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 for 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, ebon-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 (see PRESS). 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."