Syn­di­cat­ed colum­nist Charles Krautham­mer cit­ed an amus­ing encounter between Churchill and social­ist Prime Min­is­ter Clement Attlee in the Mem­bers’ uri­nal at the House of Com­mons, cir­ca 1951. Attlee is stand­ing over the trough as Churchill enters on the same mis­sion. Observ­ing Attlee, Churchill shuf­fles as far away as possible.

Attlee: “Feel­ing stand­off­ish today, are we, Winston?”

WSC: “That’s right. Every time you see some­thing big you want to nation­alise it.”

I labeled this an unat­trib­uted quip in the “Red Her­rings” appen­dix to my quo­ta­tions book, Churchill by Him­self.  I am hap­py to say that I was wrong, thanks to the help of colum­nist Chris­t­ian Schnei­der, who also recent­ly pub­lished the quote in the Mil­wau­kee Jour­nal-Sen­tinel.  

Mr. Schnei­der advised that he had this quote from William Manchester’s The Last Lion, vol. 1, Visions of Glo­ry 1874-1932, page 35. On my guard (because Man­ches­ter, a great styl­ist, made many detail errors), I looked up his footnote.

The ref­er­ence is to a 21 Octo­ber 1980 inter­view Man­ches­ter con­duct­ed with Sir David Pit­bla­do (1913-1997)—civil ser­vant, prin­ci­pal pri­vate sec­re­tary to Attlee in 1951, joint PPS to Churchill in 1951-55, and PPS to Antho­ny Eden in 1956. Sir David was a reli­able source and—with great delight—we may restore this one to the ranks of the genuine.