On 19 June Alistair Lexden addressed the Spalding Conservative Patrons’ Club at the end of their visit to Churchill’s War Rooms. He pointed out that, although the War Rooms are a fine memorial to Churchill and record perfectly the masterly way in which he conducted the war, he actually made comparatively little use of them. This basement of No 10 was fitted up chiefly to provide him with a safe place to sleep at night during the Blitz and even then it often took much pressure from his wife and his devoted private secretaries to get him to stay down there where conditions were spartan. His favourite occupation during air raids was to climb on the nearest roof or turret to watch the action. Wherever possible he held Cabinet meetings at No 10. Outside Downing Street the place he used most often was a building on the corner of Storey’s Gate and Birdcage Walk, overlooking St James’s Park, which quickly came to be known as the No 10 Annexe.
Alistair Lexden went on to recall the famously idiosyncratic way in which Churchill organised his day in Downing Street: steak, partridge or pheasant for breakfast at around 8 am; the morning normally in bed reading official papers (including raw intelligence intercepts from Bletchley Park), receiving visits from colleagues and dictating to secretaries on a ‘ silent Rimington’ typewriter; dressing in his siren suit after bathing; a hearty lunch followed by post-prandial sleep ; then Cabinet or meetings with the three chiefs of staff ( over whom Churchill was the first war-time premier to exert effective control as Minister of Defence, a post he created for himself);hours in the Commons as necessary; a normally prolonged dinner with much drink, more dictation and bed between 1 and 2 am.
When he was at Chequers there was often a party atmosphere even at the most difficult times. On 15 June 1940 France was on the brink of surrender. Churchill’s remarkable Private Secretary, Jock Colville, recorded the evening in his diary: ‘He was in high spirits, repeating poetry, dilating on the drama of the present situation, maintaining that he and Hitler had only one thing in common—a horror of whistling—offering everybody cigars , and spasmodically murmuring, “ Bang, Bang, Bang, goes the farmer’s gun, run rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run”… About 1 am Winston came in from the garden and we all stood in the central hall while the Great Man lay on the sofa, puffed his cigar, discoursed on the building up of our fighter strength, and told one or two dirty stories. Finally, saying “Goodnight, my children”, he went to bed at 1.30’.
It is to this extraordinary genius that we owe our freedom, Alistair Lexden concluded.