The Churchills

by Mary S. Lovell

  *Sent to evacuate refugee women and children as the battle front moved along the coast during the Civil War.

  †History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Churchill’s four-volume history of Britain and her colonies, covering the period from 55 BC to 1914.

  ‡He was building a cottage in the orchard to be used in time of crisis in case Chartwell itself became uninhabitable.

  *Lord Rothermere was their neighbour at his villa, La Dragonnière.

  *Two months later Blenheim was in war mode: the polished wooden and marble floors covered in protective linoleum, paintings and treasures packed safely away, windows covered in criss-crossed tape, temporary panelling erected to save precious features. Bert did what the Duke of Devonshire did at Chatsworth and decided that occupation by a school for the duration of the war would be less damaging than occupation by the military. Malvern College had been commandeered by the government by then, so the four hundred pupils and staff moved in. Later, the school would be moved on to allow Blenheim to house various government departments, from MI5 to the Ministry of Supply.

  †This much vaunted defence mechanism along the French–German border was to prove totally useless. The Germans simply marched around each end.

  *By a rough rule of thumb this would be approximately 1000 pages of printed text.

  *This protected natural harbour in the Orkney Islands was used by the Vikings over a thousand years ago and was the main naval base for the British Navy during both world wars.

  *Formerly Lady Mary St Clair-Erskine, daughter of the Earl of Rosslyn. Her husband had just left to join his regiment.

  *Frances Laura Charteris (1915–90) married Major Walter (Viscount) Long in 1933; they divorced in 1942. In 1943 she married William Ward, 3rd Earl of Dudley, divorced in 1954. Her third husband, whom she married in 1960, was Michael Canfield. In 1972 she married Bert, 10th Duke of Marlborough. Randolph remained in love with Laura for the rest of his life, but though she enjoyed his company the feeling was never reciprocated.

  *(1918–84), MBE, soldier and Conservative MP. He was the first husband of Antonia Fraser (née Pakenham), who later married Harold Pinter.

  *She competed at international level at Olympia and at the Royal Bath and West Show, jumping a pony called Stardust which could clear fences almost twice its own height.

  †Then owned by the fabulously rich Olive, Lady Baillie, Popsie’s mother.

  *Giles Bertram Romilly (1916–67) returned to journalism after the war and wrote several books. He suffered from depression and committed suicide in Berkeley, California, where he had gone to visit his former sister-in-law Decca.

  *The Germans would move the prominente prisoners from Colditz in March 1945, just ahead of the American advance. It was hoped to use them as hostages; the prisoners, mostly malnourished after years of imprisonment, were force-marched for eighty-six days to Lubeck. Giles Romilly was one of the survivors, as was John Winant, son of Churchill’s friend Gil Winant.

  *Amery, a contemporary of Winston’s at Harrow and a fellow journalist during the Boer War, had met Hitler several times and was violently anti-appeasement. He held no office at this time, but his speech was said to have decided the outcome of the debate.

  *Second-in-command to Mosley at the British Union of Fascists.

  *For the argument about this matter see Lovell, The Mitford Girls, pp. 323–4.

  †In a parliamentary debate in December 1946 Churchill would state: ‘In time of war many things had to be done which were deeply regretted, particularly 18 B. I have always regretted that, for which I take my share of responsibility. But great principles of habeas corpus can only be abrogated with the very greatest care, and in the most supreme crises of the State.’

  *Hubert Gladwyn Jebb (1900–96) was in 1940 Assistant Secretary to the Minister of Economic Warfare. Later a prominent civil servant and politician, he would become the first acting Secretary-General of the United Nations.

  †During his marriage to Cimmie, Mosley also had affairs with Cimmie’s younger sister Lady Alexandra (Metcalfe) and the sisters’ stepmother, the American-born second wife and widow of Lord Curzon.

  *Rota sired three cubs, and after his death was stuffed as an exhibit; he is now housed in St Augustine, Florida.

  *Beaverbrook’s reputation may have had something to do with how Pam felt her mother would respond. When his son Max wanted to marry the actress Toto Koopman, Beaverbrook objected strongly, then made Toto his own mistress. In a recent book it was hinted that Beaverbrook may have had designs on Pam, too, but her family say this is untrue.

  *Referred to by the writer Anita Leslie, granddaughter of Leonie (Jennie Jerome’s sister) and Randolph’s second cousin.

  *Still going strong in 2011.

  *Mussolini ordered his son-in-law Conte Ciano to be killed by firing squad on 11 January 1944.

  *Foreign Secretary, 1905–16.

  *President of the Royal College of Physicians, Wilson was created Baron Moran in the New Year’s Honours List of 1943.

  *Laura married Lord Dudley. Randolph was deeply upset, but he sent her some nylons, as ‘an un-wedding present’.

