Working with Winston

by Working

  Churchill might have signed himself as ‘pig’ when writing to Lady Churchill, but he clearly envisioned himself as a more heroic animal. On one visit to Aristotle Onassis, he was asked, ‘What would you have been, Sir Winston, if you hadn’t been born a man?’ and without any hesitation, Churchill replied, ‘I would have been a lovely tiger.’37

  The softer side of Churchill was displayed not only in his treatment of animals, but also in a playful sense of humour. Although we have no reason to believe that Churchill’s sense of humour was more in display when working with Pugh than with other secretaries, she did spend more time during her oral history recounting such displays. Pugh ‘remembers one sweet little time when I was fairly new, he suddenly said, “Come here, darling, I want to kiss you.” And then he’d look up, mischievously, obviously hoping to embarrass you. [He then said] “I meant the cat.”’

  That sort of playfulness was also reflected when he commented on his habit of travelling between London and Chartwell on weekends without secretaries in the car, because Mrs Churchill was available and he wanted to be with her. Pugh remembered his once remarking, with a wicked grin, that ‘it was a waste travelling with Lady Churchill, because you couldn’t dictate to her’. He loved travelling with her, but couldn’t quite repress his constant need for his secretaries.

  There was more wordplay on Armistice Day. There was a tradition that Churchill would be photographed buying a poppy and the picture would appear in the evening papers. Pugh asked Churchill to come along and be photographed buying the poppy. He refused. She was surprised and emphasized the importance of the picture, but he asked her ‘ “What would I do with it?” Sort of getting fed up, but then his face broke into a very large grin and he said, “Oh, I thought you meant a puppy,” obviously knowing perfectly well all the time.’

  Churchill always treated the public with consideration. If he had to turn down an invitation ‘he always wanted to say it in a way that wasn’t wounding’. He was equally considerate of those making speeches in the process of giving him awards or honorary degrees. Churchill, at eighty, was in relatively good health for his age. However, his hearing loss increased, as it does with age.

  As he aged, there were fewer trips abroad, with the exception of many cruises aboard the Christina, but Churchill continued to travel between Chartwell and Hyde Park Gate, not changing the work routine of a lifetime. As Pugh explains, ‘He was used to it… He thrived on it and I think he would have sunk into a sort of despond if he’d just stayed in one place, because he never had… It was refreshing to go to London to see somebody.’ Pugh also realized that ‘He did thrive on toing and froing… He thrived on the contrast, being very lackadaisical, then remarkably active. If he came back [to London], he would do ever so much, and go back [to the South of France] refreshed.’38

  Inevitably, the decline set in and his deafness made matters worse. He became gloomy at times. But he did his best to maintain a cheerful mien in public. ‘He was much funnier than most people at mis-hearing… He was always very, very good at putting on the right face as though he could hear… Being given a Freedom, for example, he’d put on the most beautiful face of attention.’ His hosts thought him attentive and were pleased. Churchill had honed his skills at making people feel at ease, both in dealing with other politicians and as a host at his numerous dinner parties over a long life – with notable exceptions, of course, such as General de Gaulle. Unlike Churchill’s hearing, ‘His eyesight was marvellous, [perhaps] because all his typewriters had big type, which was jolly nice, and the speech typewriter had especially big type.’

  His beloved wife was perhaps his greatest concern in these later years. Pugh says he thought Lady Churchill not very strong. ‘He worried about her and her health… I think that was his great anxiety. He was always so happy when she was all right, so they were together and he was terribly worried when she wasn’t [there]. Various troubles with the family were also very distressing. [He was] terribly brought down by his children’s [problems].’

  Pugh took on more work, drafting letters now instead of just typing what Churchill dictated. But, she emphasizes, there was never any senility or agitation, as can occur in some people in their declining years.

  As the work gradually eased off, Churchill played ‘endless games of bezique‡‡… and, after he had finished writing A History of the English-Speaking Peoples he did a terrific lot of reading.’ Books were borrowed from everywhere: ‘from the London Library, from Westerham Library… He read all his own books, [and] classics, which he said he had read as a young man and hadn’t read since, and he loved them. Things like Dickens, Scott, Stevenson and Kipling.’ Late in life Churchill also read Tom Jones and Rob Roy, and An Infamous Army, Georgette Heyer’s retelling of the three months before Waterloo. As we will hear from Catherine Snelling (see Chapter 12), he also liked historical novels, such as Berlin Hotel by Vicki Baum. He read this ‘absolutely thrilling’ novel in August 1944, while visiting operations in Italy.39

  Reading was some consolation, as were some types of music. As Pugh sadly recalled, ‘It was touching how Sir Winston started having the record player in the afternoons. He played Gilbert and Sullivan and military marches, and really did his best to get some pleasure out of them [in spite of his hearing loss]. And, in those last months, when he could not concentrate so well on reading, he did a lot of looking at books of pictures.’40 Pugh says that when he gave up his seat in the House of Commons ‘I think that was the end, really… I think he just gave up then. I think he absolutely hated it… He was disconsolate then.’

