Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/churchil/churchil.009

Text File | 1992-08-29 | 8KB | 154 lines

                                                                                April 19, 1955

The Prime Backbencher



     The curtain rang up on the final act of Winston Churchill's
long and dramatic career last week. Even a statesman with his
great flair from drama could have asked for no more effective
tableau. There at stage center, its polished brass numerals
gleaming in the lamplight of London's Downing Street, was the
famed, ebony-black door marked "10." Choking the narrow street but
held back to a respectful distance by alert bobbies were crowds
of Londoners whose suspenseful interest in the drama was drawn
taut by the lack of printed news caused by a newspaper strike. At
8:30 a spatter of rain caught the crowd's attention, for a
moment, and just then, a bobby stepped up to the closed door. He
knocked lightly to herald the approach of royalty, just turning
the corner in a huge red-and-black Rolls. Instantly the historic
door was flung open, and out of it, just behind his tiaraed wife,
stepped Sir Winston Churchill, K.G.

     Resplendent in silken knee breeches and the broad blue sash
of the Garter, he bowed low, first to bestow a token kiss on the
young sovereign's hand, and again before shaking hands with her
husband, Prince Philip.

     Then the scene shifted. The lights went up and the stage
expanded to reveal the glittering, oak-paneled prime ministerial
dining room inside. Portraits of Wellington, Nelson, Pitt and Fox
stared down from the walls as the guests took their seats. Garbed
in full uniform or official court dress, some 50 of them were
ranged along the U-shaped table. There were the bemedaled
Generals Montgomery and Alexander, who had led great armies under
Winston Churchill's direction during World War II. There was
quiet, modest Clem Attlee, his longtime colleague and longtime
opponent. There, gracious and smiling, was the widow of Neville
Chamberlain, the prewar Prime Minister whose errors Churchill
redeemed but never condemned. There, still patient and
distinguished with years and honors in his own right, was the
Churchillian heir apparent, Sir Anthony Eden, and his 34-year-old
wife, Churchill's niece Clarissa. There, along with the beautiful
young Queen to whom he had given counsel almost from infancy,
were dukes, marquesses, viscounts, friends high and low, each as
attentive and respectful as Elizabeth herself.

     With These Credentials. In raising his glass to the young
Queen, 80-year-old Sir Winston asked for forgiveness due an old
man. "Having served in office or in parliament under four
sovereigns," he said, "I felt, with these credentials, that in
asking Your Majesty's gracious permission to propose this toast,
I should not be leading to the creation of a precedent which
would often cause inconvenience.

     "Madam, I should like to express the deep and lively sense
of gratitude which we and all your peoples feel to you and to His
Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh for all the help and
inspiration we receive in our daily lives and which spreads with
ever-growing strength throughout the British realm and the
Commonwealth and Empire.

     "We thank God for the gift He has bestowed upon us and vow
ourselves anew to the sacred causes of which Your Majesty is the
young, gleaming champion. The Queen."

     Elizabeth, whose very presence at Downing Street was
something of a shattering of precedent, was not averse to
shattering another. After Churchill's speech, she herself rose
and in a clear voice announced that she was about to do what few
sovereigns had ever done before. "I propose the health of my
Prime Minister," she said.

     Outside in the dim street, the crowd waiting through this
dazzling dinner at Downing Street speculated whether there would
be any dramatic announcement that night. Next morning several
hundred were still waiting and guessing. All morning they waited
and talked, as the great men of the land went in and out the
black door. By late afternoon there were more than 2,000 gawpers
standing in the street. "I wish they'd tell us something,"
groused a photographer. "I haven't eaten since last night."

     Off to the Palace. The door opened and an office worker
popped out. Everyone laughed from sheer nervousness. At 4:25 the
door opened once more and out stepped Winston Churchill, in
striped pants, frock coat and topper. There was a sparse cheer or
two, then suddenly the street rocked with three huge,
earsplitting cheers of acclaim. A slight, sad smile crinkled the
Churchillian features for a moment. Then, clamping firmly on his
cigar, the Prime Minister climbed into his car and headed for
Buckingham Palace.

     An hour later, after Churchill and Elizabeth talked alone, a
palace bulletin made it official that "the Right Honorable Sir
Winston Churchill has tendered his resignation as Prime Minister
and First Lord of the Treasury, which her Majesty was graciously
pleased to accept." "Good old Winnie!" shouted the crowd at
Downing Street once again when Churchill returned. The old man
smiled through tear-dimmed eyes, raised his fingers in the
victory sign and went inside. Soon afterward the street was
nearly empty once again. That evening Churchill came out of the
house once more, climbed into his car and drove to his doctor's
for a checkup.

     No Time for Obits. From far and wide next day the tributes
poured in. Great contemporaries, heads of state, ancient enemies,
old colleagues, distant admirers, journalists, historians,
soldiers, statesmen and plain men in the street took to their
typewriters, their telegraph pads, their microphones, their
notepaper or simply the local pub to heap praise on a career that
has seldom been matched.

     Germany's 79-year-old Konrad Adenauer at first refused to
believe the news that Churchill had quit. "All of us in the free
world need his advice and will always seek it," he said.

     "We shall never accept the thought that we are to be denied
your counsel," said President Eisenhower.

     In the spate of encomium, Churchill was compared with
everything, from an endless cavalry charge to Leonardo da Vinci.
As everyone tried his best to rise to the occasion -- tempted, no
doubt, by a wish to be as eloquent as Winston Churchill himself
would have been -- the London Economist was at last moved to
remark that "Sir Winston Churchill is not dead. He has merely
retired from the office of Prime Minister . . . The time has
fortunately not yet come to write his obituary."

     Back Bench & Goldfish. Sir Winston, reluctant to retire but
aware that he must, refused to steal any more thunder from
Anthony Eden by appearing in the House of Commons on the day Eden
took over. But the back-bench seat (actually on the front bench),
which he firmly intends to hang onto, was standing ready and
vacant for him. "The House has today lost one of the greatest
front-benchers in all its history," said Tory Walter Elliot, "but
the backbenchers have gained the greatest backbencher of all
times."

     While such tributes were being sounded in a chamber still
vibrant with his personality, Winston Churchill himself was busy
entertaining the Downing Street staff at tea, snapping quips at
parlormaids and secretaries alike, and preparing to go home to
Kent.

     When at last he was bundled, along with his poodle Rufus and
his parakeet Toby, into one of the two cars headed for Chartwell,
tears stood once again in the old man's eyes. But by the time he
reached his Kent home, the old Churchillian spirit was back to
par. Some 30 villagers were on hand to meet him at the gate, and
Churchill greeted them warmly. "Come on inside the grounds," he
urged enthusiastically. "Come on, all of you, and have a look at
my goldfish." The villagers swarmed in to take advantage of the
invitation. "Yes," said Churchill, just before entering the
house, "it's good to be home."