Westerham Archives - Richard M. Langworth

Ample time was always set aside for distinguished Americans at Chartwell. On 19 September 1931, L-R: Mr. Punch, Mary Churchill’s naughty pug; The Hon. Tom Mitford (Clementine’s cousin, friend of Diana and Randolph and only brother of the Mitford sisters, killed in Burma in 1945); WSC; Freddie Birkenhead (Second Earl of Birkenhead, who had succeeded his father the previous year and became a historian and biographer of his father); Clementine, Diana and Randolph Churchill; Charlie Chaplin. (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Churchill’s Daily Routine (Or: You Can’t Get Good Help Anymore…)

23 April 2020

Q: When help was cheap

Moving right along, the 1911 Census was recently released in England. No address was “ex-directory” in those days. Winston Churchill is listed at 33 Eccleston Square, London (seventeen rooms) with wife Clementine, daughter Diana and eight servants. The help comprised a cook, nurse, lady’s maid, housemaid, parlor maid, under-parlor maid, kitchen maid and hall boy). Can this be so? —A.J., NSW, Australia

A: Absolutely.

By the 1920s and 1930s, when the Churchills were ensconced at Chartwell, the help had grown to fifteen or more, counting gardeners, handymen, secretaries and household staff.…

Churchill’s Common Touch (2)

18 March 2015

Continued from Part I…

Part 2: Alice Bateman

Two other Westerham common folk who benefitted from Churchill’s characteristic kindliness were Tom and Alice Bateman, farmers who scratched out a living near Chartwell. Percy Reid, a stringer for a London newspaper, who kept an eye on Chartwell doings after World War II, wrote charmingly of a cattle sale in his book, Churchill: Townsman of Westerham (Folkestone: Regency, 1969):

Capt. and Mrs. [Mary Churchill] Soames—who then lived at Chartwell Farm—were at the sale most of the time and [their children] Nicholas and Emma were also taking a child’s interest in what was going on.…

Churchill’s Common Touch (1)

17 March 2015

Part 1: Mr & Mrs Donkey Jack

A recent book by a distinguished historian suggests that Winston Churchill disdained common people. It cites another Prime Minister, H.H. Asquith, during World War I, providing a tow to a broken-down motorist and giving two children a lift in his car. The writer adds: “It is hard to imagine Winston Churchill behaving in such a fashion.”

It is not hard at all. In fact, Churchill did frequent kind things for ordinary people he encountered, privately and without fanfare. We know about them only through his private correspondence, thanks to the official biography, Martin Gilbert, or the testimony of observers.…