Working with Winston

by Working

  When annoyed he could have an ‘outburst of irritation, more than anger at some stupidity. It would always be something that I had done… that was different from the anger of some event that distressed him.’ She describes his occasional ‘temper like lightning and gone quickly. And a quiet smile was all [we] needed to feel appreciated, [he had] no grudges, no malice, hated vendettas and witch hunts.’10 This lack of malice, what Churchill called ‘magnanimity’ and ‘good will’, was so prominent a part of his personality that historian Lewis Lehrman pairs Churchill’s use of those words in each volume of his Second World War memoirs with Abraham Lincoln’s ‘malice towards none’ inaugural address in his comparison of the two men – which would come as no surprise to any of the secretaries who so often benefitted from Churchill’s instant forgiveness of major errors.11 And John Maynard Keynes, at times a fierce critic of Churchill, writes in his review of The World Crisis, 1916–1918: ‘He pursues no vendettas, discloses no malice.’12

  As Lord Chandos, a member of Churchill’s cabinet in both of his administrations, observed:

  One of his [Churchill’s] most signal virtues is his magnanimity. He seldom carries forward from the ledger of today into tomorrow’s account. It has befallen me more than once to have a sharp and almost bitter argument with him of an evening, when hard blows were exchanged, and to find him the next morning benign and smiling and affectionate. He regards the bouts with friends as dialectics and not personal contests… It is difficult to describe how endearing this can be.13

  A sentiment with which all the secretaries would agree.

  Portal, like those with whom Churchill worked all of his life, was expected not only to satisfy his demands, but to anticipate them. That required two things: reading his moods and being aware of events in the political and social worlds in which he operated.

  There was a lot of tuning in to the way he way thinking… That is what he looked for in people who had the most to do with him, was the quickness of their reaction and their sensitivity to what he was thinking without putting it into words… I could sense his moods very easily. For one thing they showed on his face. And, if one was aware of the events that were going on in the world, one [had to] read the papers carefully and listen to the news.

  Like many of the other secretaries, Portal listened in on all his telephone conversations – something we now pretty much take for granted – but was unusual then. She had to be certain that a record was made of any arrangements for speaking engagements, meetings or social events and the like, and circulated to others if necessary. She explains ‘that was part of the process of making the office work efficiently’. One of the calls she overheard was received by Churchill at Chartwell from the ‘resident clerk at the Foreign Office. So I put the call through and listened in, as it was our duty to make a note. I remember the resident saying, “Your neighbour has flown.” Churchill replied, “Thank you for letting me know. Do keep me in touch.”’14 The flown neighbour was Guy Burgess, who famously spied for the Soviets while working for the Foreign Office and the British Embassy in the United States.

  Like many of the secretaries, Portal selected films for the Saturday night showings in Chartwell’s lower-floor cinema – a ‘magnificent cinema with a full-size screen’, an amenity not available either at Hyde Park Gate or at Chequers; although at Chequers the Long Gallery could serve the purpose of a cinema, with the Ministry of Information providing some news and propaganda films.15 Portal believes that Churchill might have got the idea of a home cinema from Roosevelt’s White House, where one was installed in 1942. In any case, its installation at Chartwell was one of Alexander Korda’s many gifts to Churchill.

  Portal would call Korda’s personal secretary to ask which films were available that week, and select one or, at times, send the list to Churchill, who ‘would tick the one he wanted. I asked him to tick two, because sometimes one wasn’t available’. Portal, it should be noted, alone among the secretaries from whom we have recollections, recalls that Churchill sometimes made his own choices. But he more often delegated these choices to his secretaries, with an occasional nod to Mrs Churchill’s preferences.

  All staff, some twenty in all, were invited to see the film, including the outdoor garden workers, among them the German ex-POWs, as verified by Gemmell. Like so many other events in Churchill’s life, film-watching remained an unchanging ritual. The Churchills entered last, after everyone else was seated. As they walked in, everyone rose to their feet and remained standing until the Churchills had seated themselves in the front-row armchairs, with cigar paraphernalia and whisky close by. Then Churchill would say, ‘Let ’er roll.’ At the end of the film, staff rose to their feet while the Churchills left the room. Quite ‘feudal’ in a way, thought Portal, but it was an Edwardian household, with a large indoor and outdoor staff, accustomed to an age of deference.

