Dinner With Churchill: Policy-Making at the Dinner Table (23 page)

During the war, Churchill’s cigars created problems for his protection unit. Scotland Yard feared that some of those he was receiving as gifts might be poisoned,
21
and that Churchill’s habit of chewing his cigars would make coating them with cyanide or botulinus toxins, or
inserting
a small explosive detonated by the heat of the flame, highly effective ways for enemies to dispose of him.
22
Unfortunately, there was no way of testing the cigars
without
destroying them: Douglas Hall, a renowned collector of all things Churchillian, notes that “a large cabinet from the Cuban Ambassador” was deemed to be suspect by the Downing Street security staff and, much to Churchill’s disgust, [they] ordered it blown up.
23
Churchill was
understandably
unhappy, and unwilling, to give up the large shipments he received as gifts. The security staff
reluctantly
agreed that random testing and close examination of cigars received from sources Scotland Yard and MI5 deemed reliable would be sufficient protection.

Churchill’s security detail was not alone in confronting problems created by his incessant cigar smoking. His hosts at various dinner parties also had to take account of his
smoking
. Lord Beaverbrook rolled up his treasured white rugs – the product of fashion designer Captain Molyneux – when Churchill came to dinner so that the cigar ash “should not be spilled on them”.
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Nor would the Prime Minister give up his cigars on his many flights to conferences and meetings
during
the war.
25
He went so far as to have a huge armchair with an ashtray attached installed on his de Havilland Flamingo, and aircraft designers included venting windows next to the co-pilot seat that Churchill often chose to occupy.

What are we to make of Churchill’s massive consumption of cigars? First, it is clear that either by virtue of genetic
inheritance
or plain luck, he could take the strain his smoking imposed on his health. On 29 August 1944, nearing his 70th birthday, Churchill returned from Rabat in the grip of a high fever – 103°–104°. He reported to Roosevelt
26
that “a small patch on his lung was diagnosed”,
27
possibly either caused or exacerbated by his heavy smoking. The Prime Minister made astonishingly rapid progress. According to Colville, by 30 August “The P.M. was better and did a certain amount of work in bed”; by 31 August “a very marked improvement” allowed plans for the Second Quebec Conference to proceed; and the next day “The P.M., with temperature normal, is in tearing form.”
28
On 5 September 1944, although his daughter Mary characterises her father as “barely recovered”, he left London to board the
Queen Mary
for the voyage to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the Second Quebec Conference.
29

Second, his lack of compunction about accepting
expensive
gifts would, in our later age of tabloid and investigative journalism, have mired him in scandal: fine cigars and cases
of champagne, as well as cigar cutters and other trinkets arrived regularly and in profusion. But this was of a piece with Churchill’s attitude to gifts and hospitality in general. Clementine Churchill did not like to see him “accepting
hospitality
from the very rich and, in her opinion, not always very suitable people”.
30
Jock Colville observed that Churchill “drank their flowing champagne, and basked in the
beautiful
surroundings of their villas and yachts, without
asking
himself if he was accepting what they supplied for the wrong reasons”. Whether or not Churchill fully understood Clementine’s “scruples, he felt no obligation to be bound by them”.
31

Third, Churchill ultimately played by the rules, as we shall see in the next chapter on rationing. There are many minutes in the Churchill Archives that instruct his staff to check on the prices of cigars before ordering, to fill out the import licences required by the Board of Trade, and to pay the duty required of others.

Last, as F.E. Smith put it, Churchill was “easily
satisfied
with the best of everything and the larger the better”. Churchill was satisfied that fine, large Havanas added
pleasure
to his days and evenings, contributed to his image as a defiant war leader, and allowed him to extend dinner
parties
and the conversations he so relished. As we would say today, the cigar was Churchill’s brand, instantly recognised
throughout the world. Picture the Prime Minister walking through bomb-shattered areas, cigar in hand, exuding
defiance
and the confidence that Britain’s plight would
eventually
end, and the war would be won: a more reassuring
image
would be difficult to imagine.

C
HAPTER
13

Rationing

D
uring both of Churchill’s terms as Prime Minister, stringent food rationing was in effect in Britain. And during both those terms, Churchill presided over a number of glamorous and lavish dinner parties, both at home and abroad. How was he able to provide for the dinners at which he entertained important British and overseas visitors? And what was the reaction of a public that was doing without many perceived necessities, much less the luxuries on which Churchill and his guests dined? Finally, how was it that
rationing
and the Prime Minister, who escaped some of its consequences, and his Minister of Food, Lord Woolton, all
remained highly popular?

The answers lie in Churchill’s shrewd approach to the problem of food shortages. He had two basic goals: to
maximise
supplies for all, and to make sure that the public
remained
broadly supportive of any rationing schemes that had to be put in place.

