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CHURCHILL, Winston S. Typed letter signed ("W."), to Lady Ava Wigram Anderson, Chartwell, 19 October 1947. Enclosing carbon of a 1 January 1937 letter from Churchill to Ava Wigram along with eight pages of typescript from The Gathering Storm. Together 10 pages, 4to, Chartwell stationery, punch hole top left of 1947 letter.
"HE WAS ONE OF THOSE--HOW FEW--WHO GUARD THE LIFE OF BRITAIN"
Churchill honors the memory of Ralph Wigram in this fascinating group of documents sent to Wigram's widow (now remarried), Lady Ava Anderson. "I send you two references [enclosed] which I thought of making in my History of the War to Ralph and his work," Churchill writes. "I shall not say anything about him or our contacts that you do not agree to." The first is a carbon of the letter of consolation Churchill wrote upon learning of Wigram's death: "He was one of those--how few--who guard the life of Britain. Now he is gone--and on the eve of this fateful year. Indeed it is a blow to England, and to all the best that England means..." The second item is an eight-page excerpt from Churchills' typescript of The Gathering Storm that describes the origins of Churchill's relations with Wigram, and the key role Wigram played in talks between Churchill and French foreign minister Pierre-Étienne Flandin during the Rhineland crisis of 1936: "I had also formed a friendship with Ralph Wigram, then the rising star in the Foreign Office and in the centre of all its affairs." Wigram's insider knowledge "helped me to form and fortify my opinion about the Hitler movement." When Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin rebuffed Flandin's call for joint action against Germany in the Rhineland crisis, Wigram gloomily predicted that general war would come and that his family home would be destroyed by bombs (accurate on both counts). "My friend never seemed to recover from the stroke," Churchill writes. "He took it too much to heart..." A fascinating group of documents about this key chapter in Churchill's "wilderness years." (10)
"HE WAS ONE OF THOSE--HOW FEW--WHO GUARD THE LIFE OF BRITAIN"
Churchill honors the memory of Ralph Wigram in this fascinating group of documents sent to Wigram's widow (now remarried), Lady Ava Anderson. "I send you two references [enclosed] which I thought of making in my History of the War to Ralph and his work," Churchill writes. "I shall not say anything about him or our contacts that you do not agree to." The first is a carbon of the letter of consolation Churchill wrote upon learning of Wigram's death: "He was one of those--how few--who guard the life of Britain. Now he is gone--and on the eve of this fateful year. Indeed it is a blow to England, and to all the best that England means..." The second item is an eight-page excerpt from Churchills' typescript of The Gathering Storm that describes the origins of Churchill's relations with Wigram, and the key role Wigram played in talks between Churchill and French foreign minister Pierre-Étienne Flandin during the Rhineland crisis of 1936: "I had also formed a friendship with Ralph Wigram, then the rising star in the Foreign Office and in the centre of all its affairs." Wigram's insider knowledge "helped me to form and fortify my opinion about the Hitler movement." When Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin rebuffed Flandin's call for joint action against Germany in the Rhineland crisis, Wigram gloomily predicted that general war would come and that his family home would be destroyed by bombs (accurate on both counts). "My friend never seemed to recover from the stroke," Churchill writes. "He took it too much to heart..." A fascinating group of documents about this key chapter in Churchill's "wilderness years." (10)