  *The name ‘siren-suit’ was coined by Churchill. It has been described variously, from ‘flying-suit’ to ‘rompers’, depending what sort of spin the writer wishes to impose. It was a very efficient, comfortable garment in which to work, and Churchill had a wardrobe of them in various colours and materials.

  *Read out at a dinner to honour Murrow at the Waldorf Astoria in December 1941.

  *Roosevelt had contracted a paralytic illness in 1921 and suffered a permanent disability from the waist down. In private he used a wheelchair but in public he was always seen standing, supported by an aide.

  †The same would happen at Yalta, when ‘the Big Three’ next met two years later.

  *His feelings about Hitler were not so tender; he regarded him as the apotheosis of evil. At one Cabinet meeting he insisted that if Hitler was captured he should be executed in ‘the electric chair’, adding wryly that they might be able to borrow such an appliance from the Americans under the lend-lease scheme.

  *Herbert Morrison’s (1888–1965) move when Home Secretary, to repeal Rule 18B of the Emergency Powers Act, was unpopular because of the Mosleys. Majority public opinion held that they were fifth-columnists and that they should not be released. It was almost the only occasion in the war when Churchill’s policies ran counter to the wishes of most ordinary people. The Mosleys were released, but lived under house arrest in their own home for the remainder of the war.

  *Villa Taylor was next door to the Mamounia Hotel, which Churchill would subsequently visit a number of times.

  †In 1943, at the suggestion of Churchill and Anthony Eden, Duff Cooper was appointed British Representative in Algiers to the newly formed French Committee of National Liberation, with the prospect of becoming Ambassador in Paris after the war.

  *Brigadier Fitzroy Maclean was in command of British aid to Marshal Tito and his Partisans. He attached a series of Allied ‘missions’ to local Partisan commanders and established a rearguard HQ to provide the Partisans with food, general supplies and air support.

  *Joseph Kennedy Jnr was piloting a plane packed with explosives, from which he was to have ejected (to be picked up later) before it reached its target on the enemy coast. However, the plane detonated in the air.

  *Le Seuil was leased on a handshake between Jacques and an expat American in 1943. The tenant insisted they had agreed on ten years’ occupancy, and after the war he refused to move out. The ever faithful Davidoff moved into the outbuildings there to keep an eye on the property.

  *In fact Louis Hoffman was anti-German and it is known that he passed on minor pieces of information to the local Resistance. He was briefly imprisoned but allowed to go free after an inquiry, aided by Davidoff’s evidence. After the war he married Consuelo’s maid, Anne.

  †Parts of the property still remain in the ownership of the Guest family.

  *Fr
anklin D. Roosevelt died 12 April 1945. Winston had seen him a few weeks earlier when he had been told by Dr Wilson (Lord Moran) that the President looked very ill and would not live much longer.

  *The Churchills also purchased 27 Hyde Park Gate and made an internal link between the two houses. Number 27 became Churchill’s secretariat. The top floor was furnished as a self-contained flat and rented out to provide income.

  *Rationing did not end until the early 1950 s. Food was rationed in Britain longer than in any other country.

  *At Fulton, Missouri, he delivered his stirring speech warning about the threat from Russia: ‘From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent…’

  *Clementine’s wartime role, though overshadowed by Winston’s, has been fully detailed in a remarkable biography of her written by her daughter Mary Soames. See Clementine Churchill (Penguin) 1981.

  *Winston enjoyed a number of painting holidays there during the Thirties, and Clementine visited a few times. The owner Maxine Elliott died in 1940 and at the end of the war the property was purchased by Prince Aly Khan.

  *Her biographers implied that Pamela abandoned her son to enjoy her liaison with Gianni. This is not entirely true. Although young Winston certainly spent long holidays with his two sets of grandparents and with his father and stepmother, he also had regular holidays with his mother in Paris, on the Riviera at Gianni’s villa, Château de la Garoup, and during the winter at St Moritz. Pam also visited young Winston at Le Rosey, his boarding school in Switzerland, chosen for its air, because he suffered from bad hay fever.

  *Princess Marella Caracciolo di Castagneto, an elegant half-American half-Neapolitan noblewoman once regarded as one of the best-dressed women in the world. She married Gianni on 19 November 1953 and gave birth to their only son Eduardo seven months later. Eduardo was never interested in Fiat, and grew into a sensitive and spiritual man. He committed suicide in Turin in 2000.

  †Gianni died in January 2003 of prostate cancer. He owned the majority shareholding in Fiat and at one time controlled almost 5 per cent of Italy’s GDP. He was renowned for his impeccable taste and dress sense (Esquire magazine once named him as one of the five best-dressed men in the world). His marriage did not curtail his womanising and he had many glamorous mistresses thereafter, including the film star Anita Ekberg and the American fashionista Jackie Rogers.

