FINEST HOUR - Winston Churchill

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Churchill Cars cont'd...Churchill $ England Q6: The 8th ChurchillRoyce engine) was first placed on nri 1.1 i Oil T i #• 7 fy flour and tnesale in 1964 - so Sir Winston'sUth international Conference,ownership could only have been England, September 26th-October 7th, 1006fleeting, although his wife couldhave had one for awhile. Austinbuilt 7,087 4 Litre Rs, not ten —so the car is hardly scarce."The 'pig story' also soundsunlikely," comments formerChurchill secretary and firstChartwell administrator, ICS hon.member Grace Hamblin: "It istrue, however, that Sir WilliamRootes supplied Sir Winston witha Humber Estate." Miss Hamblinthinks the gift was made "aroundthe time of Sir Winston's eightiethbirthday, in 1954." Since the firstproduction Humber estate car, theHawk Mark VIA, was built in1956, it's possible that a prototypewas in existence in time for the1954 birthday present.)Coincidentally, one of Sir Winston'schauffeurs was named JoeBullock. Miss Hamblin remembers:"Once on being asked whichcar he would like to travel in, hisreply was, 'I'll have the Bullockcart.'"elm Sandys s Research lnp toTHE TOUR:26th: Londonarrival, receptionand dinner.27-8th: ToDorchester,Churchill homesites,Pool Pottery,Malborough'sbirthplace,Lawrence's Cottage,etc.29th-30th:To Exeter, with further explorationsof the ancient Churchill sites and aWest Country ICS banquet.lst-3rd: Headquartered at the delightfulOld Bell at Hurley on theThames, we visit Ditchley and Bletchley,enjoy a luncheon at the home ofCelia Sandys and her husband KenPerkins; visit Cotswold byways, thegravesite at Bladon, capping all witha gala black tie Blenheim Award banquetat Blenheim Palace Thursday.4th-6th: On to the conference! Thetour price, comparable to previoustours, includes conference expenses.Full details next issue. To preregisternow, contact the editor at(603) 746-4433 or fax 746-4260.Ashdown Park, East Grinstead, Sussex: tentative conference site.THE CONFERENCE:Fri 4th: at Chartwell, hosted byLady Soames and Celia Sandys; luncheonand speaker. A visit to Lullenden(the Churchills' first countryhome). Exhibits and fellowship at aninformal dinner evening at the headquartershotel nearby.Sat 5th: Academic panels;Jonathan Aitken MP on Churchill andBeaverbrook; Wendy Reves will presentthe Reves Award; banquet withour most distinguished chief speaker,to be divulged in due course.Sun 6th: optional walking tour ofChurchill's London with Sir MartinGilbert. (Return flights Monday).The Conference will be affordable,requiring a small registration fee withdinners optional and alternate B&Bsto the HQ hotel. Full details in ournextissu^ SAVE TH0SE DATES!Already working on her sequel to The Young Churchill (From Winston With Love and Kisses), Celia and herfamily travelled to South Africa in June, finding a host of key people. Left to right: with Judge LouisWeyers, President Smuts's grandson; Celia, Alexander and Sophie with Errol Dewsnap, grandson of themine engineer who hid Churchill at Witbank Colliery in 1899; with Charles Wagner and Mollie Buchanan,grandson and granddaughter of Charles Wagner, engineer of the armoured train; Alexander atop the ridgewhich his great-grandfather climbed, from the plain below, twice in one day during the battle of Spion Kop.FINEST HOUR 88/8
THE THINGS THEY SAY,PARTS 1,749 & 1,750PHILADELPHIA, OCT 1994 — OneAdrian Bell, writing to thePhiladelphia Inquirer, said that ifChurchill "had been a little wiserin 1911, or 1919, neither WorldWar II nor the Korean, Vietnamnor Persian Gulf wars would havehappened, nor the drug explosion,nor the vast [American] deficit."In 1911, Bell continues, SunYat-sen offered to teach the ChineseEnglish, and Bernard Shawfavored this but Churchill quashedit. "If not for Churchill, the Chinesemasses would have been ourfriends for the last 83 years, andJapan would never have dared toinvade China in 1931, to get naturalresources to become powerfulenough to attack Pearl Harbor.[Then] in 1919, Churchill "approvedsevere punishment of Germany.This caused starvation, inflationand unemployment, leadingto the rise of Hitler."As to Sun Yat-sen, we knewthe devil Churchill was involved inthat dastardly plot! As to starvingGermany, we knew that the Englishpolitician who urged thedespatch of food to starving Germansin 1918 and protested theirharsh treatment by the peacetreaty was an imposter, and notWinston Churchill as the newspaperssaid. Glad to get the facts out!