No More Champagne

by David Lough

  Prime Minister Baldwin was rumoured to be appointing a minister for the co-ordination of defence. Keen to take on the position, Churchill checked his instincts to make ‘a telling speech’ and remained on best behaviour while he dictated a trial article about the crisis for the Evening Standard. When Baldwin appointed Sir Thomas Inskip, a lawyer who had only ever held legal posts in government, Churchill came to the conclusion that Baldwin was never going to restore him to office and as a result, he felt at liberty to resume his criticism of government policy.

  Churchill returned to the new arrangements for his political column. He only felt confident enough to give notice to the Daily Mail and to sign his contract with the Evening Standard once William Hearst personally agreed that his American newspapers would pay $500 for each article they used and Curtis Brown forecast at least £25 each time for European sales.14 These new arrangements took effect in April, but hit an immediate difficulty: Churchill had offered Hearst the right to refuse up to a third of his columns if the subject matter was not interesting enough to American readers and his editors spiked his first two offerings. An exasperated Churchill suggested to Hearst that they abandon their arrangement. ‘Mr Churchill is rather arbitrary,’ Hearst reportedly told his staff, ‘so perhaps we had better call it off before there is more grief.’15 Shorn of its American outlets, the new series earned Churchill an average of £110 a column; it was half his initial target, but still an improvement.

  Churchill could only turn his attention to the final section of Marlborough in Parliament’s Easter recess during April. ‘I am labouring to finish Marlborough in time for Autumn publication and I feel I have the measure of it in my mind,’ he told the historian Keith Feiling.16 However George Harrap’s production manager, Charles Wood, was less confident of achieving this timetable, pointing out that an October publication would require the whole text to be ready by the end of July at the latest.

  Churchill realized this was impossible. He suggested to Harrap that they split the book up again into yet another volume, so that he would have to write only fifty more pages to reach the next natural dividing point, the Battle of Malplaquet. Accustomed by now to Churchill’s ways, Harrap agreed to the request for an extra £3,500 advance that accompanied Churchill’s suggestion.17 ‘The inevitable has happened,’ Churchill then told Charles Scribner and The Sunday Times, without daring to ask them for more money. ‘Marlborough must now extend to four volumes.’18

  In August Newman Flower asked whether Churchill’s A History of the English-Speaking Peoples would be ready for publication the following year, 1937 – the earliest date mentioned in their contract. Churchill broke the news that there was no hope of it being ready before the last contractual date allowed: 30 April 1939. ‘I have been very much ridden in upon by politics owing to the need of urging this country to rearm,’ he explained. ‘However a great deal of work has been done upon the English-Speaking Peoples. Not only has the ground been surveyed, and the whole plan made out, but I have a very large mass of material which has been carefully collected under my supervision covering every chapter.’19

  Suspicious, Flower asked to visit Chartwell to inspect this plan, but Churchill was too busy to fit him in. In fact, he was trying to finish the final fifty pages of the third volume of Marlborough, so that he could ask Harrap for his cheque before holidaying in France.20

  Churchill left the last-minute publishing details to a new literary assistant, William Deakin,*1 while he returned to journalism at Maxine Elliott’s Château de l’Horizon. ‘I have just completed the first of my new articles for the News of the World,’ he reported to Clementine. ‘I mean to do at least three more before I leave. They are v[er]y lucrative.’21 They needed to be, because Churchill was as usual losing money at the nearby casino. He withdrew 70,000 francs in cash during his stay, but only 3,400 found their way home, leaving his bank account the poorer by £870.22

  Next came the most serious family crisis of the year. Diana’s marriage had already ended in divorce, and Churchill had dealt with another episode of Randolph’s gambling debts,23 but now Sarah, their middle daughter, was in trouble.

