August 14, 2016

Finest Hour 173, Summer 2016

Page 26

Winston Churchill and William Shakespeare, the two greatest Britons, are now both celebrated in the Bard’s home of Stratford-upon-Avon, as the Stratford Armouries have become host to one of the finest collections of Churchilliana in existence. Jack Darrah gathered many of the best and rarest pieces celebrating Churchill’s life and is now pleased to see them permanently housed in a museum that preserves many elements of British military history.

Formerly housed at Bletchley Park, the Darrah/Harwood collection found a new home this year and opened to the public in late spring. Jack turned ninety-one last June, and his daughter Carol Harwood took on the sizable task of combing through the vast number of collectables to organize the exhibit at Stratford. Display cases take the visitor through the whole of Churchill’s life from childhood to the State Funeral in 1965. Among the rarities is one of the two ropes used to pull the caisson that bore Churchill’s casket through the streets of London.

Long known as the birthplace, childhood home, and burial site of William Shakespeare, Stratford-upon-Avon receives tens of thousands of visitors each year, who come not only to pay their respects to the world’s greatest dramatist but also to watch the plays performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Stratford has undergone a renaissance in recent years, starting with the magnificent remodeling of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. New Place, the site of Shakespeare’s house, reopened this summer after significant enhancement. All this, combined with the introduction of the Darrah/Harwood collection, provides a splendid tribute to the Two Towers of English heritage.

Some of the displays of the Darrah/Harwood collection now on view in Stratford-upon-Avon