To maximise supplies, Churchill had to encourage food production at home, and do everything possible to keep up the flow of imports. No easy chore, especially when
three-quarters
of a million American troops would be arriving in advance of D-Day
1
– these troops are “great addicts of ice cream, which is said to be a rival of alcoholic drinks”, minuted the Prime Minister
2
. Churchill also insisted that German prisoners of war receive the same number of
calories
as British civilians, lest the Germans retaliate against British PoWs by cutting their rations.
3

An increasingly successful German U-boat campaign in the early days of the war, and the diversion of ships to
military
purposes and to the transport of supplies to the Soviet Union, meant that food imports were seriously reduced. The Prime Minister coped with this problem in a variety of
ingenious
ways. He:

Churchill did succeed in maintaining public support for the broad rationing scheme: a support so firm that many British housewives favoured continuing rationing in peace time.
6
(Men, perhaps because their work required more
calories
, were less keen).
7

Churchill’s plan rested on three strategies. First, the
rationing
scheme had to be and be seen to be fair. So when the access of upper-income diners to restaurants at which ration coupons were not required threatened to cause a loss of support for the scheme, the government subsidised some two thousand non-profit restaurants established by local
authorities
to provide lower-income families with an
opportunity
to dine out. Home Intelligence Reports suggested that the popularity of these restaurants was due to the fact that, by offering a meal for less than a shilling, “they gave poorer folks a chance to do what the rich have always been able to do – have a meal without giving up coupons”.
9
On 21 March 1941, the Prime Minister wrote to the Minister of Food, Lord Woolton:

Churchill’s suggestion was adopted and these establishments became the proudly patriotic “British Restaurants”.

Second, Churchill knew that in order to maintain
support
for the rationing programme, he himself had to abide by the scheme’s rules. So he subjected his own requirements to the rationing plans, meticulously requesting extra
coupons
when entertaining official visitors and listing their names. The Churchill Archives are replete with formal
requests
for extra rations of tea, sugar and other foods, with the prominent visitors indicated. When these requests
became
so numerous as to be burdensome to the Ministry of Food, the requirement that guests be listed was waived by the Ministry, and extra coupons were issued to Churchill’s cook, Mrs. Landemare.

By staying clearly within the rules – even returning unused food coupons to the Ministry of Food,
10
– Churchill reduced the opportunity for critics to claim the rules that existed for them did not apply to him. Adherence to the rationing rules extended beyond foods: witness a letter received by his secretary on 7 March 1945, in response to a request for coupons for items that included five pairs of socks and a Royal Air Force vest:

Some more, please

None of this means, however, that the Prime Minister led a life anything nearly as austere as the ordinary Briton. One of his biographers wrote: “In reality he suffered less than any other people from the exigencies of war.”
13
Like other well-to-do people, he could dine in restaurants and clubs that had access to finer produce and at which coupons were not needed.

Churchill also benefited from gifts from well-wishers around the world and from those in Britain who had
access
to home-grown foods, such as fish and game from their estates. There were food parcels from Roosevelt and other Americans with whom he worked, and from Stalin, who sent tubs of caviar, and from Lord Beaverbrook, who, when in Moscow after a long meeting, “sent out his secretary to buy twenty-five pounds of caviar for Mr. Churchill”.
14
The Soviet Ambassador in London, Ivan Maisky, sent the Prime
Minister
a gift of onions.

Game came from Sandringham and Balmoral, as personal gifts from King George VI.
15
Labels were used to ensure that the game, freshly shot, arrived in the kitchens at Downing Street. Hare, partridge, grouse and two woodcock arrived from Lord and Lady Davies of Llandinam.
16
Sir Hanson Rowbotham sent a brace of pheasant and hares from the Isle
of Wight – these, killed on 9 December 1942, were shipped to London the following day.
17

Labels for game from the King

Fish, although never rationed, was sometimes in short supply. One of Churchill’s shortest instructions (perhaps his shortest) was to a senior official at the Admiralty, who had asked what fishing policy was to be. Churchill’s two-word reply: “Utmost fish”. His first concern was for the British people’s diet, not himself.

Fish was always a most welcome gift from those close to the Prime Minister, or those who wanted to thank him
for his service to the nation. Joan Bright, a well-respected staff member, responsible for many of the complex
administrative
logistics on his overseas journeys, told the author that really good Dover sole was a Churchill favourite. One piscatory gift, marked “by express train, deliver
immediately
” to Downing Street, came from the Duke of Westminster’s lodge, Loch More, in Sutherland; the nearby Laxford River, its currents described as “merry”,
18
is famed still for its
superior
salmon-fishing. Other gifts came to Downing Street on a regular basis – including oranges from US General “Hap” Arnold,
19
and chocolates from the Prime Minister of Quebec.
20
One parcel of champagne and pheasants, in
honour
of Churchill’s 68th birthday, came from the brick
manufacturer
, Sir Percy Malcolm Stewart, with thanks to the Prime Minister for his inspiration “to win in the darkest days”. He went on: “… may you be spared to lead us to triumphant victory.”
21
Clementine Churchill was most grateful for “a small bag of tangerines” that Averell Harriman brought for her from Lisbon,
22
and was also named as the
designated
recipient of one of the eight uncooked Smithfield hams “wrapped individually” that Harriman sent to Commander Thompson for distribution to her and others, including the First Lord of the Admiralty, A.V. Alexander.
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