Winston Churchill is often pictured as alone, a solitary figure as he stood up for Britain against Nazi tyranny during the Second World War.
Yet in his private life, he was a world leader who was never by himself. For, by his side at many of the most crucial moments in the conflict, were his devoted daughters, Diana, Sarah, Marigold and Mary.
They were eyewitnesses at some of the most important events in world history - beside him at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam and with him when he met Roosevelt, Stalin and de Gaulle.
But this wasn’t purely a wartime phenomenon. Throughout Winston’s political career, he liked to keep his daughters close. When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 1920s, his eldest daughter, Diana stood beside him outside No. 11 Downing Street before he presented his Budget.
After the war, Sarah was his chosen companion on holidays to Italy, Morocco and the South of France, while Mary was there to support him at Chequers and Chartwell in his final years as prime minister.
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Now, in an extract from a new book, we reveal how Churchill’s daughters helped him celebrate one of the most victorious moments in his life...
On 8 May 1945, as millions of people rejoiced at the news that the Germans had surrendered, Churchill’s wife, Clementine was still in Russia and Mary in Belgium.
On two days’ leave in Brussels, Winston’s youngest daughter spent the evening at a party in an apartment.
However, her thoughts were focussed on what was happening at home and she went out on the balcony to listen to the BBC’s broadcast of the King’s Speech without interruption. After dinner with friends, she joined the enthusiastic crowds in the city’s streets.
As the enormity of the news sank in, she tried to get her head around the realisation that ‘the day of deliverance’ had finally come.
Winston wanted all his daughters with him to celebrate the victory, so the next morning he arranged for Mary to be flown home from Brussels.
When she arrived back, Winston, clad in his dressing gown, welcomed her with open arms. After nearly six long years of war, it was rather an anti-climax to find the great war leader with just his cat, Smokey, for company. Mary wrote,‘It seems a little sad that at this hour of triumph my father was virtually alone.’
Mary and Winston had lunch together on trays in his bedroom and he talked to her about the Germans. Showing characteristic magnanimity, he said, ‘Retribution and justice must be done, but in the words of Edmund Burke, “I cannot frame an indictment against a whole people”’.
After lunch, Mary went with her father to pay diplomatic calls on the French, American and Russian Embassies.
As they drove through London in an open car, Mary was bursting with pride as jubilant crowds greeted Winston wherever he went. That evening, Winston dined with Mary, Diana and her husband, Duncan and afterwards they joined a huge crowd that had gathered in Whitehall to cheer him.
The prime minister finished his impromptu speech with a verse from ‘Rule Britannia’, then the crowd roared in reply that ‘Britons never shall be slaves’.
Exhilarated by the atmosphere, Diana and Duncan rushed off to Buckingham Palace while Mary waited for Sarah to arrive. Eventually, at 12.15 a.m., she appeared with Gil and the trio set off to the palace, making it just in time to see the king and queen appear on the balcony.
After joining the ecstatic crowds in cheering the royal couple, they went back to the American Embassy for eggs and bacon. Although this was Winston’s moment of victory, Mary noted that he suddenly looked ‘old and deflated with emotion, fatigue and a heart-breaking realisation of the struggles yet to come’.
Once the war was over, the coalition government came to an end and Winston faced a general election. Although he had won the war, it was uncertain whether he would be the peacetime premier. The fighting had finished but there was still much work to be done...
They arrived in Germany on 1 June 1945, as part of the occupying force. Conditions were primitive; they slept in tents and as they were living alongside a hostile people, girls were not allowed out without an armed escort. Mary told her mother that they were all very spy conscious, thinking they saw ‘Hitler in every moustache’.
Mary was no longer the naïve young girl, she had been at the beginning of the war, but the level of devastation in Germany shocked her.
Many families were living in cellars under the debris of their shattered homes. She was even more appalled when she visited the hospital at Belsen concentration camp. When the camp was liberated in April, the liberators found 10,000 dead in the camp and mass graves containing 40,000 bodies.