  A professional dancer, Sarah had fallen for her latest show’s leading actor, Victor Samek,*2 and wished to marry him although he had already been married twice. Churchill considered Victor as ‘common as dirt’ when they met in February, as he wrote to Clementine: ‘An Austrian citizen... twice divorced: 36 so he says. A horrible mouth: a foul Austro-Yankee drawl. I did not offer to shake hands: but put him through a long examination.’24

  Churchill insisted Sarah and Victor should spend a year apart before making any decision on marriage, but they continued to see each other. Churchill commissioned a report from private investigators in America and confronted Sarah with its findings: Victor Samek’s first divorce had been granted on the grounds of his cruelty and there was no trace of a second divorce.25 Three months later, Sarah eloped to New York to join Samek.

  Churchill dispatched Randolph in hot pursuit. ‘Don’t communicate Samek or see him except with lawyer,’ he instructed him. ‘Matter turns on validity second divorce. No question friendly relations Samek whatever happens.’26 But Churchill knew that if Samek’s second divorce and American naturalization papers came through, there was little he could do.

  In the meantime, he had his own problems to deal with. Churchill’s fortnightly political column was still earning only half of what he thought it should. One way to boost his share of receipts would be to bypass his agent and renew his contract directly with the Evening Standard, and then to engage its syndication department to sell the articles overseas for him. He suggested the idea to the Standard’s Percy Cudlipp, but Cudlipp drove a hard bargain: he would only agree if Churchill accepted a reduction in the notice period that he could be given if the paper chose to cancel the arrangement, from Churchill’s six months of notice to the newspaper’s standard of one month; in addition Churchill was to bear the risk of syndication sales. The Evening Standard would advance him £120 for each article, but only guarantee £50 of the sum as its own fee; the remaining £70 would be clawed back if there were no sales.27

  Curtis Brown reacted with predictable fury to being cut out of the deal and objected that it had introduced Churchill to the Evening Standard. ‘You are mistaken in supposing that you “found this Evening Standard opening” for me,’ Churchill coldly replied. ‘I have been for some time in close relations with Mr Cudlipp. Now that a new contract is to be made on different terms and on a different basis, I do not feel justified in continuing that arrangement.’28

  Churchill’s political articles had become darker in tone during 1936 and attracted the interest of the Foreign Office. Rex Leeper, the head of the FO’s news department, visited Churchill at Chartwell to discuss how his popularity could be harnessed to counter public apathy towards the Nazis. A month later, Churchill spoke at the first private lunch at the Savoy Hotel of the self-styled Anti-Nazi Council. Sixteen guests debated how best to achieve their ends when the awkward question came up of how they might fund their future activities. Eugen Spier, a Jewish German banker resident in London since 1922, broke the long silence: he volunteered to take care of the next stage.

  The group called itself the Focus in Defence of Freedom and Peace. It remained a secretive and unstructured organization, quietly supplying speakers and publicity material to anti-Nazi public meetings. Focus raised £20,000, mainly from members of the Jewish community, to fund its research and support for public meetings,29 but there is no evidence in Churchill’s bank statements of 1936 or 1937 to support any suggestion by historian David Irving that Focus or its leaders may have made undisclosed payments to Churchill.30 What he did agree to do, in principle, for a fee of £5,000, was visit the United States at the end of 1936 or early in 1937 to launch a parallel American Focus group by giving speeches to prominent figures in New York, Philadelphia and Chicago.31 Churchill had his long-established friendship with the prince of Wales, now Edward VIII, to thank for the fact
that the trip never took place – and that the American arm of Focus never paid him.

  Churchill’s friendship with Edward had led a number of newspapers and magazines to commission him to write special articles to mark the King’s Coronation which was expected in 1937.32 However, during the autumn of 1936 events behind the scenes began to cast a doubt over whether the ceremony would proceed. Edward had formed a relationship two years earlier with an American divorcée, Wallis Simpson, who had recently separated from her second husband. He had given Wallis extravagant gifts of jewellery, as well as an annual expense allowance of £6,000.33 Their relationship continued after Edward came to the throne, although it was not until late in October 1936 that the king discussed the possibility that they might marry with Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. Baldwin was convinced that the British public would not accept the marriage of their king with a divorcee and urged a postponement of Wallis’s divorce proceedings, to no avail. Edward was determined to marry Wallis as soon as she obtained a decree nisi.