  He decided, after much deliberation, not to stand for re-election in his ever-loyal constituency, Woodford, in May 1963, shortly before his eighty-eighth birthday. It was a momentous decision for him. He had been in the House of Commons almost continuously for over fifty years. His last appearance in the House was on 28 July 1964.

  Lord Beaverbrook died in June 1964 – a bitter blow for Churchill, as they had been friends for sixty years; indeed, Beaverbrook had been dubbed by Churchill his ‘foul-weather friend’. His other two closest friends, Lord Cherwell and Brendan Bracken, had died in 1957 and 1958 respectively. Churchill had moments of gloom, as anyone would at that age, watching his friends die. But Pugh and Maturin both noticed that the depressions lifted: ‘We came to the same conclusion about how he enjoyed contrasts, and after a quiet, low time, he would come right up.’41

  His attention was beginning to wander, his deafness making friendships difficult to maintain. On his ninetieth birthday, 30 November 1964, she was very busy with ‘the endless messages and presents to be thanked, [but it was] less really enjoyable… an increasing decline at that stage’. The number of birthday messages was estimated at around 60,000 from all over the world,42 most acknowledged by the ‘cyclostyled’ machine, but some personally signed by Churchill. However, some estimates are as high as 70,000. So great was the need that temporary staff were hired to deal with the messages and telegrams, and old secretaries such as Lettice Marston volunteered to return to help out. ‘Before the luncheon on the actual day, Clementine had arranged for all his secretarial, nursing and domestic staff, to gather in his bedroom to drink his health in champagne.’43 Pugh was now senior staff and accustomed to Churchill’s ways and needs, so she encouraged Churchill to attend dinner at The Other Club on 10 December 1964, his last, fifty-four years after his first dinner there.44 All were part of the life of Sir Winston.

  Pugh was away when she was called back and ‘we were all there in those last few days… and Lady Churchill sat with him sweetly so long. And the cat on the end of the bed.’ As his daughter Mary Soames recalls: ‘This natural but infinitely sad decline, was slow and uneven. There would be bright clear spells, and then dull rather hazy days… and after the announcement in May 1963 that he would not contest the approaching election, the last stimulus was taken from his life.’45 Pugh worked with him through these last months, until his death on 24 January 1965, two days before the birth of his great-grandson Ran
dolph.

  Pugh contradicts the reports that Churchill himself planned much of his funeral, including picking the hymns. She says ‘to the best of my remembrance that was rubbish and he certainly didn’t. I think it was done absolutely without his knowing.’

  At the time of writing, Doreen Pugh, who was born in 1925, lives outside London. She was awarded an MBE in 1965. In his will, Churchill left her £650 (some £12,000 today).

  * What Pugh called her ‘little handbag diary’, which she kept in spite of the rules.

  † ‘The secretaries kept extensive detailed lists of the Churchills’ Christmas gifts to family, staff and friends. Gifts included ‘carolina ducks, pâté de foie gras, silk cravat, silk nylons, chicken and shawl’ and several dolls presumably for staff’s children. Also many gifts of wines, port and champagnes.’ CHUR 2/387/106

  ‡ Luckily for historians, most of the documents that Churchill wrote or saw are now filed by date and by person in the Churchill Archives.

  § Understandably one of the few places he liked going to, as he preferred people to come to visit him. Pugh: ‘To some extent he felt he was going home.’

  ¶ Pugh rarely went with him to races and stud. But Churchill sometimes would ‘charter a little aeroplane and fly off to Newmarket with some friends’. When he won he gave each of them ‘a tenner’ (£10, around £300 in today’s money), as ‘he loved having these successes’.

  # It is assumed Mr Onassis supported the Club with gifts of champagne, but as the members and rules are still secret, one cannot be sure.

  ** The more familiar red boxes were used within Britain, but black boxes were also used, especially for trips abroad.

  †† Drivers did not usually stay over, but went back and forth between places.

  ‡‡ Pugh acknowledges that she never played cards with him.

  12

  Catherine Snelling

  ‘A very approachable man and lovable.’

  Catherine Snelling, oral history

  ‘If he was there, everything was

  somehow all right.’

  Catherine Snelling, oral history

  ‘He had great courage, an almost inexhaustible energy,

  and a generosity of spirit which would disarm all

  but the most implacable opponents.’

  A. J. P. Taylor1

  CATHERINE SNELLING CAME to Churchill as a woman with vast experience, a true professional secretary. Described as having ‘light brown, shoulder-length hair’ by one of Churchill’s later valets,2 she had worked for the Ghana High Commission, the BBC and then in Paris at the OECD. On returning to London, she signed up with Mrs Hoster’s employment agency, which, in November 1958, sent her to interview for a job with Churchill – his name was used, it was no secret, she says, as was the case, for example, when Jo Sturdee was interviewed during the war years. Anthony Montague Browne (referred to in these years as AMB), seconded from the Foreign Office to serve as Private Secretary during the last ten years of Churchill’s life, interviewed her before taking her to meet Churchill himself in the drawing room at 28 Hyde Park Gate. They ‘gazed and gazed at each other’, while AMB explained her qualifications. Churchill asked her if she spoke French. She said she did. Churchill said he did, too. He never conceded to critics who claimed his French was of the highly fractured variety, and it is not known whether AMB, who was fluent in French, ever discussed the matter with his boss.

