So lets kick this discussion off.
The funeral, on the 30 january 1965 was probably the first major television event, probably major history event, that I can remember in my lifetime. I was 10 and a 1/4 years old.
Here is a link to the memoirs and description of the funeral train, written by the fireman.
svsfilm.com/nineelms/wcf.htm
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Oh and I suggest that anyone who is close enough, visit his home at Chartwell, you wont be disappointed.
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Like Zero I remember the funeral being on telly and my Gran (for whom WSC was a hero) being absorbed in it. I'm sure the occasion was marked at school as well but I was only 5 so didn't really understand significance.
The other thing I recall was travelling by car across Leeds and the crowds outside churches where (presumably) memorial services were being held.
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I suspect the TV coverage around the anniversary is going to exceed the original event tenfold. TV coverage was fairly limited at time the time.
"The TV schedule for 30 January 1965 was only slightly affected by the coverage of the funeral. In the morning, the broadcast replaced an edition of 'The Science of Man' about evolution and a German instruction programme called 'Komm Mit!' (which translates as 'Come Here!'). In the evening, 'Juke Box Jury', 'Doctor Who' and 'Dixon of Dock Green' were transmitted almost as planned, though western series 'Temple Houston' was dropped to make room for a one-hour edited compilation of the funeral later that night."
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His insurance company is still going strong.
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>> His insurance company is still going strong.
>>
Ooohh Yes!
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>> "The TV schedule for 30 January 1965 was only slightly affected by the coverage of
>> the funeral.
At that time broadcasting on BBC and ITV didn't start until around 09:30 and then it was schools programmes until 'real' television started with lunchtime news. Not sure if we had BBC2 in Yorkshire at hat time, I think it arrived later in 1965.
I suspect that if we only had two or three channels now the effect of these things on schedules would be much less pronounced.
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It's a long while ago but my recollection of the funeral was that it really wasn't seen as a major news event. Churchill was an old man and had been seriously ill for several weeks and his death was no surprise. He wasn't universally revered either, respected certainly but I don't think his reputation then had achieved the near mythical status it has today.
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>> It's a long while ago but my recollection of the funeral was that it really
>> wasn't seen as a major news event. Churchill was an old man and had been
>> seriously ill for several weeks and his death was no surprise. He wasn't universally revered
>> either, respected certainly but I don't think his reputation then had achieved the near mythical
>> status it has today.
There were still plenty alive then who recalled the 'Black and Tans', troops sent into the Welsh coalfield etc.
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>> There were still plenty alive then who recalled the 'Black and Tans',
Could you remind us what Churchill had to do with the Black and Tans?
>>troops sent into the Welsh coalfield etc.
I didn't think Churchill sent troops into "the Welsh coalfield" (whatever that means).
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Duncan,
The history of industrial disputes in the coal industry is subject of historical debate and it's share of myths. The same applies in spades to events surrounding Irish independence.
Whatever happened on the ground in the Tonypandy riots or with the mercenaries or volunteers (according to viewpoint) who comprised the Black and Tans the protagonists believe Churchill had a significant role. He certainly had some part in both and in other controversial events including Sidney St.
No doubt subsequent research will have shown is part as being more nuanced and that decisions were taken corporately with other Ministers. The belief in 'their' side of the story was enough for WSC to seen differently there than by those whose purview is limited to WW2. .
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Sat 24 Jan 15 at 12:31
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>> He wasn't universally revered
>> either, respected certainly but I don't think his reputation then had achieved the near mythical
>> status it has today.
His reputation certainly was at or near the mythical level, at his death and during and just after the war. He is the only non royal blood who has had a full state funeral.
The working classes, were however quick to remind themselves that they had expectations for the future, he was a man of the past - a man who they felt wished to maintain the status quo of the underclasses and the privileged, so had no qualms about quickly giving him the boot.
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His major error of judgement was post-WW2 Greece. We're still paying the price today for that egotistic disaster....a lot of Greeks sadly paid with their lives !
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15 minutes down the road from me, as a NT member it's my local so often go there for a quick walk and coffee, I expect it's very busy today with the anniversary.
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>> probably the first major television event, probably
>> major history event, that I can remember in my lifetime.
>>
>>
I remember watching the coronation.
AC will be along in a moment to recall the previous coronation, or Mr Chamberlain waving his bit of paper.