  The crisis broke at a difficult time for Churchill. After a period of relative calm in his finances, during which his literary earnings and small share sales had kept his overdraft just within its limit, the Inland Revenue had insisted at the end of October that he pay a large tax bill, long overdue, within days.34 Only an appeal to the News of the World for another post-dated cheque convinced Lloyds Bank to provide temporary funds, but the incident convinced Churchill at the end of November that he had no alternative but to go through with his visit to New York in December to earn the £5,000 offered by Focus’s American promoters.

  ‘There is no less than £6,000 to pay in Income & super tax during 1937,’ he explained to Clementine. ‘This being so I feel it is necessary to take this US offer, & I am satisfied it is quite proper for me to do so.’35 Bernard Baruch was not so sure: ‘No committee yet formed nor cash raised,’ Randolph reported after visiting his father’s friend. ‘Bernie advises against coming under Landau’s*3 sole auspices since it merely representative Jewish Telegraph Agency.’36

  The dilemma remained unresolved on 3 December, the day that Churchill publicly launched the British arm of Focus’s Defence of Freedom and Peace movement at the Royal Albert Hall. It was also the day on which news broke publicly of the impasse over marriage plans between the king and the government of both Britain and its dominions.

  Edward told the prime minister that Wallis was leaving Britain immediately. He then asked to meet his oldest political friend before deciding his own course of action. Churchill travelled to Windsor, where he advised an exhausted Edward to ask for a fortnight’s grace and to give Baldwin an assurance that he would not marry against the advice of his ministers.

  Churchill arrived late for the next session of Prime Minister’s Questions at the House of Commons, unaware that Baldwin had already conceded more time to Edward although the king had refused to give an undertaking not to marry. When Churchill intervened to ask Baldwin to take ‘no irrevocable step’, MPs shouted him down, interpreting his words as yet another of his attacks on the prime minister that had featured in Churchill’s House of Commons speeches on German rearmament. Churchill agreed with the diarist Harold Nicholson’s verdict that he had spent two years rebuilding his reputation, yet undone the work in five minutes.37

  Edward chose Wallis Simpson over the throne, but the damage to Churchill’s position proved short-lived. He helped the king to craft a well-judged abdication speech and made a well-received contribution to the Commons debate that followed Edward’s abdication. He also turned down lucrative offers from American publications to write an insider’s view of the abdication crisis.38

  The duke of York took his brother’s place on the throne, becoming George VI. A week later Churchill postponed his American visit, because Parliament was recalled to debate civil list payments for both the new king and the former king early in January. Churchill felt he must attend as he had taken part in these negotiations between the former king and the government.

  Churchill acknowledged to Bernard Baruch that Baldwin had gained a new lease of political life as a result of his handling of the abdication crisis: ‘This makes it easier for me to plan ahead. I have every hope that I shall be able to come over to the States in April and hope to inaugurate the Defence of Peace and Freedom movement about which Randolph consulted you.’39

  The postponement meant that Churchill missed Sarah’s New York marriage to Vic Oliver (Victor Samek’s new name on becoming an American citizen). Early in January 1937 Churchill paused from dictating a long memorandum on German air strength to give his daughter and new son-in-law lunch at Morpeth Mansions on their return to London. Now that she was married, Churchill felt that they must treat Sarah in the same way as they had Diana. ‘I told her what we proposed financially,’ he wrote to Clementine afterwards:

  She seemed v[er]y pleased, & liked the idea of all except y[ou]r £100 pin money rolling up for a rainy day. “Vic” – I suppose we must call him that – is making about £200 a week for 8 to 10 weeks over here. They get special terms at the hotel. But what a life – hand to mouth, no home, no baby.40

  Churchill felt strongly that while Vic was earning well, the capital of £4,500 that they would be settling on Sarah from either his father’s trust or their own Elder Children’s Settlement should be resettled in a new trust. He drew on his own experience in an attempt to persuade his daughter:

  Everyone knows how under pressures of circumstances, either tempting or adverse, funds which are not controlled by Trustees are almost invariably dissipated. General statements however sincere are no substitute for proper Trustees. These moneys have come down for several generations solely by virtue of the fact that they have been strictly tied up. But for this they would have been squandered long ago.41

  But Sarah (who was known within the family as the ‘Mule’) continued to resist and, after taking advice from special counsel, Churchill finally gave way.

