Lord Moran (1882-1977). Winston Churchill: The Struggle for Survival 1940-65 (1966)
Part Four. Winston and Anthony
Chapter twenty-seven. The Burden of Life
October 26, 1954
“It is not that I have expensive tastes. I stay in bed too much to spend a lot of money.”
Chapter twenty-eight. The Woodford Blunder
November 28, 1954
‘I used to be frightened in the old days,’ Winston once told me, ‘that I should say something in the House of Commons and wake up and find it had landed me in trouble. That doesn’t happen now. I’ve learnt a lot; after all. I’ve had fifty years of it.’ But Clemmie only shook her head; she is still terrified that he will put his foot in things, and will never be happy until he resigns. I suppose she is right, from her point of view. Anyway, we’re in trouble again. Winston, speaking to his constituents in a girls’ school at Woodford on November 23, went out of his way to give them some secret history:
‘Even before the war had ended, and while the Germans were surrendering by hundreds of thousands. ... I telegraphed to Lord Montgomery directing him to be careful in collecting the German arms, to stack them so that they could easily be issued again to the German soldiers whom we should have to work with if the Soviet advance continued.’
What on earth made him say it?
The Times begins a critical leader with these words, and no one is sure about the answer.
...For only one thing mattered now - it was often in his mind - when his record came before posterity they must be fair to him. All this talk about the war having been fought in vain made him angry. At any rate, he was not to blame. To get that quite clear he had added a sixth volume to his book and called it Triumph and Tragedy. He would remember then how Camrose and his publishers tried to persuade him that it was a mistake to bring out another volume. But he would not listen to them. For he was resolved to make it known that he wanted to take precautions against some rather ugly possibilities as early as the spring of 1945, at a time when the Americans were still busy making friends with Stalin and had not woken up to the danger of Communism.
...Though he studies the papers morning and evening with some care, he never seems to know in what way the public will react to anything that he may do or say. Like Mr Gladstone, he has no gift for getting into other people’s minds; sometimes he does not even appear to be interested.
...Oliver Franks happened to be at Bristol that day, and he was puzzled because Winston’s physical condition seems to change as quickly as his moods. ‘I saw him at Buckingham Palace a few days before,’ he told me, ‘sitting on a sofa, apparently too weary to listen to anybody; his face was white and like a mask, his body had flopped, he seemed a very old man who had not long to live. But at Bristol he was pink, his expression was full of animation and his eyes twinkled. Perhaps you doctors can explain what happens?’
Chapter twenty-nine. Harmony and Discord
November 30, 1954
Winston Churchill is eighty years of age today - a remarkable achievement for a man of his habits. A fine disregard for common sense has marked his earthly pilgrimage. What he wanted to do he has always done without a thought for the consequences. And now he can say that he has his cake and has eaten it too. To account for his survival it is generally supposed that he has a wonderful constitution. Indeed he is unusual in the way in which he can adapt himself to circumstances; he is indifferent, for instance, to heat and cold; fatigue of mind or body he hardly knew until he was seventy^; while whatever may happen overnight in the way of revelry, he wakes with a song in his heart and a zest for breakfast.
On the other hand, he is often in the hands of the doctor. It is now fifteen years since I first saw him, and in that time he has had:
(i) a heart attack in Washington just after Pearl Harbour;
(ii) three attacks of pneumonia, one of which at any rate was a ‘damned nice thing’;
(iii) two strokes, in 1949 and 1953;
(iv) two operations, one of which found the abdomen full of adhesions and lasted two hours;
(v) senile pruritis, perhaps the most intractable of all skin troubles;
(vi) a form of conjunctivitis unlikely to clear up without a small operation.
(I have not mentioned dyspepsia or diverticulitis, because they have never really caused worry.) To this catalogue of woe I should add that for ten years he has not had natural sleep apart from sedatives. Looking back, he seems to have been in the wars a great deal, but I treasure my battle honours: it has been possible, save for two attacks of pneumonia and some gossip about his stroke in June, 1953, to keep all this from the public, and for that matter from the political world.
...I went back to tell him to wear a greatcoat in Westminster Hall, a gaunt, chilly place. But he said that the Ministry of Works had fitted electric pads to the back of his chair.