  *Peter Quennell, Alastair Forbes and Cyril Connolly, among others.

  *Said to be Winston’s favourite granddaughter, Arabella Churchill became deb of the year in 1967. Later, as a convert to Buddhism, she married a professional juggler called Haggis and lived as what she called ‘a hippy’. She was infinitely more comfortable helping to organise the Glastonbury Festival than as part of London’s Society scene. She died in December 2007 from pancreatic cancer, aged fifty-eight.

  *A friend of the author, a former BOAC air hostess, wrote an account of how Randolph had become drunk and abusive on a flight at this time. Because of his father he was treated kindly: the crew covered for him and got him off the plane at the first opportunity – ‘However, I am sure everyone in First Class would have known.’

  *Sir Alfred Lane Beit, 2nd Baronet (1903–94), was a Conservative politician, art collector and philanthropist. He had inherited a great fortune from his father, including an art collection that included works by Vermeer, Gainsborough, Rubens and Goya, displayed at his mansion in Kensington Palace Gardens.

  *Colville was summoned back by Winston in 1952 to be joint head of his private office at No. 10. Lord Moran – Winston’s doctor for almost twenty-five years – would say of Jock Colville: ‘I know no one who understood with such intuitive sympathy this baffling creature [Winston] who is so unlike anyone else in everything he says and does.’

  *An appointment made in 1941 by the King.

  †He was now Sir Winston, having received the Order of the Garter from the Queen in her coronation year, on 24 April 1953. He had declined this honour after his political defeat in 1945, but with the new acclamation ‘by the people’ he felt it was appropriate to accept. It was the more acceptable because everyone knew the late King had wished it bestowed on him.

  *An appointment peculiar to coronations. The Earl Marshal of England appoints several Gold Staff Officers to assist wherever necessary; for example, in 1953 ushering the eight thousand peers and other invited guests to their allocated seats and dealing with other marshalling and security matters.

  *Richard A. Butler (1902–82), Tory politician, generally known as ‘Rab’. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary, but never achieved the premiership.

  †A Private Secretary to the sovereign 1943–53.

  *Edward George Villiers Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby (1865–1948), was a professional soldier, politician (Secretary of State for War), diplomat (Ambassador to France) and racehorse owner.

  *John Constable (1776–1837) had his first studio in East Bergholt, of which he wrote: ‘I love every stile and stump and lane.’ His father owned the flour mill at Flatford.

  *Churchill College, Cambridge, houses Churchill’s papers and those of some of his contemporaries.

  *They lived together from 1948 and married in 1964.

  †Winston came to accept that he was wrong to have supported the Duke during the abdication crisis, describing him later to Montague Browne as ‘an empty man. He showed such promise. Morning Glory.’

  *First Lord of the Admiralty under Ramsay MacDonald and stepbrother to the subsequent Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.

  †In his book In Command of History (2005), David Reynolds claims that these rights were sold for a figure worth up to $60 million in today’s currency.

  ‡Elder sister of Venetia Montagu, Clementine’s former best friend, who had died in 1948.

  *Alexander, the only son and heir of Aristotle Onassis, would die at the controls of this aircraft, which crashed on take-off at Ellinikon International Airport, Athens, in January 1973.

  *Odette Pol-Roger, née Wallace, was one of the three daughters of Major General Wallace, who were known as ‘the Wallace Collection’.

  *It was reckoned that in his lifetime he consumed five hundred cases of it.

  †She put aside all bottles of 1928 vintage for Churchill until it ran out in 1953, and after that always sent him the finest vintage available. He named one of his racehorses after her. He once told her that if she would invite him to Épernay during the grape harvest he would tread some grapes himself. A decade after his death, Pol Roger launched a new label: the Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill.

  ‡After Churchill’s death in 1965 Odette decreed that a black border was to be added to all bottles of Pol Roger sold in the UK.

  *Confirmed by Mary Soames to author.

  *It is now in the National Portrait Gallery.

  *John Patrick Balfour, 3rd Baron Kinross (1904–76), was a prolific writer whose best-known works were his biography of Ataturk and books on Islamic history. His first wife, whom he married in 1938, was Angela Culme-Seymour (formerly married to Randolph’s cousin Johnny Spencer Churchill). They divorced in 1942 because Kinross was homosexual. Angela married several more times, and was Nancy Mitford’s model for ‘the Bolter’ in The Pursuit of Love.

  *Now called the Golden Rose Walk, it runs through the original kitchen garden and circles the sundial.

  *The Comet was as novel and prestigious in design as the Concorde would be thirty years later, but early models suffered from metal fatigue, causing a number of fatal crashes, and it was withdrawn from service. Although a later model enjoyed a safe career for over thirty years, the Comet’s reputation made it unpopular as a commercial airliner. The current RAF Nimrod derives from the original design, and is expected to remain in service into the 2020 s.