  Although Churchill’s overdraft was close to its limit of £8,000 at the end of 1936,42 his letter to his bank manager about borrowing facilities for the new year was full of hope. Supported by £12,000-worth of literary contracts already in hand and £3,000 more income from his investments, director’s fees and salary as an MP, he calculated that he should produce a comfortable surplus over spending. The only difficulty, as always, was timing: his income and expenditure being out of step. He asked to hold on to an overdraft limit of £7,000 and to all his longer-term loans.43

  Privately, however, Churchill was less optimistic. He was sufficiently concerned to ask his farm accountant, James Wood*4 of Wood, Willey & Co., to help Mrs Pearman, his senior secretary at Chartwell, to devise more cuts in the Chartwell budget. Clementine’s account at Harrods for expenditure during 1936 had run to over 80 pages and the household had additional accounts at such other leading London stores as Harvey Nichols, Peter Jones, John Lewis, Selfridge & Co. and Lillywhite.44

  Wood and Mrs Pearman suggested losing three of the servants to save wages of £240 a year; reducing the swimming-pool temperature to halve heating costs; pruning the £240 annual laundry bill; and, boldest of all, recommended that expenditure on wine and cigars should be ‘investigated’.45

  Churchill summarized this new regime in a memorandum to his staff: he would continue to pay ‘say £3,000’ for the year’s medical bills, bank and insurance payments, foreign travel, office salaries and Mary’s school fees; all other household costs were to be kept below ‘a maximum of £500 a month or £6,000 a year’, not on any account to be exceeded.46 Mrs Pearman kept up the pressure, submitting unpaid bills of £2,331, of which she labelled bills amounting to £642 as ‘Most urgent’.47

  For the second time, Knight Frank & Rutley was instructed to test demand for the purchase of Chartwell. ‘Capon*5 said he would on no account mention any figure less than £30,000,’ Churchill told Clementine. ‘If I could see £25,000 I should close with it. If we do not get a good price, we can quite carry on for a year or two more. But no goo
d offer should be refused, having regard to the fact that our children are almost all flown, and my life is probably in its closing decade.’

  If Churchill did not regain ministerial office on Stanley Baldwin’s retirement, Frederick Leathers, managing director of the shipping and ports company William Cory & Son, gave him hope of ‘important business administrative employment’: ‘Then I should be able to do my books more slowly and not have to face the truly stupendous task like Marlborough Vol. IV being finished in 4 or 5 months, simply for current expenses. For 1938–9 we have the History of the English-Speaking Peoples, worth £16,000, but entailing an immense amount of reading and solitary reflection if justice is to be done to so tremendous a topic.’48

  Churchill hoped to start his History ‘in earnest in the late Autumn’, of 1937, he told Newman Flower,49 but the truth was that he could not afford to turn down other offers, even if they distracted him from the books. He was now borrowing £22,500 from his bank and insurance companies and another £12,000 from his family trusts.50 Still, austerity had its limits. His note on the new Chartwell economy drive ends: ‘Wines, spirits etc. not included.’51

  *1 William Deakin (1913–2005), literary assistant to Churchill (paid £400 a year) 1936–40; fellow, Wadham College, Oxford 1936–50; military service including in the Special Operations Executive (SOE) 1940–5; literary assistant to Churchill 1945–55; warden, St Antony’s College, Oxford 1950–68; author The Brutal Friendship (1962), The Embattled Mountain (1971); knighted 1975.