Wednesday, March 05, 2008

The Churchill Series - Mar. 5, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

During WW II Churchill frequently worked 18 or more hours a day. He sometimes went days with just a few hours sleep per night. Much to their displeasure, his aides were therefore forced to keep those same hours, .

Detective-Inspector Walter Thompson, for many years Churchill’s principal bodyguard, recalled the time in June, 1940 when Churchill and his party had just arrived back in England after two exhausting days in France trying to persuade the French not to agree to an armistice with the Germans.

The party had just landed at what was then Hendon Airport near London when Churchill announced, “We will have a Cabinet meeting at 10 p. m.”

The Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, was dismayed. “Surely not tonight, Winston,” Halifax pleaded. “We have had a long day; it will make such a late night.”

Churchill paused a moment before saying, “All right, we’ll make it 9:30 instead.”
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Tom Hickman, Churchill's Bodyguard: The Authorized Biography of Walter H. Thompson. Headline, 2005. (pgs. 117-118)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.

-Winston Churchill

hmm...

Anonymous said...

John,
I've not commented lately,mainly because I've nothing worth saying.And ,while you have done yeoman's work with the Duke Rape Hoax,my favorite part of your site is the WSC chapters.Thanks for them .
Corwin