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Too young to remember. I do remember the coverage of he Aberfan disaster over a year later - that affected my family more I would guess.
I do recommend the reading of Max Hastings book on Winston Churchill. Changed my view of the man. There is no doubt that he was the man for the time. Some take the view he was an egotistic nutter..
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>> There is no doubt that he was the man for the time.
>> Some take the view he was an egotistic nutter..
he was, of course, both.
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>> Too young to remember. I do remember the coverage of he Aberfan disaster over a
>> year later - that affected my family more I would guess.
I remember Aberfan too, though it didn't have any family linkage. The day before October half term so we were driving up to the Lakes in Dad's Simca 1500. The scale of the disaster became more apparent with each successive bulletin on the radio news.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Sat 24 Jan 15 at 15:22
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>> I do recommend the reading of Max Hastings book on Winston Churchill. Changed my view
>> of the man. There is no doubt that he was the man for the time.
>> Some take the view he was an egotistic nutter..
I have read it, and Woy Jenkins biography. What an amazing life. I can't say either, at a distance, has changed my overall view and I wouldn't expect it to change anybody else's unless they had a perception of an infallible genius. Egotistic nutter probably isn't much of an overstatement, and Churchill himself would probably have agreed, at least privately.
The man was born 140 years ago, in a palace, surrounded by servants his whole life and can have had very little real understanding of ordinary people's struggles. He certainly had at best a paternalistic attitude to 'inferior' peoples, at worst a thoroughly racist and cynical one; he was far from alone in that, at the time. For him no doubt what he possibly perceived as pragmatism overcame principle in dealing with the rest of the world.
But you just can't get away from the virtual certainty that, had Churchill not been ready and waiting to step into the leadership some sort of pact would have been made with Hitler very early in the course of the war or even before it started, and subsequent history would have been very different.
Last edited by: Manatee on Sat 24 Jan 15 at 16:32
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>> But you just can't get away from the virtual certainty that, had Churchill not been
>> ready and waiting to step into the leadership some sort of pact would have been
>> made with Hitler very early in the course of the war
The main alternative was Halifax who favoured accommodation with Hitler. So did other members of Chamberlain's cabinet. The King was also though to favour Halifax who was his friend but Halifax himself was reluctant - recognising the difficulty of his position in the Lords. Labour's approach was 'not Chamberlain' but after consultation (the party conference was taking place at time Chamberlain fell) they agreed to work with Churchill.
There is a strongly held view that Churchill was suffering from Bi-Polar disorder:
www.bipolar-lives.com/winston-churchill-and-manic-depression.html
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The description I heard this morning of the dockland crane operators dipping their jibs in spontaneous salute was rather moving. Happily, in spite of all the partisans' efforts to create parallels, I can't imagine anyone in 48 years' time queueing up to share their reminiscences of Margaret Thatcher's funeral.
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>> The description I heard this morning of the dockland crane operators dipping their jibs in
>> spontaneous salute was rather moving.
Alas however the dockers refused to do it unless they were paid overtime. There was talk of a strike over the matter.
The dockers of the time were a foul skiving bunch of shirkers and tealeaves.
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That doesn't agree with the BBC report I heard, nor with this one in the Telegraph:
For many, it was the most moving moment of the day. When Noël Coward saw it he burst into tears – for him, the whole funeral was “a great and truly noble experienceâ€. In his history of the funeral, Churchill’s Final Farewell, Rodney Croft records how the 36 crane drivers involved had willingly given up their time without asking for overtime pay. Sir David Burnett, the managing director of the company that owned the machines, arranged to cover their expenses anyway.
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Paxman was talking about this on TV last night. Alas the 'skiving thief' view of the dockers is correct - he interviewed one that confirmed the possible strike/ overtime story.
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>> That doesn't agree with the BBC report I heard, nor with this one in the
>> Telegraph:
Afraid thats a case of history being re-written to provide a rosier view of proceedings. Dockers of the time (which my extended family were) wouldn't do anything unless money changed hands, or stuff could be nicked. In the early 60s one of them built and furnished a house in essex almost entirely from stuff nicked from the docks. Ever seen window frames made from solid teak?
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 24 Jan 15 at 15:25
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Anyone else hearing the voice of Johnny Cash?
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>> Anyone else hearing the voice of Johnny Cash?
