LORD MAYOR’S SECRETARY

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28158, 22 December 1956, Page 2

LORD MAYOR’S SECRETARY

Work With Prime Minister (By SUSAN VAUGHAN) The most difficult woman I have tried to interview for a long time is Miss Elizabeth Anne Gilliatt, only daughter of the late Sir William Gilliatt, who was the Queen’s surgeongynaecologist “I am very sorry,” she says firmly, “but I don’t like personal publicity. I feel very strongly about it It is not really the proper thing in my position.” Miss Gilliatt’s position is private secretary and, since she has had a number of very important bosses, the accent is strictly on the “private.” Until a year ago she was the senior ©f Sir Winston Churchill’s personal private secretaries. She worked with him at 10 Downing Street during the war. After the 1945 general election she stayed on with Earl Attlee. But in a few months she returned to Sir Winston Churchill’s staff while he was Leader of the Opposition and remained in his service until he retired from the Prime Ministership. Miss Gilliatt is now in the news again. She is the secretary to the new Lord Mayor of London (Sir Cullum Wekh). With helping to administer the Lord Mayor’s Hungarian Relief Fund, aimed at £2,000,000 on top of her other duties, she is finding it a full-time job. Miss Gilliatt was awarded the M.B.E. in 1955 for her service to Sir Winston Churchill. Now she will receive another honour, the freedom of the City of London, which almost anyone can obtain for three guineas. She has been sponsored by the Lord Mayor and by Sir Denis Truscott, the next-in-line for the Lord Mayoralty. About 1100 persons apply for the freedom every year. In Miss Gilliatt’s case, the honour seems especially well deserved. She has received very attractive offers for stories about her •ecretarial service. But she prefers to adhere to the cardinal rule of the person private secretary—integrity and Silence.

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