Mary had never seen so much human suffering. Visiting the camp hospital, she was horrified by the sight of the starving mothers and ‘shrivelled’ babies. One survivor said to Mary in broken French,‘We are so happy to receive here today the daughter of the great man who has made our deliverance possible.’ Mary nearly wept, she wrote, ‘I have never seen such an ardour for life – such a victorious manifestation of the human spirit’.
A month later, in July, Mary accompanied her father to the Potsdam Conference. Churchill, Stalin and the new American President, Harry S.Truman were meeting to discuss how to administer a defeated Germany and establish a post-war order.
Winston and Mary stayed at 23 Ringstrasse, a rose-pink stone villa looking out onto a lawn which sloped down to a ‘romantic-looking but unhygienic lake’. Winston met President Truman for the first time at the Americans’ villa, known as the ‘Little White House’.
On the walk home, Winston told Mary that he liked Truman ‘immensely’. He felt that they talked the same language and could work together. Mary wrote, ‘I nearly wept for joy and thankfulness, it seemed like divine providence... I can see Papa is relieved and confident.’
Later that day, in ‘sweltering heat’, Mary went with her father to inspect the ruins of Berlin and visit Hitler’s bunker. She was shocked by the ‘utter squalor and dilapidation of the place – the stunned look on the faces of the people are not easily forgotten’.
The press swarmed around, recording the historic moment when Churchill inspected the place where Hitler died.
As before on previous trips, Mary’s role was to look after her father and deal with any domestic matters. It was a far cry from her usual war work. She wrote to her mother, ‘I’m trying to beat my sword into a feather duster’.
Most of her time was taken up with dealing with the chef and the gardener. When President Truman was coming to lunch, Mary had to sort out the menus and rearrange the house to make it look presentable. Fortunately, everything went smoothly.
The Scots Guards formed a guard of honour as Winston met Truman at the garden gate and iced cocktails were served on the terrace, before the prime minister took the president into his study for lunch alone together.
A few days later, Winston dined with Truman and Stalin. A fleet of cars drove up to the house and ‘Uncle Joe’ ‘skipped’ out in ‘the most fetching white cloth mess jacket’. Mary did not eat with the leaders, but her father invited her to join them later.
Sitting on a stool behind Winston’s chair, she watched as Stalin went around the room autograph hunting. The evening had gone very well and there was ‘a general atmosphere of whoopee and goodwill’.
The Churchills were only at Potsdam for half the conference. They had to leave early to return to England for the General Election result. As their wartime roles were now completed, it was the end of an era for the family.
It was not just Winston who had fulfilled his destiny during the war, the Churchill girls had also found a new sense of purpose. It had been a chance for them to make their parents proud – a desire that was always foremost in their priorities.
When Mary’s war work was recognised with the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for distinguished and gallant conduct, she wrote to her father that during ‘these glittering years’, she had seen, felt and learned a great deal.
She added: “In a strange way they have been happy years – and at all events memorable and exciting. And because of you and Mummie – and your love and tenderness and understanding to me any success or pleasure has seemed enhanced in my eyes because I feel you would be pleased.”
Although the war years had tested the Churchills to their limits, their experiences had bonded them even more closely together. Sarah felt that she had become much closer to her parents. She wrote to Clementine, ‘I have always loved you, but not always known you and this sudden discovery of you both – is like stumbling on a gold mine.’
Winston knew how much he owed his family. At his 70th birthday party, shortly before the end of the war, after a toast was drunk to him, he replied that his family were the ‘dearest there are’. He told them that he had been ‘comforted and supported’ by their love. He then solemnly clinked glasses with each of them in turn. This acknowledgement of their role in his life made Mary cry.
Extracted by Poppy Danby
- The Churchill Girls – The Story of Winston’s Daughters by Rachel Trethewey is out now (The History Press, £20)