  One film chosen was not a success: it ended with the death of a white horse, which so upset Churchill that he summoned Portal to his office and

  with tears still pouring down his face, an expression of his own distress. He said to me, ‘You must be very cruel.’ I was completely taken aback, because I had been very upset by this film, too. He said, ‘You must never show me films with animals that are tortured in this manner’… He was very soft-hearted… almost sentimental… The cinema played a great part in his life and… he did have a fantasy world like all of us, but his was very open for everybody to intrude into. He was a schoolboy in some ways.

  Churchill was more than a passive audience for films, and Alexander Korda more than a mere film-maker. Korda was a spy. He sent film crews to photograph strategic locations in Africa and Europe, spied on both the Germans and the Americans for the British during the Second World War, and acted as personal courier for Churchill on his own flights back and forth across the Atlantic. ‘It’s possible to suspect the hidden involvement of British intelligence at just about every stage in Alex’s career in Britain.’16 And, thanks to Korda, Churchill was offered and accepted a contract to write a ‘screenplay to mark George V’s Silver Jubilee in 1935… accepting an offer of a £10,000 guarantee [worth just under £700,000 today] and 25 per cent of the film’s net profits’.17 Churchill wrote the screenplay, but the film was not to be, and Churchill’s payment was reduced to £5,000. The ever-generous Korda, however, did pay him a retainer of £4,000 for work on other films (on Lawrence of Arabia and Lord Kitchener), but nothing came of these projects.*18

  He also offered £50,000 for the film rights to A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, which was as yet unpublished. Churchill’s ‘hoped for break-through into the lucrative world of film… remained just that, a hope’.19 But at least he did have the pleasure of meeting Korda’s wife, Merle Oberon, described by Portal as ‘a very beautiful young starlet’. As noted in Chapter 9, Churchill sought to amuse Oberon by turning somersaults for her in the Mediterranean, while vacationing in the South of France at La Capponcina, a villa at which she was also a guest.20

  Churchill, Portal tells us, ‘liked pretty girls’, but adds ‘just to look at’. Apparently, his interest might have extended, but only might have, extended beyond ‘looking at’. If some interpretations of Colville’s later oral history are to be believed, Churchill’s interest extended beyond ‘looking’ in the case of the notoriously ‘promiscuous’ Doris Castlerosse.21 Those interpretations have been disputed by most scholars. Andrew Roberts points out that this is a hearsay statement ‘with nothing substantial to back them up, by a man who did not join Churchill’s staff until some half a dozen years after the alleged event’.22

  Colville also wrote of the women with whom Churchill chose to spend time: ‘he was susceptible to good looks and to wit… and if, like Clare Boothe Luce, they were at the same time well-informed and highly geared, that was a gratefully received bonus.’23 He must have been impressed with Luce when she arrived for a tea-time visit at Chartwell. He ‘not only changed from his zip outfit to a sporty summer suit to honour her presence, [but he]
was clearly fascinated by the succinct and amusing way she made her points.’24 The author’s father, who met Mrs Luce, praised her as ‘having a mind like a steel trap’.

  The Churchill family was always in and out of the houses, spending weekends at Chartwell or, later, at Chequers. Portal says she and the other secretaries all

  met [the Churchill children] constantly. [They had] difficult upbringings… They had a need when they came to visit their father to have his whole attention and they didn’t always get it. Time with his family was one of the reasons that Churchill loved Chartwell. But it used to upset Churchill that Randolph would be so aggressive towards him during these family visits. We used to try to keep out of the way of these really horrendous rows.

  Churchill loved his children deeply and ‘had an enormous capacity for love… It wasn’t always apparent to the children. I always thought Sarah was his favourite child.’

  Churchill loved his grandchildren, too. They were ‘a great joy’ to him, says Snelling. She remembers Churchill feeding his grandson Rupert, who was born in 1962, ‘bits and pieces of cucumber sandwiches… The greatest fun… They loved each other… Really enjoyed each other.’