(Thanks for this piece of "intelligence"to Stephen Holstad.)DENVER, JANUARY 5TH — OneMichael Parenti, in a speechbroadcast by American NationalPublic Radio, lamented the wayhistory is routinely bent and liedabout. In a lengthy denunciation ofthe sins of Western Civilization,Parenti said that Churchill toldthe Tories they'd be well handledby history because he would writethat history himself.In fact, what WSC actuallysaid ("I prefer to leave the past tohistory, especially since I shallwrite that history myself) hadnothing to do with the Tories, norwas he threatening to lie about thepast. His remark, in the Commons,was a humorous one, andeveryone laughed including theLabour MPs. Parenti should practicewhat he preaches.CIGAR AFICIONADONEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 15 —The Autumnissue of this elegantmagazinecontains a goodpiece on WSC byICS Friend PeterWelsh, photoscontributed byICS, and a "tasting"of sure ninety Churchill-sizecigars. Also of interest is a profileof 1995 Conference speaker ArthurM. Schlesinger, Jr. The magazineis widely available on newsstandsand tobacco shops at $4.95/£4.DRESDEN & ROTTERDAM"In Holland particularly, actsof long prepared treachery andbrutality culminated in the massacreof Rotterdam, where manythousands of Dutchmen wereslaughtered, and an importantpart of the city destroyed." -WSC,Their Finest Hour (1949 p262).FEBRUARY— The 50th anniversaryof the bombing of Dresden (acommunications center and vitaltarget) caused a media frenzy,though the 50th anniversary of theattack on Rotterdam (no strategicimportance whatsoever) went unremarkedfive years ago. We needto consider why this is so, andwhether, in deploring the fact thatwar is hell, we give in too easily tothose who equate Britain andAmerica with Nazi Germany.During the bombing of theRuhr, Churchill asked his colleagues,"Are we beasts? Are wetaking this too far?" No such moralqualms were uttered by Hitlerwho, while Dresden was beingbombed, was sending V-2 rocketsto wreak havoc on London withevery delight. End of debate.Cyril Noel DaviesAformer New Scotland Yard detectiveinspector who served WinstonChurchill as bodyguard during the SecondWorld War, Cyril Davies passed awaypeacefully on July 26th. He leaves awidow, daughter and a granddaughter.Mr. Davies was present at numeroushistoric occasions and met PresidentRoosevelt and Marshal Stalin at Yalta in1945; he also met Haile Selassie ofEthiopia, King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, Mackenzie King of Canadaand Presidents Truman and Eisenhower.Along with many other Friends of ICS at the NinthInternational Churchill Conference in 1992, I had the pleasure ofmeeting the smiling, upbeat Cyril Davies, who was always willing toreminisce about his historic experiences. Led by our Patron, LadySoames, several friends of the International Churchill Societies inboth Britain and the United States have written to say what pleasurethey had in knowing him and how much they enjoyed hisacquaintance. Writes Jean Davies: "My husband joined theMetropolitan Police in 1929 and retired in 1954. So glad he met somany in ICS, it makes everything a little more personal." -RMLFINEST HOUR 88/9
Page 1 and 2: Autumn 1995 • NumberyFINESTHOURJo
Page 3 and 4: CONTENTSrAutumn 1995FINEST HOURJour
Page 5 and 6: QUOTE OF THE SEASON"Yugoslavia, sin
Page 7: the Marquess Don Achille diLorenzo,
Page 11 and 12: "Democracy is the worst system of g
Page 13 and 14: "There are secrets too mysterious f
Page 15 and 16: Durban, 1899: The Desperado SpeaksC
Page 17 and 18: this governess' because she was Ver
Page 19 and 20: WSC dictated from his stand-up desk
Page 21 and 22: nanny, Mrs. Everest. He adored his
Page 23 and 24: Keepers of the FlameICS United Stat
Page 25 and 26: A bibliophile's column named in mem
Page 27 and 28: Churchill's mind read and the thoug
Page 29 and 30: Will Ye Tak' the High Road?RAYMOND
Page 31 and 32: "WAR OF NERVES," NEW CHRONICLE, LON
Page 33 and 34: ON COLONIES"We mean to hold our own
Page 35 and 36: TEHERAN CONFERENCEAfter meeting wit
Page 37 and 38: pears to be fairly rare. I have onl
Page 39 and 40: of the original. They have a smooth
Page 41 and 42: each other's interest. The sad trut
Page 43 and 44: together the Freedom of the Borough
Page 45 and 46: CHl'RCHILLTRIVIAEDITED BY BARBARA L

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