WINSTON CHURCHILL
CHIEF SCOUT’S STORY LONDON, November 29. An amusing story of Mr. Winston Churchill in his younger days is told by Lord Baden-Powell, the Chief Scout, in his book, “Lessons from the ’Varsity of Life.” Lord Baden-Powell mentions no period, but it seems likely that the incident described occurred when the Prime Minister was a subaltern in the 4th Hussars.
“Mr. Churchill,” Lord Baden-Pow-ell says, “delivered at a polo banquet one of the finest orations ever pronounced on the subject. He eloquentlj' put the subject before us, and gradually exposed the fact that not only was polo the finest and greatest game in the world, but the most heroic and sporting adventure in the universe. At his peroration we could- restrain our enthusiasm no longer, and greeted the statement with a round of cheering.”
After this, someone moved that “this be enough of Winston,” which was carried, with only one dissentient, and, says Lord Baden-Powell, “Winston was put under an inverted sofa, to be retained there for the rest of the evening with a hefty subaltern sitting upon it. But shortly he emerged from under one of the arms, with what might be taken as an historic phrase: ‘lt’s no use sitting on me I am india rubber.’ ”
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/GEST19410121.2.44
Bibliographic details
Greymouth Evening Star, 21 January 1941, Page 8
Word Count
209WINSTON CHURCHILL Greymouth Evening Star, 21 January 1941, Page 8
Using This Item
The Greymouth Evening Star Co Ltd is the copyright owner for the Greymouth Evening Star. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of the Greymouth Evening Star Co Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in