs, author of a powerful foursome of Churchill novels: Winston’s War (2003), Never Surrender (2004), Churchill’s Hour (2005) and Churchill’s Triumph {FH 131: 39). Accompanied by his wife Rachel, Michael gave a charming and witty speech about the need to remember Churchill and to defend his memory from baseless misinterpretation: remember him warts and all, but remember him accurately.

We would like to go back to Scotland, working our way north from Yorkshire up to Edinburgh and along the beautiful east coast, and back down via the Lake District. Yes, there are Churchill-related people and places there, too. Robert Hardy may be available as our guide to the Yorkshire Dales made famous in All Creatures Great and Small. If this appeals to you for the next Churchill Tour, let the editor know. 

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PARTICIPANTS WRITE:

Thank you so much for inviting Simon and me to that fabulous dinner at Blenheim. It really was the most wonderful evening and we both enjoyed it so much. How beautiful Blenheim looked, and what a treat to have dinner in the Great Hall. It was so lovely to see you again and to meet so many Churchillians at Chartwell and Blenheim —MINNIE S. CHURCHILL, LYME REGIS, DORSET

I cannot imagine that there could ever be a better tour devoted to Winston Churchill. No doubt I could go on and on about all the great visits, wonderful people and interesting presentations that you arranged, and took such good care over everything. —RANDALL BAKER, NEW YORK CITY

I did enjoy myself very much, particularly hearing that your group had a good time at the Archives Centre! The Levenger Painting as a Pastime is a small work of art, too, which I’m delighted to have as a souvenir. —KATHARINE THOMSON, CHURCHILL ARCHIVES CENTRE

It was so special in every way, truly a privilege to be a guest at Blenheim, and the other magnificent and historic homes, Stour and Lullenden. You put together a wonderful and diversified trip. Thanks for a tremendous effort. —SUE ELLEN KUHN

We particularly liked the visit to Stour, with Sir Martin Gilbert’s outstanding presentation, as well as the visits to Lullenden and Ditchley. They are things which we could not have done on our own. What really enhanced the trip were the Churchill family members. Each of them speaks so well and writes so well. Sir Winston would certainly have been pleased —JEAN D. JONES, FORT ATKINSON, WISCONSIN

How much we miss our new friends, with whom we are now in touch by email. Thank you for the photo with the Marlboroughs; that was an unforgettable evening. —SUSAN AND STEVE GOLDFIEN, SAN FRANCISCO

On my blog I threw linear time out the window and posted the stories as I was inspired to write them! —JOHN DAVID OLSEN N.B.: For John’s spritely and interesting account visit his blog here. 

Every day was a home run, in fact this was the “World Series” of tours, every inning better than the previous one: a memorable, fantastic, marvelous, stupendous, outstanding, incredible tour of Churchill homes, sites, shrines, with his family members present, and you made it look so easy! Everything was seamless, and your love of the Great Man came out in every minute of every event. If only every Churchill Centre, Churchill Society member could have been along! —RICHARD AND SUSAN MASTIO, CARMEL, CALIFORNIA

We so enjoyed our trip with you and are grateful for the opportunity to learn and share such a phenomenal experience. I would very much like to keep in touch and would like to talk further about your development work efforts, especially for events in the DC area. —CAROLYN BRUBAKER, OAKTON, VIRGINIA N.B.: Mrs. Brubaker is now on the committee for the Blenheim Award dinner for Chris Matthews in 2007.

Whenever we speak of it we say that if we multiply our expectations by ten we have the reality of what we experienced and enjoyed so much. Watching the BBC and C-Span has taken on a completely different perspective. —JUDY AND BILL WERBACH, PHOENIX

Garry Clark was first-rate; we greatly appreciate his efforts to accommodate every need of every one of us. —ALAN B. MILLER, KING OF PRUSSIA, PENNSYLVANIA

Leaving each other was difficult, leaving Churchill’s England equally so. We look forward to future trips and we can’t think of anyone more suited to plan for this group of people. Thank you for your inspiration, for making us feel so special, as you are to all of us, and for an experience we shall always remember. —TERM BADGETT AND JOSEPH TROIANI, CHICAGO