Churchill
He was without doubt the greatest man of the 20th Century, the second greatest Englishman after William Shakespeare, who appears in the memoirs of my years in journalism, Don't Tell My Mother I'm a Newspaperman (Vol. II) , in Chapter 10 when he was voted out of office in the post-war election by a populace, especially ex-servicemen of the lower ranks,and their wives and families, who were determined to rid England of its hideous class structure. The "poor man at the gate" had turned on "the rich man in his castle" and a Labour Government was in.
As the stricken war leader entered No. 10 Downing street, shattered by the result, he was confronted by Harry Ashbrook, a journalist who had been one of the first into Hitler's bunker in Berlin and had accused the Russians of removing the burnt remains of the Fuhrer, including the teeth, which had not been totally destroyed by the SS guards (he was proved to be absolutely right many years later by NKVD and KGB archives in Moscow) and was now standing before Winston, having gained access through the kitchens of No. 11, the residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
"Churchill entered the house and tottered towards a pillar, holding his head in his hands Harry Ashbrook had appeared from behind another pillar and asked him what he had to say about the results. Churchill moaned, clutched his head in his hands and tottered towards another pillar, followed by Ashbrook who asked him again what he thought of the results. His question was met with another moan and a few more staggering steps to yet another pillar. Ashbrook's story next day had the line "Early this morning Mr. Churchill declined to comment". After this "no comment" became part of the language.
On the rare nights he could not get off to sleep, Churchill would ask his secretary to ring the Daily Express night news desk to get the headlines. I twice read the headlines in the first edition and she relayed the news to him, but on another occasion she asked if he could see photographs of the Trooping the Colour, and I took several scenes, especially blown up by the picture desk to Churchill in bed in Hyde Park Gate, for he had been unable to attend the event.
Churchill liked to start the day with a whisky, well watered, in bed, as an "eye-opener". He was then ready to dictate his memoirs to an amanuensis. Over many years the typescript was then put into perfect English prose by Eddie Marsh who ws about the same age as Churchill and had been private secretary to Churchill, Chamberlain and Asquith. Marsh was a master grammarian and a patron of the arts, inheritor of what he called his "Perceval murder money", his one-sixth share of £50,000 in trust by the Commons for the surviving heirs of the P.M. in 1812, Spencer Perceval, shot dead be a disgruntled voter at the endtrance to the House. D.H. Lawrence, Dylan Thomas and James Joyce were all helped by Eddie Marsh in their financial difficulties. In December 1934, at the time I was born, Eddie Marsh was correcting Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples to the great delight of the author whose work was now in perfect English. Marsh met William Somerset Maugham that month, and offered to "diabolize" his work in the same way, correcting punctuation, prose, grammar and factual errors, and did so for the next 18 years.
I have already mentioned that F. Scott Fitzgerald spelt a word three different ways on one page, and many writers are slipshod on grammar and facts, but here are two of the world's most admired writers (Churchill was awarded the Nobel prize for Literature) having their work corrected by a brilliant scholar for no financial reward but purely for the pleasure.
When I was 26 the Foreign Editor of the Express said: "So you are off to Nice. The Beaver wants to know why Churchill goes on holiday aboard the yacht of that awful man Onassis."
"That awful man" would never say. I had asked him before. It was a mystery.
On the Riviera Churchill liked to eat well, drink well, stare out over the Mediterranean from the top of Mont Agel or the village of Peille, where his detective, Ed. Murray of the Special Branch would place a chair. Once, driving up the mountain with his grandson, also Winston Churchill, the boy said: "I say, grandfather, isn't it dry?" and the old man said: "Dry? There's not a pub in sight!"
But Lord Beaverbrook wanted an answer to his question, and he was also afraid, very afraid, of being scooped by rival newspapers,on Churchill's untimely demise on the Riviera (they were old friends, after all), and so I put Murray on the payroll, ten pounds a week while on the Riviera, for my daily report for an already made-up front page (at great expense) which said: CHURCHILL DEAD. "After lunch in the Hotel de Paris he visited the Casino, returned to his room and died. He was already immortal." But the old man kept on going, and each night the "dab" off the "stone" (a wet imprint of the page) with its headline, was discarded. The great man sailed on, to North Africa and by car to Marakech with brush and easel and paint. With Murray, known to the Press as "the brush-off artist" for his reticence, by his side, until their return.
"Where do you boys drink?" Murray asked.
"The TipTop bar"
"See you there tonight. I drink scotch," said the detective.
It was the end of the Monte Carlo Rally. Friends and family of the drivers were there to celebrate.
My Memoirs (Vol II), Chapter 12: One of them, in sports coat and flannels, stood at the entrance to the Tip Top bar. He had a school prefect's moustache and a loud voice. His rather bleary eyes focussed on the figures in the corner at the back of the long bar. "My God, I don't believe it. It's Winston Churchill. Look -- there in the back..."
Churchill had escaped the bourgeois atmosphere of the Hotel de Paris and, at the invitation of Murray, was having a night out with the boys.
"There's the man who saved the Western World," said the loud-voiced motoring enthusiast. "My hero. Our great war leader. I must shake his hand.."
"Sshh ... do be quiet, old boy," one of his friends said, "he'll hear you."
Ed. Murray had heard, and his fingers twitched in the direction of the pistol in his shoulder holster, oiled, polished lovingly and ready for action.
"I don't care. I am going to shake his hand", he said, and strode the length of the bar, towards the group in the corner, with his right hand outstretched in greeting and saying: "Sir, I'd like..."
He never finished the sentence. Murray leapt towards him and pulled on the man's hand, twisting it and forcing it up his back in a half Nelson. With his left hand he grabbed the man's left hand at the knuckles and forced the wrist back, but before he had time to shout with pain, Murray was running him through the bar, past the startled French and Italian customers who jumped aside, and the shocked British group at the doorway, and flung him out and onto the pavement where he lay until his friends picked him up and took him off.
Churchill, who had not moved an inch during the hasty exit of his fan, looked at Murray with the ghost of a smile and said: "Well done, Murray. Have a Scotch"
Some days later when we met again, my colleague said to Murray: ""You've got a good job, though, Ed. The Riviera, Marrakech, painting, swanning around on the Bubble's yacht..." (rhyming slang: bubble-and-squeak, Greek)
"Oh, yeah, best of food and wine, the Hotel de Paris, Monte Carlo, double Scotches with the old man, best hotel in Morrocco, sunbathing on the Cristina, champagne all the way, you think."
"Sure"
"Until I have to wipe his arse," said Murray.
"You what?"
"It's a lovely life in the sun until I hear that growl from the open door of the lavatory, "Murray, Murray, come and help me."
"You mean to say..."
"Oh yes, I have to wipe his arse when he can't manage it, when there is no nurse around to do it."
"Bloody 'ell, Ed..."
Ah, well, no man is a hero to his valet, or, in this case, his bodyguard...