Firestyle Magazine: Issue 5 - Autumn 2016

COLLETABLES
Churchill
Collectables
by Nick Fletcher
Mostly it is famous pop singers or iconic movie stars who
attract collectors keen to get something associated with their
idol, but one legendary figure towers above them all in terms
of worldwide collecting interest - Sir Winston Churchill.
You can buy a signed photo of Madonna for
as little as £50 but a signed photo of Churchill
will set you back at least £5,000. And it’s not
just autographs that Churchill collectors seek.
There are books, prints and paintings, toby jugs
and other pottery, indeed almost anything
connected with the great man. Not long ago,
an authenticated set of his dentures fetched
£17,000 in auction, one of his old hats sold for
£3,000 and even one of his discarded halfsmoked
cigars has fetched £4,500.
Open any book of quotations and chances are
you will find the longest list of memorable quotes
beneath the name of Winston Churchill. Some
quotations, like ‘ Never in the field of human
conflict…’ and ‘We shall fight on the beaches…
are as well known today as they were when first
said over 70 years ago.
As wartime Prime Minister, Churchill had many
serious issues to deal with, and to speak about.
Yet he also had an acerbic sense of humour,
and frequently expressed it. He described
rival Clement Atlee as ‘a modest little man
with much to be modest about,’ and once,
when ticked off by a woman for being drunk,
he replied ‘I may be drunk, but you’re ugly.
Tomorrow, I’ll be sober, but you’ll still be ugly.’
Combative wit and his great wartime
achievements helped make Churchill a
legend, and this is reflected in the cult status he
still enjoys more than 50 years after his death.
More than 700 different biographies of Churchill
have been published, and he has been voted
the greatest-ever Briton in a nationwide poll.
But Churchill was much more than just a great
statesman, for he was very talented on a
number of fronts. While his political books are
best remembered, he also wrote fiction, was a
very fine artist, and easily the wittiest politicians
of his generation.
Churchill was born in 1874 in the middle of
the reign of Queen Victoria, and he fought as
a soldier in the Sudan in 1898, when cavalry
charges were still being made with lances.
Almost fifty years later he was to be responsible,
with American President Truman, for the
decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan,
an amazing escalation in warfare in just half a
century.
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