Sir Winston’s secret love

Press, 28 March 1981, Page 10

Sir Winston’s secret love

NZPA London As an old man, Sir Winston Churchill fell in love, at a respectful distance, with the newly-crowned Queen Elizabeth 11, according to a book by one of/his aides. The claim is made by Sir John Colville, wartime Assistant Private Secretary to Churchill, in his book “The Churchillians,” published recently. In a chapter on Churchill’s relations with “the ladies,” Sir John writes:

“There was one lady by whom, from 1952 onwards, Churchill was dazzled. 'That was the new Queen.” He first met Princess Elizabeth at Balmoral, the Royal residence iii Scotland, when she was aged two. At the time Churchill wrote: "She has an air of authority and reflectiveness astonishing in. an infant.”

Sir John continues: “In 1952, however, at the age of 77, he found himself Prime Minister to a young woman of 25.” Elizabeth had succeeded to the throne on the death of her father; King George VI, on February 6, 1952. It was soon noticeable that Churchill’s weekly audiences with the|monarch lasted un-

usually long, Colville notes. “A photograph of the Queen, smiling radiantly on her way to open her first Parliament, was framed and hung on the wall above his bed at Chartwell,” Churchill’s rural home. "He was an old man whose passions were spent, but there is no doubt that, at a respectful distance, he fell in love with the Queen.” Colville, aged 66, joint Principal Private Secretary to Churchill during his last term as Prime Miinister 1951-55, said after 1952 Churchill nearly always're- j ferred to women appreciatively. "I do not think he was a man with strong sexual desires and those he had were, in due course, concentrated in his love for his wife, Clementine.” Women on the other hand, often “found his attentions irresistible.” I

Churchill, who died in 1965 aged 90, became something of a feminist, says Colville. He insisted that Churchill, College, Cambridge University, which he founded, should ' have women students on equal terms with men. "I asked him afterwards if this had been Clementine's idea. “Yes,” he replied, “and I support it. When I think what women did in the war I feel sure they deserve to be treated equally.”