Winston Churchill 1874-1965: Shropshire's farewell to an illustrious statesman

Born in the days before the motor car, his long life had stretched from Victorian times to the space age and the Beatles.

He was born lucky. As a soldier in battle, he braved shot and shell with conspicuous courage, never to be hit. An enthusiastic early aviator in its most deadly days, he survived a serious crash while taking off at Croydon airport in 1919.

While crossing Fifth Avenue in New York on a lecture tour in 1931, he was knocked down by a car and badly injured, but recovered.

His years in the political wilderness in the 1930s were another form of luck. Because at the time of crisis in 1940 when Britain needed a new leader, Churchill was not tainted by the appeasement, misjudgements and compromises that had been made. The nation turned to him.

But in January 1965 this illustrious statesman, orator, soldier, historian, journalist – and even painter and bricklayer – was at the end of his road.

After a stroke, Sir Winston was to sink for several days before the great man's light finally faded away forever. It meant that when the final curtain fell, the nation was prepared.

The Rev D. Moore told the crowded congregation at Wellington Parish Church: "Our minds go back to the dark days of the war when God delivered among us a man with the courage and wisdom of leadership to bring us out of darkness into light.

"As we think of this great man we are filled with the knowledge that at such a critical point in the world, God raised up such a man to save and serve."

There were the heartfelt tributes too from the ordinary man and woman in the street –including from those in Churchill Road, part of a new housing estate which was built post-war just off Dawley Road in Wellington and which was named in Sir Winston's honour.

Vera Chesters, at number 5, said: "We have always been proud that this road was named after him. People living here will always remember him."

Along at number 9, Eric Rigby said: "He was one of the greatest men of this century. His death will not mean as much to the younger generation as to people who lived through the war."

Prayers were said for Sir Winston in Shrewsbury and at the evening service at St Mary's the vicar, the Rev Preb E.E.F. Walters, advised young people to watch the television coverage.

"It will give some indication of what this nation, in fact the whole free world, owes to the unfailing leadership of a man who has been described as one of the greatest of all Englishmen."

Customers of the Craven Arms Hotel had a special fondness for Sir Winston. On the occasion of his birthday in 1944 the manager Hubert Sysum sent a telegram to 10 Downing Street giving "a great greeting from a little hamlet in appreciation of your wonderful achievements".

It ended: "Yours to the last Corona, Craven Arms Hotel."

Corona is a type of cigar.

The telegram and Sir Winston's reply had pride of place in the hotel lounge. Are they still there? Rob Jones, who has been licensee of the Craven Arms Hotel in Craven Arms for seven months, had a look for us.

After hunting around the lounge Rob said: "I can't see anything of that description, but that's not to say it isn't here. There's quite a bit of stuff. There is some very old paperwork in frames situated around the pub. There are lots of things here, to be honest with you, regarding the history of the pub, the owners, and how it was started. There's even a family tree."

In his final days Sir Winston had had a special link with a Shropshire MP, Sir John Langford-Holt, who became his unofficial aide in Parliament throughout the months which led up to the former Prime Minister's retirement in the summer of 1964.

Sir John was the Conservative MP for Shrewsbury and as an ex-military man, who had served in the Fleet Air Arm and taken part in an attack on the German battleship Tirpitz, will have had the respect of Sir Winston.

The big double doors to the House of Commons would swing open during question time and Sir Winston would appear, almost always with Sir John taking one arm, and another MP on the other. He would be helped to his own corner seat on the Front Bench below the gangway.

Sir John said at the time of his death: "To Britain, Sir Winston meant courage. Those who had to die he taught to die bravely, those who lived he helped to live with dignity. We shall never see his like again."

Two Shropshire Army officers were among those occupying important roles during the lying in state and funeral.

Lt Col M.C. Thursby-Pelham, whose mother lived at Church Stretton, was in charge of the ceremonial party of Welsh Guards at St Paul's, while Major E.I. Windsor-Clive, of Ludlow, was in the Coldstream Guards watch at the lying in state.

His way with words kept a nation fighting through some of its darkest years. Here are some of Winston Churchill's best lines:

"You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war." 1938, after Prime Minister Chamberlain signed an agreement with Adolf Hitler.

