For the last forty years of his life, Chartwell was Churchill’s principal residence. Abandoned when he purchased it, Churchill restored and expanded the main house, and brought its surrounding farmlands back to active production.
That activity, the need for servants and services that followed, and the flow of guests to the house when Churchill was in residence, all combined to have a considerable effect on life in the nearby village of Westerham; creating among other things something of an economic boom in the village.
Here’s an amusing example of how the "Churchill boom" affected daily life in Westerham:
A journalist working for the Sevenoaks Chronicle, Percy Reid, lived in Westerham from the mid-1930s.Churchill hated Communism but loved newspapers. In the case of the Daily Worker, love won out to the benefit of Mr. Bodger and Mr. Reid.
Like most reporters working for small-town newspapers, Reid also acted as a correspondent to most of the London national newspapers and international news agencies.
With Churchill on his territory the opportunities to augment his salary were promising. (But to) avoid making fruitless journeys up the steep hill from Westerham, Reid devised his own method of finding out whether or not Churchill was in residence.
The local news agent, Mr. Bodger, had a contract to deliver all the national newspapers to Chartwell every day that Churchill was there. This included the official communist organ, the Daily Worker.
Mr. Bodger confessed that this was the only copy of that particular journal he ever sold locally. Reid deduced that whenever he saw the Daily Worker displayed for sale on the rack outside the news agents shop it had to be a copy not delivered to Chartwell that day: therefore Churchill was not at home!
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In all the to-and-froing with Blogger to get JinC back up, I've lost the source information. I'll find it and update this post. Thanks for your understanding - John
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