Ava is Ava Wigram, the wife of Ralph Wigram who was the head of the Central Department at the Foreign Office in 1935-36. Churchill thought highly of Wigram and was deeply saddened to learn of his friend's premature death from an illness on 2nd January 1937 at the age of 40. He wrote at once to Wigram's widow Ava: "I admired so much his courage, integrity of purpose, high comprehending vision. He was one of those - how few - who guard the life of Britain. Now he is gone - and one the eve of this fateful year. Indeed it is a blow to England and to all the best that England means ... And you? What must be your loss? But you still have a right to dwell on all that you did for him. You shielded that bright steady flame that burned in the broken lamp. But for you it would long ago have been extinguished, and its light would not have guided us thus far upon our journey." [Martin Gilbert Churchill: A Life]