"You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory – victory at all costs, victory in spite of terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival." First speech as Prime Minister, May 13, 1940

"Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour!'" House of Commons, 1940

"...We shall not fail or falter. We shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools and we will finish the job." 1941 radio broadcast

"We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." House of Commons, 1941

"I have only one single purpose – the destruction of Hitler – and my life is much simplified thereby. If Hitler invaded Hell I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons." Chequers, 1941

"I have never promised anything but blood, tears, toil and sweat. Now, however we have a new experience. We have a victory – a remarkable and definite victory. The bright gleam has caught the helmets of our soldiers and warmed and cheered all our hearts." 1942 after Britain drove German troops out of Egypt.

"All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honour; duty; mercy; hope." 1947

"A modest man, who has much to be modest about." On Clement Atlee, who replaced him as Prime Minister after the war.

"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." 1948

"In the course of my life I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet." Circa 1940s

"The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult."

"The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning."

"The truth is incontrovertible, manic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it, but there it is."

"There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true."

And a 19-year-old Shropshire sailor, Able Seaman David Kelly, was one of 16 members of the Royal Navy contingent who piped aboard Sir Winston's coffin at Tower Pier at the state funeral. David's parents lived in Albrighton.

There will have been one or two Salopians still alive in 1965 who will have remembered the time, many years earlier, that Winston Churchill came to Shropshire and played his part in perhaps the most sensational by-election victory in Shropshire history.

Churchill went to Oswestry in 1904 when the town was at fever pitch in an campaign in which insults were freely exchanged and which was marred by violence, with street fights common. It was at the old Powis Hall that Churchill spoke to a meeting in support of the Liberal election candidate Allan Bright on July 25.

The by-election had been caused by the elevation of the Oswestry Conservative MP G Ormsby-Gore to the peerage following the death of Lord Harlech on June 26. The other candidate was W Clive Bridgeman, a Conservative.

Churchill was himself in an unusual position, having just crossed the floor of the House of Commons to desert the Conservatives and sit with the Liberals. The big issues of the day were free trade and tariff reform.

In this atmosphere it is not surprising that the Free Food meeting addressed by Churchill at the Powis Hall was a ticket one, with every ticket holder keenly scrutinised. Written on the walls was "Every Vote for Protection is a Vote for Starvation".

Churchill used the occasion to hit back at a description of himself and another MP, his cousin Ivor Guest who had also crossed the House, as "renegades and traitors". The attack had come from a leading local Tory, Colonel Kenyon-Slaney.

"I have noticed that in the heat of an election persons of choleric disposition and limited intelligence are apt to become rude," said Churchill.

Churchill, who had fought in the Boer War, went on: "As to our being traitors, I can only say that Mr Guest and myself were fighting the King's enemies when Colonel Kenyon-Slaney was slandering them at home. This gallant fire-eating colonel was content to kill Kruger with his mouth in the comfortable security of England while we were fighting."

There was a large police presence on polling day with a 90 per cent turnout but the result caused shockwaves. Bright won – Oswestry's first Liberal MP for over 70 years. But his triumph was not to last long, as he was defeated by Bridgeman in the 1906 election.

For the Shropshire Star, the passing of Churchill gave the newspaper, which had only been launched a few months earlier, in October 1964, a chance to showcase its groundbreaking new technology which made the new kid on the block stand out from the rest of the newspaper industry.

While other daily newspapers carried pictures to record the event in black and white, the Shropshire Star, on an inside page, carried a full colour photo of Sir Winston on the day of the funeral. It was admittedly not a "live" news picture, being a stock photo from the files of him in his Knight of the Garter robes.

It was done without fuss or fanfare, but was nevertheless hugely significant, as it was the first colour photo used in the Shropshire Star.

Fleet Street looked on with mild detached interest. It was all very well to do this sort of thing on a regional newspaper, but at Fleet Street? That was a different matter.

You only have to look at any newspaper today to appreciate just what a revolution the Shropshire Star had started.

Colour was something for special occasions, but the paper's black and white coverage was outstanding too, thanks to the gift of the gab of photographer Bob Craig, who covered the funeral. Bob, one of the founders of the Shropshire Star who died last year, somehow managed to talk his way into a building overlooking the procession and got some superb rooftop panoramas of the event.