  Snelling started work the following Monday and worked for Churchill for five years. It proved to be a unique experience for a well-travelled woman, but one who had never worked ‘in a family’ before.

  AMB had assumed the role of organizing a hiring system he believed to be a bit more formal than the one that had provided Churchill with his secretaries during the war, one that had worked so well for Churchill in the past. In fact, Churchill’s method of selecting secretaries hadn’t changed: preliminary screening by a trusted aide, a brief meeting to look over the applicant, followed by immediately putting that person to work. In a sense, AMB was performing a function similar to that performed by Jo Sturdee and others. The screeners might change, but Churchill’s hiring method did not.

  AMB explained to Snelling that her duties were ‘to run his private office, work in the house and in London and go to Chartwell at weekends… go abroad with him if needed. Just generally look after him and run his office and other personal things that were needed… organize things, really. Things that weren’t totally domestic like the household.’* This job description was not very different in style from the ones that set forth what was expected of secretaries since the very start of his career: broad, vague, no specific limits on what needed to be done. That suited Churchill’s habit of moving seamlessly from location to location, and from work to his other interests. It was, of course, different in content, since among other things Churchill no longer bore the burden of the premiership.

  Snelling’s recollection of her chores is a bit more specific than AMB’s description:

  answering letters, keeping his diary up to date, organizing who was coming to stay, who was coming to lunch in London… ringing people up, making arrangements, people ringing us up, wanting to know if they could have this or that… and quite a lot to do with book rights… people wanting to quote… and later the film arrangements.

  Snelling also had to manage the switchboard at Hyde Park Gate, ‘an old-fashioned thing. It linked up the whole house, Sir Winston and Lady Churchill’s bedrooms and others… One of those with the switch up and down.’ There was also a switchboard at Chartwell. She spent a considerable amount of time keeping track of the numerous awards and the organizations of which Churchill was a patron: acknowledging the financial reports, thanking organizations, working with veterans, and with the help of AMB preparing Churchill’s talks to these organizations. This list of chores, and the volume of correspondence, explain why Snelling was soon overwhelmed and more secretaries were needed. A young woman named Monica Graham was taken on at the suggestion of Lettice Marston.

  Snelling estimated that she spent ‘a couple of hours a day altogether’ with Churchill, beginning the day by taking up the blotter book for him to sign the letters that she had typed the night before. He was in his four-poster bed,† ‘propped up with the budgerigar going round, sitting on his head… and mine… and rolling things off the table like pens.’ Like Pugh, she relished going to the library for books he wanted to read; and he could always depend on ‘his own copies of Walter Scott’.

  Snelling had this to say of one of the books she chose for Churchill to read:

  One of the great successes. I don’t know if you’ve heard of a book called The Golden Warrior by Hope Muntz. It came out just after the war and extraordinarily enough it was dedicated to him in the front. I hadn’t realized it. It was about William the Conqueror and Harold and she [Muntz] was a history don, and this was the only fiction she ever wrote. And I read it in about 1950 and was absolutely bowled over by it. And so I got it out for him one day and he read it and read it. He wouldn’t get up to go to dinner, [saying] I must finish this… So the next morning he was reading it again, [asking] who is this woman? We must have her to lunch. She was a very eminent historian, but she was quite old, and this was fifteen years after she’d written it. But it’s a most marvellous book and I knew he’d love it, because it was in a kind of epic style without being boring. Not like Beowulf where you can hardly follow. I don’t mean boring, but anyway he adored that.

  Despite the inevitable effects of the ageing process, Churchill retained his wide-ranging interests (which seem to have included modern novels). Snelling is certain that Lord Beaverbrook gave Churchill a copy of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955) when Churchill was a guest at La Capponcina. She says he ‘couldn’t be torn away from it’.

  And of course, there were still some speeches to be prepared in a manner strictly specified by Churchill. Snelling recalls his habit of composing and dictating: ‘quite extraordinary’. He would

  sort of gaze
into space and you knew he was going to say something. He’d… say, ‘I’ll write to him’ and then there would be a pause and he’d be reading something else… then he would suddenly say ‘My Dear whoever’ and just start without warning you – just begin, so you’d have to be quite sort of on the qui vive. He’d sort of try out words without actually saying them and out it would come. So you couldn’t take down what he was trying out quietly. I think he’s always probably done it like that.

  Many others have commented on his practice of trying out words and phrases, sometimes aloud to hear how they sounded, especially if they were meant to be in a speech. Churchill always fretted over his words and phrases. When she typed his speeches, Snelling says that she typed them on cards. She recalled: ‘He invented the speech form, which was like a poem. A phrase on each line going down, and you always finished a paragraph at the end of a page, if you could.’ It was called the psalm format and was always typed on octavo-sized paper, 5 by 7½ inches. The speech cards were then put together with a tag and handed over to Churchill, who removed the tag when he started his speech.