Winnie at Ease

There was a stream of callers at the little house near the Albert Hall. Old friends, like the Duke of Windsor (see PEOPLE), made a special point of coming over. Outside the house the day "Winnie" left, and on the pier at Southampton, the crowds cheered him almost as they did during the dark blitz days. Somehow it was a very special goodbye.

All winter Winston Churchill had been troubled by coughs and colds; he badly needed the month or more of sunshine and warmth he would find in Florida. But his absence from Britain--and from the new session of Parliament--had started a rash of newspaper rumors that he was stepping down from the Tory leadership. Already Party quidnuncs were speculating about his heirs. His great & good friend Anthony Eden would deputise for him--with his ex-friend Lord Beaverbrook's open disapproval. And there were others in the field to inherit the Churchill political estate, if it should be probated.

Talk & Tears. Winnie himself seemed oblivious to the scramble. Since his catastrophic defeat last July he had just coasted along--resting, reminiscing, doing very little writing. Most of all he liked to talk about the Battle of Britain, which never failed to bring tears to his eyes.

Whether in London or at Chartwell, his country place in Kent, he stayed in bed until noon. From 11 o'clock on, wrapped in a Chinese dressing gown, he received callers at his bedside. Across his broad belly would be a bed table, on which he rested his rubber-padded elbows; next to his bed, the invariable telephones, cigars, watches, pens and pencils.

Three days out of four he donned his familiar Air Force blue siren suit, now a bit baggy in the behind. Afternoons he kept appointments in the library, well stocked with the works of Winston Churchill in many editions and languages.

These last few months Winnie had been about as happy as any Prime Minister could be who had been turned out to graze. On the whole, life was good, even if it was dull. In Florida he would paint, and perhaps start writing those memoirs.

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