  Portal reports a similar affection for ‘the marvellous child, little Winston’, as he was called. Portal recalls putting him to bed one night in his monogrammed pyjamas when he had arrived alone, aged nine. She thought then ‘Poor little boy, [but] he was very nice and Churchill was very proud of him.’ Churchill was particularly close to Mary and Mary’s children. ‘Wherever Churchill went there was a family atmosphere. Sometimes it was explosive, but it was always there.’

  Much of which she attributes to Mrs (later Lady) Churchill, of whom she was inordinately fond, and about whom she comments extensively, and with whom she ‘had quite a lot to do’. Portal recalls:

  She was a very unselfish person… a very strong character… physically incredibly beautiful until the day she died… given to periods of depression. He worshipped her. They had this marvellous communication with each other and when she was in her down moods, he was deeply affected. He was quite selfish about this, in that his work still came first, but he would find time to see more of her to try to make it better for her, because she was very isolated. [Clemmie] ‘was a wonderful hostess… so that everything was always very agreeable for him and she was doing this for him.

  Her husband, it seems, was not much help. ‘The problems of housekeeping on a comparatively small budget were something he never grasped… Clementine would do her best, for she did not wish to jeopardize her husband’s political career or snub his friends; but she resented the late nights, the excessive consumption of brandy, the noise and the rowdiness which were inseparable from the garrulous evenings.’25 Rather like her American counterpart, Eleanor Roosevelt, who had a decidedly negative reaction when Churchill introduced her husband to the joy of conversation long into the early hours.

  There is only one recorded instance of Churchill being persuaded to abandon his lifelong procedure of beginning work long after midnight. And it was not spousal pressure that accomplished that feat, but Field Marshal Jan Smuts of South Africa, who on that historic evening was a guest of Churchill at Chequers, as were the chiefs of staff and Earl Mountbatten of Burma, commander of Britain’s forces in Southeast Asia. After dinner and a film, at around 1 a.m., Churchill announced, ‘Well, gentlemen, now we will start work.’ Mountbatten tells what happened next:

  Smuts whose usual bed time was 10 p.m., said, ‘I am not going to start work. I am not going to be a party to killing your Chiefs of Staff… They have to be back in the office at 9 o’clock in the morning, ready for meetings at 9.30; you will still be lying in bed with a fat cigar, dictating to your secretary. They will have to work all morning and all afternoon; in the afternoon you have a siesta… You will kill them and I not going to be a party to that.

  With that, Smuts got up and went off to bed. There was a stunned silence for a minute or two; nobody spoke. After a long pause, Winston stood up and said, ‘Well gentlemen, perhaps we’d better go to bed.’26

  Portal continues her description of Mrs Churchill:

  She was brilliant as a wife, as a political wife, and the wife of a great man, in that she never imposed herself on his work. She was exceptionally intelligent… She would give him advice and he would take her advice, but it was not a foregone conclusion… that he would show her his speeches or anything like that. He didn’t do that. She never came up to interrupt his work, ever. For instance, this business of always having the secretaries around: a lot of wives would not like this at all. [But] she was sweet to us… She was always very very nice to me. I was always very businesslike with her because I felt slightly frightened of her… I had plenty to do. Hamblin was with her the whole time, then Gemmell… Lady Churchill was very fond of Gemmell.

  Although Portal thought it not unusual to put little Winston to bed, dining with the family was a rare event, perhaps only at a lunch or a dinner at which there were too many men. And if dining alone with Churchill, ‘he would dictate the whole way through the meal. One just took a mouthful whenever you could.’ Portal and, indeed, all of the secretaries knew they were there to work, even when dining alone with Churchill. ‘We made ourselves scarce when he wasn’t working and I think he appreciated that without probably knowing it.’ Time away also meant that the secretaries could get on with work left undone.

