GIFT TO NATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26227, 10 August 1946, Page 7

GIFT TO NATION

MR CHURCHILL'S HOME GESTURE BY FRIENDS COMMEMORATION OF EFFORTS (N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent) (Rec. 0.30 a.m.) LONDON, Aug. 9. The country home of the Churchills for the past 24 years, Chartwell House, in Westerham, Kent, is to belong to the nation. A group of Mr Churchill's friends of various political parties, who desire to remain anonymous, headed by ■‘Mr X,” have bought the house and 80 acres. Mr Churchill and his family will continue to live there during his lifetime. It will then be handed to a national trust as a permanent memorial to the part Mr Churchill has played in history. It is stated that the idea of buying the house originated during one of the darkest periods of the war. Someone asked Mr Churchill which of the war’s hardships he felt most, and he answered, “being unable to go down to Westerham.” Mr Churchill, in his own phrase, spent many days there “ mucking about ” in the ornamental lake and putting up walls as his own bricklayer. During his life-time the house and grounds will be open to the public, and the rooms in which he worked will be preserved as a museum. Mr Churchill, with some members of his family, will leave about August 25 for a Swiss holiday. Friends have placed a villa at their disposal on Lake Geneva. Mr Churchill will go to Berne on September 16 as the guest of the Swiss Government at the Chateau de Lohn for two or three days before returning to England.