3/6/2023 0 Comments Cabinet warroom![]() “And he always seemed to make a pantomime of climbing out of his vehicle. We were always there and he acknowledged us with just a nod of the head and murmured something as he went by. “He never contemplated speaking to anyone outside of his own people, in the cabinet, and I suppose higher officers. And it did, on several occasions, give rise to cabinet meetings being held in the early hours of the morning. “He walked around in deep contemplation, as if he was studying things in his mind. “We saw more of him during the evening and night,” he says. And so would be defined the next cycle of tasks to be carried out by the ever-busy staff of the Cabinet War Rooms.įrank Higgins, a military policeman who worked as a guard at the Cabinet War Rooms, used to see Churchill most days. Then – sometimes long after midnight – the door to the room would be opened and the minutes rushed away to be typed up and circulated. Positioned in the central well of the tables, the three Chiefs of Staff sat eyeball to eyeball with the Prime Minister, thrashing out their plans for every theatre of the war. In the Centre of Command, the atmosphere was thick with cigarette and cigar smoke and heated discussion. Staff recall Churchill prowling along the main corridor in the evening, cigar in hand and mind deep in thought © IWMSo pervasive is Churchill’s presence that you can almost smell his cigar smoke as you walk down the corridors. And then he was able to have a really hard sleep for six hours. He never went to bed before two in the morning. Then he always went for a rest in the late afternoon when he would have a hard sleep of an hour and so he kept his strength up and his working energies. “Usually in the afternoon…he would work or meet or interview in the Cabinet Room, if he did not have a Chiefs of Staff meeting or something which would take him elsewhere. And anything which he could sign at the end, usually he wanted sent off at once. “He wanted to get it done and get it done efficiently. In any case he always seemed to have a great deal to do – almost too much to do. “So the Personal Secretary would sit next to him from half past eight until one, and perhaps that was quite a long morning…but he hated wasting time. “And he would get up at one and go for his bath, which his valet would arrange for him. But sometimes he would stay in bed until, say one o’clock. Sometimes he would have to get up, say, about 11 for a meeting, perhaps a Cabinet meeting or a Chiefs of Staff. “And then he would work on his papers or sometimes somebody that he knew well might come for an interview while he was sitting in bed. Then about half past eight he would be ready to start work and from that time until he got up one of his personal secretaries would be sitting near his bedside behind the typewriter. ![]() Normally he would wake up at eight and he would then have his breakfast in bed. Here she recalls an average day for the Prime Minister… Churchill insisted that his staff should use noiseless typewriters in the Cabinet War Rooms © IWMElizabeth Layton worked as one of Churchill’s private secretaries during the war.
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