That was the other half of the family in Dagenham.
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>>>>
>> Afraid thats a case of history being re-written to provide a rosier view of proceedings.
>> Dockers of the time (which my extended family were) wouldn't do anything unless money changed hands, or stuff could be nicked. In the early 60s one of them built and
>> furnished a house in essex almost entirely from stuff nicked from the docks. Ever seen
>> window frames made from solid teak?
>>
I worked with many an ex docker in the years following the widespread closure of the London docks. A lazier bunch of tea leaves it would have been harder to find, and the tales they used to tell of their former lives...
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>> I worked with many an ex docker in the years following the widespread closure of
>> the London docks. A lazier bunch of tea leaves it would have been harder to
>> find, and the tales they used to tell of their former lives...
Some of them gravitated to the Civil Service as messengers and the like. Most were really decent hard working chaps but there was the odd one in the mould described above. If he'd devoted half the energy he put into skiving into work he'd have been fine. Physically intimidating when challenged too.
Got himself sacked in the end. At the time, early eighties, you could get away with a lot but not tea-leafery so I suspect that was his undoing - unless he actually did bop somebody one.
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>> AC will be along in a moment to recall the previous coronation, or Mr Chamberlain waving his bit of paper.
No I won't.
My earliest conscious years were dominated by the second world war and its leading political figures Churchill and Hitler (there were others of course but to me at that age they were obscure walk-ons).
By the time Churchill died I was a still-wet-behind-the-ears rather juvenile lefty. I felt his funeral coverage was overdone and boring, and telephoned the BBC to complain. 'He was a great man, after all,' a Beeb babe told me in tones of shocked reproof.
She was right and I was wrong. But I had to grow up to twig that. Just as you have to be grown-up to understand that despotisms with all their faults are nevertheless sometimes better for the bulk of their citizens than attemts to institute democracy which, in tribal societies, can lead to an open-ended general barney.
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On the day of the funeral, I remember my uncle being at our house helping to get the ancient valve radio I'd bought working. The TV was showing the coffin's trip down the river at one point.
However, when the radio was brought back to life, and tuned into a station, the first thing we heard out of the speaker, was a recorded Churchill war time speech. Somewhat spooky really.
In my book, Churchill was a flawed character, but absolutely the right person as a war time leader and it is for that he was celebrated.
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>> Churchill was a flawed character
Who isn't Sp? These people get airbrushed when they're in power or being buried, but they're only human (and if 'great', probably rather psychopathic too).
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Incidentally, but à propos, I'm reading a novel called 'Guess Who's Back?' by a Serb, Timur Vermes. It's a first-person narrative by the Führer, who has awoken in a back street in 2011 and imagines he is still German Reich Chancellor. His only friend is a Turkish newspaper vendor in whose kiosk he is obliged to sleep and spend much of his time. Everyone thinks he's an actor onto a good thing, and his 'costume' (A 'soldier's coat', he pompously calls it) is much admired. Two theatrical agents with non-aryan sounding names are circling round trying to sign him up.
Although in very bad taste by definition - I would be wary of recommending it to some of my Jewish friends - it is absolutely hilariously funny, with the ghastly Hitler's finicky petty-bourgeois attitudes wittily drawn. Highly recommended to anyone who has an idea of all that. The translation is terrific.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Sat 24 Jan 15 at 16:29
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Just finished a book about Churchill's involvement in the development of the British bomb/nuclear energy, he doesn't come out of it smelling of roses by any means.
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There are reports that Churchill tried to persuade US president Trueman to launch a nuclear attack on Russia not long after the end of WW2. This idea was discounted for obvious reasons when the Russians exploded their own device in 1949.
Had it happened Winston would now be remembered as the greatest mass murderer in history rather than a national hero.
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But it didn't so he isn't.
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>> a novel called 'Guess Who's Back?' by a Serb, Timur Vermes
Not Serbian actually: Hungarian father, German mother. Sorry.
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Isn't it called ' Look who's back ' ?
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>> Look who's back '
Yes Ted, guh... I make these posts on the hoof, between other things. But that isn't really an excuse.
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Zero Thanks for the link.
I went to see the train pass St Margaret's Station ( near my home) and watched it disappear towards Twickenham.
His grave a Bladon is also worth a visit.
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Churchill Died 50 years ago today. - Zero
