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View from the Whispering Gallery of St. Paul's, published in The Weekend Telegraph the morning after Churchill's funeral. Photograph : Gerry Cranham
Farewell To Greatness
Prestige for a new magazine, opportunities for two young photographers, and the reputation of National Geographic were at stake
during the media coverage of Sir Winston Churchill’s funeral in 1965. Graham Harrison looks back. Black and white photography by David Hurn.
‘These pages recall his last days, on which the whole world paid tribute to all his days, and when he went back, away from the crowds to the quiet of the country churchyard. The little church had hardly changed. But the world was unrecognisable.’ The Weekend Telegraph, January 31st 1965.
There is a letter marked “Personal and Top Secret” that can be read on the internet. Beneath the address Buckingham Palace, and the date November 5th 1953, a young Queen instructs her Government that if her Prime Minister should die he should be given a public funeral on a scale befitting his position in history, “Commensurate,” the monarch suggests, “with that given to the Duke of Wellington in 1852.”
Unbeknown to the nation Sir Winston Churchill, Britain’s wartime leader who was at the time serving his second term as Prime Minister, had suffered a crippling stroke, and the British establishment was agreeing that a state funeral – an honour reserved for the British monarch and few others – would be appropriate should Churchill die.
But although paralysed on his left side, the Conservative leader showed his old tenacity and recovered enough to choose his own time of departure from the premiership.
Churchill eventually resigned as Prime Minister – to the great relief of his successor Anthony Eden – in April 1955. Impossible today, a Prime Minister’s illness had been kept secret from the public, and from the pages of the British press for nearly two years.
Sir Winston Churchill left parliament for a decade long retirement that was to be increasingly dogged with ill health. By the autumn of 1964 it was apparent that the life of 90 year old statesman was drawing to a close, and the world’s press considered how it should mark the passing of the man who’s single minded will had carried Britain through it’s darkest hour, and who had inspired much of the world with his oratory.
In the Art Deco offices of the conservative Daily Telegraph on London’s Fleet Street, the decision was taken that two special issues of the new colour supplement, The Weekend Telegraph would be published to honour Sir Winston.
The first special issue was to be an obituary. The second, titled Churchill : Farewell to Greatness was to be a sixteen page full colour record of Churchill’s funeral. Both were to be entirely free of advertisements.
Under the proprietorship of Michael Berry (Baron Hartwell and 3rd Viscount Camrose, disclaimed) The Weekend Telegraph colour supplement was to get the backing it required. Michael Berry’s father, William (1st Viscount Camrose) had been a financial supporter of Churchill after the war, and one of his closest friends.
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