  Jock Colville and his wife, on the other hand, did include Portal in Churchill’s seventy-eighth birthday lunch at the Turf Club, along with Mrs Churchill and their daughter Mary. They were in the Ladies Annex, of course, as women were not allowed in the main club rooms.27 This is a very rare occasion when a personal secretary was included in what was otherwise a family event and it says much about the family’s feelings for young Jane Portal.

  In February 1950, shortly after Portal joined Churchill’s ‘Secret Circle’, Prime Minister Attlee called a general election. Portal, along with Sturdee, travelled all over the country in ‘an almost presidential train… liv[ing] on the train… [We] were shunted into a siding at night.’ Labour won. Attlee was returned as prime minister, although with a much-reduced majority, giving Churchill more time to finish his memoirs, which he hoped to do before the next election. Attlee would have to call another one soon in order to obtain a working majority in the Commons. Churchill decided to use the interval between the elections to work on his memoirs in France, and to take Portal along – her first trip abroad with him. Their first stop was Annecy in France near the Swiss border, but Churchill complained of the cold rain and decided to take the train to Venice. Portal ‘told him that the train did not stop at Annecy and we would have to drive to Geneva [to connect to a train for Venice]. “Kindly remember that I am Winston Churchill. Tell the station master to stop the train.”’28 He did.

  The change of venue was no minor logistical matter: as Marston, who was also along to help with the memoirs, pointed out, the party travelled with a huge amount of luggage (fifty-five suitcases and trunks),29 including all that was necessary for Portal and Marston to set up his office the moment they arrived at the hotel. Nor was the trip without incident. Churchill’s then-valet, Norman McGowan, describes a nearly fatal accident as the train neared Venice. In his excitement to see Venice, Churchill ‘leaned out of the train window, but suddenly the detective [standing next to Churchill] wrenched Mr Churchill backwards by the shoulder. A split second later a concrete pylon carrying the overhead wires for the electric train flashed past, only about a foot from the side of the train.’ McGowan recalls that ‘my Guv’nor’s smiling comment was: “Anthony Eden nearly got a new job then, didn’t he?”’30

  Once in Venice, the usual routine for a Churchill overseas visit was established. The party took the entire top floor of the famed Excelsior Hotel, on the Lido, including the honeymoon suite. Time-Life was paying for everything, as it was in the magazine’s interest to publish the serialization of Churchill’s war memoirs as soon as possible, with Houghton Mi
fflin to publish in book form in the United States and Cassell in the United Kingdom. It was Portal’s job to keep track of all the expenses, all the accounts for Time-Life, ‘cash in and cash out’, as she described it.31

  So pressured was Churchill to finish the last volume of his The Second World War (he was so ‘absolutely certain that he would win the [next] election’, notes Portal) that he ‘summoned’ C. C. Wood to Venice for proof-reading, although he knew Wood was not well-liked by the staff. Churchill, heavily dependent on Wood for his proof-reading skills, declared, ‘If none of you will be nice to him, I will lunch with him alone.’ Portal puts that reaction down to the fact that Churchill ‘was very much aware of people who were being persecuted by other people’,32 proof that he could be sensitive to the feelings of others – just not all of the time.

  The team worked until late in the day, when Churchill’s love of bathing in a warm sea became irresistible. ‘There would be a parade going down to swim in the sea… All the crowds would gather on the beach of the Lido… He would go wading in… The photographers would crowd around and the detectives would beat them off.’ However, McGowan regretted that no press photographer got a coloured photo of ‘[my] Guv’nor wearing a pair of fire-red bathing trunks’.33

  Portal was invited to swim, but felt shy – she was just twenty – although they had ‘a wonderful set of bathing huts’ which could have been used to change into swimsuits. At that young age, she was also impressed that she was ‘sitting in the restaurant looking at Errol Flynn… All the film world was there [at the 1951 Venice Film Festival]34… It was a very glamorous period, but a serious period too, because [Churchill was on a deadline and under pressure to] finish the last volume of the war memoirs.’ One of the advantages of Portal’s trip to Venice was that she, and at times Marston, could go sightseeing with Mrs Churchill, but only if she or Marston had any time off. It is unlikely that Mrs Churchill would have interfered with the work schedule.