CHURCHILL, Sir W.L.S. Autograph letter signed ('W') to Pamela, Countess of Lytton, 28 Hyde Park Gate, 30 April 1955, 2½ pages, 8°; envelope.

CHURCHILL, Sir W.L.S. Autograph letter signed ('W') to Pamela, Countess of Lytton, 28 Hyde Park Gate, 30 April 1955, 2½ pages, 8°; envelope.

ON HIS RESIGNATION AS PRIME MINISTER. Churchill is grateful for Pamela's kind words: 'It is a considerable change in my life and I was right to make a break to let it work both for others and for myself'; the weather in Sicily, to which he had escaped, was disappointing, and 'the Sicilians said "What a pity the old man brought his English weather with him" ... but the Sicilians especially the poorer were very nice to me & I got the same smiling faces as I see so often at home'. He hopes to see Pamela soon: 'Your abiding friendship is a precious companion to your ever-loving W'.

After suffering a stroke on 23 June 1953, Churchill resigned as prime minister on 5 April 1955.