Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [109]
As Britain’s merchant fleet suffered relentless attrition in the Atlantic, Food Minister Lord Woolton briefed the Cabinet on the necessity to ration canned goods. Churchill murmured in sorrowful jest: “I shall never see another sardine!” In reality, of course, he suffered less than any other British citizen from the exigencies of war, and occasionally professed embarrassment that he had never lived so luxuriously in his life. If his energy was somewhat diminished by age, he had less need than ever before to trouble himself about personal wants, which were met by his large staff of domestics and officials. No ministerial colleague enjoyed his privileges in matters of diet, comfort and domestic and travel arrangements. Eden, as foreign secretary, waxed lyrical about being offered a slice of cold ham at a Buckingham Palace luncheon, and oranges at the Brazilian embassy. Every wartime British government diarist fortunate enough to travel, including the most exalted ministers and generals, devoted much space to applauding the food they enjoyed abroad, because the fare at home was so dismal.
The prime minister seldom ate in other people’s houses, but enjoyed an occasional meal at Buck’s Club. He sometimes attended gatherings at the Savoy of the Other Club, the dining group he and F. E. Smith had founded in 1910. There, more often than not, he sat beside Lord Camrose, proprietor of the Daily Telegraph, a friend who vainly coveted a government job. One night in the autumn of 1941, he slipped out of Downing Street with Eden and Beaverbrook to dine at the Ritz. Reminiscing, he said he would like to have his old First World War colleagues Balfour and Smith with him now. Beaverbrook suggested that, if Churchill had played his cards better, he might have become prime minister in 1916. Churchill said that the worst moment of his life came when Lloyd George told him that there was no place for him in the new Cabinet.
The housekeepers at both Downing Street and Chequers were issued with unlimited supplies of Diplomatic Food Coupons for official entertaining. These enabled Churchill and his guests to indulge a style unknown to ordinary citizens. The costs of Chequers rose dramatically in the Churchill years from those of Neville Chamberlain, matching the expansiveness of the hospitality. The Chequer Trust’s solicitor agreed with Kathleen Hill, Churchill’s secretary, in January 1942 that “the Food Account was very high.”396 The family made a modest cash contribution to compensate the trustees for the Churchills’ private share of the house’s cost, including paying a quarter of the bill for a little Ford car used by Clementine.
Privileged though the family’s domestic circumstances might be, the prime minister’s wife often found it no easier than her humbler compatriots to purchase acceptable food. This caused dismay to insensitive visitors. Once in the following year, when Eleanor Roosevelt and other Washingtonians were guests in the No. 10 Annexe, Mrs. Churchill apologised for the fare: “I’m sorry dear, I could not buy any fish. You will have to eat macaroni.” Henry Morgenthau noted without enthusiasm: “Then they gave us little left-over bits made into meat loaf.” By contrast, some of Churchill’s guests recoiled from his self-indulgence at a time when the rest of the country was enduring whale steaks. One night when Churchill took a party to the Savoy, Canadian premier Mackenzie King was disgusted that his host insisted on ordering both fish and meat, in defiance of rationing regulations. The ascetic King found it “disgraceful that Winston should behave like this.”
Churchill’s wit served better than his hospitality or the war news to sustain the spirit of his colleagues. At a vexed Defence Committee meeting to discuss supplies for Russia, he issued Cuban cigars, recently arrived as a gift from Havana. “It may well be that these each contain some deadly poison,” he observed complacently, as those so inclined