Cita Stelzer Archives - Richard M. Langworth

Secretarial Masterpiece: A Churchillian Reader by Cita Stelzer

8 September 2019 Comments 0 Comments

Cita Stelzer, Working with Winston: The Unsung Women Behind Britain’s Greatest Statesman. New York, Pegasus Books, 2019, 400 pages, $28.95, Amazon $19.35, Kindle $14.99. Excerpted from a review for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. For the full text, click here.

Grace Hamblin came to Chartwell in 1932 and served as secretary to both Churchills. After Sir Winston’s death she became Chartwell’s first National Trust administrator. Through all those years she never “wrote.” Nor, with one exception, did his other office secretaries. The exception was Elizabeth Layton Nel. Her lovely book, originally Mr.…

Churchill’s Brandy? Not Really….

17 June 2012 Comments 12 Comments

Brandy Banter: The Evening Standard described ArArAt Armenian brandy, once reserved for Communist party elite. It was “the brandy that Stalin served Churchill” according to consumer business editor Jonathan Prynn:

The prime minister enjoyed ArArAt brandy when it was served by Stalin at the Yalta conference in February 1945. After the Second World War, the Soviet leader arranged for Churchill to be sent 400 bottles every year.

This seems highly doubtful. There is no record in the Churchill Archives Centre of even a bottle of brandy being sent to Churchill—although he did compliment Stalin on an Armenian brandy served at Yalta.…