“MR. ENGLAND”

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21603, 4 January 1945, Page 3

“MR. ENGLAND”

CHURCHILL IN DARK YEAR HIS DAYS WORK Here is a description (written by Paul Manning, the London correspondent ot an American newspaper association) of Mr. Churchill as he appeared in the dark days of 1941, the period when Britain was struggling to survive.

Sixteen hours a day he's out in front. His exhaustive schedule begins in the misty early morning, when a car sweeps up to No. 10 Downing Street. Out of th.is car steps the Prime Minister. Wearing a blaclc Horn burg hat, a heavy black overcoat, a conservative dark suit with striped trousers, and carrying a gold-headed cane, he walks quickly up the two short steps and disappears through the entrance way.

Inside, he goes al once to a ground-floor bedroom, where he undresses, gets into a pair of striped pyjamas, and hops once again into bed. It's the extreme vulnerability of No. 10 Downing Street to bombs that prevents Churchill from sleeping every night in this traditional home of all Prime Ministers.

When lie does sleep occasionally at another address, which is secret, he hurries back as early as possible to this Downing Street bedroom in which he feels he can really relax. The bedroom is roomy, and from the large mahogany bed facing the window Churchill commands a view of the small grass plot at the rear of No. 10.

First on his list is reading—official papers,'general mail, t reports from the Near East, the Balkans, the high seas. At 8.30 he rings for his breakfast: Like all his meals, there is nothing fancy about it. Bacon and eggs, sometimes with a little kidney. And always coffee, lie doesn’t drink tea — at any meal. Six Secretaries A secretary moves in about then. He has six. With one of the six taking dictation on a noiseless portable typewriter, he begins replying. Sometimes, however, it’s a key speech for Parliament, or the first draft of a radio talk. ( ‘‘ At 10 a.m., which leaves him 30 minutes before his Cabinet meets, he dismisses his secretary. Springing out of bed, he shaves, using a safety razor. lie is too old-fashioned for on electric razor, he says. He takes baths, because showers have not yet been introduced at Downing Street. Then lie’s ofl' to the large, log-healed conference room in the adjoining wing. lie moves swiftly to his chair at the long Cabinet table. Each Minister reports in turn, then answers Churchill's many questions. After which follows a round-table discussion of domestic and foreign policy, and then the conference breaks up. This is around noon, and the next hour until lunch time is spent with key men of the Admiralty and the War Office, who have stepped across to No. 10. Lunch at 1 o’clock is a simple meal. First an aperitif with ice, then cold roast beef as the main dish, finished off with black coffee, brandy, and a cigar. Cigars are his one real luxury. They’re all very expensive and outsize. When asked by an inquisitive visitor how many he smoked a day, he replied, "Fourteen, and I like every one of them.” An hour nap follows lunch, and then lie’s off to address Parliament, receive more people, maybe visit Buckingham Palace, or inspect a military unit. At 5 lie’s back in Downing Street dictating to another secretary. Striding up and down his office, the words at times flow smoothly, at other times not so smoothly. When his sentences lose their precision, he'll stride over to the serving tray, pour a small glass of vermouth, light a cigar, and begin once again. Guests For Dinner One hour of this high-pressure dictation and he moves from the room, going downstairs for a short 30-minute sleep. Then, to Churchill, comes the high point of the day; evening dinner presided over by Mrs. Churchill, with up to a dozen famous people as guests. Generals, admirals, politicians —they can all be found any night at the Churchill dinner table. It’s when dinner is over that the real conference of the day begins. Churchill and his key dinner guests sit around in an atmosphere of heavy c-igar smoko and beat and mould Britain’s policy into a malleable form. Winston Churchill is ns familiar and easygoing as an old side-button shoe. lie is a Tory, an Imperialist, a member of the old school tie group, a descendant of the first Duke of Marlborough . . . yet he is an earthy man of the people such as perhaps no other Prime Minister has been. He is “Mr. England.” In the House of Commons Winston Churchill is usually at his best. lie is the ablest orator in Parliament, even if he does commit his speeches to heart and practise them before a mirror. He is sharpest in unrehearsed debate —a master of the barbed phrase and the pungent retort. This came to him naturally from his youngest days. In school one of his teachers angrily threw some papers on the floor, raging: "What can onedo with boys who know absolutely nothing?"

Up piped Winston’s treble: 'reach us, sir.

It was the same dashing impudence that led him to say of Ramsay MacDonald, when MacDonald was Premier: ‘'He has the gift of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thought.’’

When Stanley Baldwin was Premier, Churchill said that he “had the habit of occasionally stumbling over the truth and then picking himself up and going on again as if nothing had happened.” He called Prime Minister Chamberlain “the undertaker from Birmingham.” Yet it is as a serious speaker, particularly when the country is un edge, that Winston Churchill excels. Dramatic Speaker The effect is always dramatic. He steps to the rostrum, slowly glances at his notes with the grim look of a Disraeli or Gladstone, and then goes into action. He starts slowly, and because of this slowness his lisp and inability to pronounce the letter "s” easily become apparent. But as he warms up to the job, occasionally hesitating as if searching for the right word, his speech moves with greater speed. At the high point he is delighting everyone with his not subtle but very biting humour, and his grand refusal U> pronounce foreign words and names in anything but ordinary English. Like "Naazi'" for “Nazi,” with the accent on the z to make it sound like “nasty." In the country Churchill's real work is done in his study. It’s a long, narrow room. Down one side is a mammoth table holding books, notes, and newspapers. On the floor are two valuable rugs. The rugs cause Mrs. Churchill considerable embarrassment, because right down the centre from one end of the room to the other runs the clear, beaten track of Winston's feet. “But it's no use getting new rugs." says Mrs. Churchill. "If we do, he'll ipiiekly wear them out. too.' - The only thing that seems never to wear out is Winston Churchill himself.