Diane Parkes heads to the secret bunker where Winston Churchill conducted Britain's war effort.
On the eve of D-Day King George VI penned a note to wartime prime minister Winston Churchill. In his looping handwriting under the royal crest, the monarch told Churchill he had been thinking over their recent conversation and had decided it would not be a good idea for either of the men to be present at the Normandy landings.
King George pertinently pointed out that it would not help the British war effort if either the King or prime minister were to step on a mine or be hit by a bomb.
In our soundbite era, when politicians are helicoptered into a war zone for a quick handshake and publicity picture and then ushered out again, it is inconceivable that the country’s two most powerful men would even have contemplated standing on the front line.
But then walking round the Churchill War Rooms in London is full of surprises.
A branch of the Imperial War Museum opened to the public in 1984, the complex is made up of the underground Cabinet War Rooms where top level decisions for fighting the Nazis took place and a Churchill museum crammed full of artefacts, maps and documents.
This interconnecting series of subterranean passageways formed a base for the British government between 1939 and 1945. Today it is possible to see charts covered with pin holes marking the plotting of convoy ships, the hot line to the White House allowing the leaders of the UK and USA to hold confidential conversations and the bedroom where Churchill could hunker down for a few hours.
And the museum gives a fascinating insight into history. Highlights from the wartime era include an Enigma decoding machine and a Potsdam Conference map on which Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Harry S Truman carved up post-war Europe.
But above all I was fascinated by the documents which really bring that era alive. Some are heart-breaking such as Jan Masaryk’s plea for Czechoslovakia or Churchill’s letter to the Channel Islands abandoning them to their fate.
Some, such as the D-Day note, take us right to the front while others are more intimate. For example, there is a wonderful letter in which Churchill’s wife Clementine writes to reprove her husband for his bad temper. She accepts he is under a good deal of pressure, what with the war and all, but warns him to stop being such a grump!
The Churchill War Rooms are a treasure chest of information and experience – and a valuable resource for future generations.
Our tour took up a good part of the day during a weekend visit to the capital. We were staying at the Mint Hotel near to the Tower of London, one of two of the chain, which has re-branded from City Inn, in London. Within a few minutes walk of Tower Hill tube station, Mint Tower Hill offers easy access to many of the sights of the city. Our room overlooked the Tower and Tower Bridge as well as Trinity Gardens.
