REALLY INSIDE CHURCHILL WAR ROOMS !
There was no sign saying Winston Churchill sat here!
As there was little doubt out of all the numerous chairs in the Cabinet War Rooms, which one was his?
The Cabinet War Room left as it was over 73 years ago.
The only wooden chair had to be his. Complete with arms marked by either his signet ring and or fingernails as he sat with the military commanders in front of him during many long meetings deep underground in Whitehall over 5 years of the war.
Thinking was that this steel reinforced concrete and brick set of rooms would be bomb proof; Churchill later discovered it was in fact only bomb resistant! Although he shared a flat a few floors above with his wife Clementine and spent a great deal of the war there with rather less protection than the War Room.
Churchill’s office and bedroom he even had a carpet.
Visitors to the popular London museum part of the Imperial War Museum sites is sure to grow now with the release of the brand new Churchill film starring Brian Cox and Miranda Richardson.
Miranda plays Clemmie and Brian of course Churchill in the build up to D-Day at such a critical moment for Great Britain during World War II in 1944.
The Military command centre manned by Army, Air Force and Royal Navy.
Never wanting for ideas Winston Spencer Churchill had much military experience in the past and wanted to be sure the decisions that were being made by the generals and him would not end up like the carnage of World War I.
Troubled over this issue and sometimes in conflict with the Chief’s of Staff, in the end and with input of some wise words from the love of his life Clemmie he realised that the military planners knew best. The then long awaited invasion took place on June 6th in 1944.
Winston and Clementine in the Churchill film. © Graeme Hunter Pictures.
The film portrayed Churchill not as perfect man but a man with faults and in the end a man who knew where he could make the most impact. Not on the beaches of Normandy but bolstering the British at home and abroad with some of the most famous and well remembered speeches of all time.
A thought provoking insight into a man and his lifelong partner whom both served their country in their different ways.
Locked again after my visit to the Churchill Cabinet War Rooms. A Royal Marine guard would have stood outside back in the 1940’s.
How do I know about the chair? Well I was given a rare tour of the War Rooms and invited to view them from the other side of the glass as those special room exhibits are protected by viewing windows.
As with nearly 500,000 visitors a year without that glass the relics would suffer in many ways and those rooms are exactly as they were when they were vacated at the end of the war.
