24 August 2016 | Tregoning is in Whangarei Town Basin Marina, Whangarei, New Zealand but we are in North Harrow, Great Britain
Photo: Off Great George Street, London; HM Treasury Building on right with entrance to Churchill War Rooms at bottom right
Our arrival in Glasgow from Aviemore was, sadly, accompanied by grey skies and rain. Luckily for us, our next host Joan and her daughter Katie, were waiting for us at the station and staunchly shepherded us and helped heft our luggage to their car for the slow commuter-crowded drive westward to Lochwinnoch. Katie was about to depart for Paris where she was to spend a year overseas from her degree course at St. Andrews University and she was clearly very excited about the prospect. On arrival at their house, we found Peter home from working at my alma mater, the University of Glasgow, and their son, Rory, who is finishing (high) school and is a very enthusiastic and skilled rugby player.
(L to R) Katie, Peter, Joan, and Rory
We had, apparently, enjoyed the Scottish summer during our stay in the Highlands because it rained or threatened to rain for most of the rest of our two remaining days around Glasgow. Undaunted, Joan and Katie took us to the coast at Largs where we could overlook the Island of Arran (home to some of Randall’s ancestors), eat delicious ice cream at Nardini’s Restaurant, and walk along the waterfront during a blustery dry spell. Seeing Arran got Randall talking about his maternal Scottish heritage, a topic in which Joan was also very interested. As we continued driving a loop through Greenock before cutting back cross-country to Lochwinnoch, I noticed on the map that there was a small town called Shandon, just across the Firth of Clyde (estuary of the Clyde River). Randall’s mother grew-up in the village of Shandon in central California so it was intriguing to speculate that Randall’s family might have, in some way, been part of the connection between these two communities.
To help sustain our appetites for Joan’s excellent cooking, we enjoyed walking around Lochwinnoch and along the rails-to-trails route by the adjacent loch. We were able to enjoy a similar exercise regimen after Joan drove us over to Carole’s house in Milngavie (north of Glasgow) which is close to a reservoir that is surrounded by a well-used path. Our stays with both Joan and Carole were far too short, but I was just thankful that we were able to squeeze ourselves into their busy working schedules at all.
Looking from Carole’s spare bedroom over her garden and the loch
Randall had been rather disappointed to hear that Carole had sold her penthouse flat in downtown Glasgow but I knew, correctly, that it would soon be forgotten when he saw her current house. It is the house where she grew-up and I had not seen it since my last visit which had been when Carole’s mother was still living there. With the blessing of her siblings who are spread all over Great Britain, Carole took over the house and has transformed most of it (the formal living room is much as her parent’s had left it) into a gorgeous lakeside home with a particularly fabulous, lake-view kitchen, dining, and living area.
Carole continues to play violin on a free-lance basis for some concerts and teaches a few piano students, but her main passion is organizing charitable-fund-raising, classical-music concerts in the house with her siblings (all talented musicians). With catered food, the whole thing sounded delightful and we were sorry that we could not stay for the next one. Our stay was made complete by meeting Carole’s beau Michael for the first time. We went out for an excellent dinner at a local restaurant (and, yes, Randall did sample the haggis but it was quite a tastier, different beast from the over-boiled meal of yore) and it was lovely to see Carole and Michael so very happy together.
Carole and Michael
On Tuesday morning (August 23rd), as Carole dashed off to an engagement in Edinburgh, we caught a train to London. I had booked our seats online, selecting the cheapest tickets for the desired time, not noticing until we arrived at the station that they were First Class tickets which had apparently been on special offer. Despite taking trains around the UK for years, I have never ridden First Class before. While better than, but not hugely different from, the Economy coaches in terms of space and comfort, it was less crowded and, joy, oh, joy, served free beverages and food, throughout the five-hour trip. It does not take much to make us happy!
Luckily, by the time we got to North Harrow, we had not over-stuffed ourselves to be beyond enjoying the huge roast dinner and Eaton Mess (a wickedly delicious dessert of strawberries, cream, and meringue) that Jennie and her girls Sara, Josie, and Claire had prepared for us. It turns out that several months of visiting friends and relations is not the easiest time to lose (or even maintain) weight as everyone is keen to treat you to their best food. Not that I am complaining…
Jennie had taken the next day off so we went into the City and started by visiting the Churchill War Rooms for a two-hour self-guided (with hand-sets) tour. The museum consists of the Cabinet War Rooms, the underground complex that housed the British government command center throughout the Second World War, and the Churchill Museum, which examines the life of Winston Churchill. I had heard that the Cabinet War Rooms were very interesting and I have always been more curious about the effects of the World Wars on the people, rather than the politics and technology. I was not disappointed, the museum was excellent!
As early as 1936, the Air Ministry, predicted that in the event of war, aerial bombing of London could cause up to 200,000 casualties per week. Government studies suggested that non-essential government offices should be moved to the Midlands or North West of England and key government offices should be dispersed from the city center to the suburbs. A site for a temporary emergency government center was selected in the basement of the New Public Offices on Great George Street (which now accommodate HM Treasury).
The installation of communications and broadcasting equipment, sound-proofing, ventilation and, reinforcements began in 1938. By this time, the War Office, Admiralty, and Air Ministry had developed the concept of a Central War Room that would facilitate discussion and decision-making between the Chiefs of Staff of the armed forces. With ultimate authority in the hands of the civilian government, the Cabinet, or a smaller War Cabinet, would need to be accommodated with the Central War Room. Even though government facilities in the suburbs were not yet ready, the War Rooms became operational on 27th August 1939, just days before the invasion of Poland on 1st September, and Britain's declaration of war on Germany on 3rd September.
The Cabinet Room
The two key rooms of the complex were the Map Room and the Cabinet Room. The Map Room was in constant use and manned around the clock by officers of the Royal Navy, British army and Royal Air Force who were responsible for producing a daily intelligence summary for the King, Prime Minister and the military Chiefs of Staff. The astonishing thing to us, in these days of computer technology, was that the battle fronts were marked on the paper maps plastered all over the room’s walls, in strands of colored wool.
Prior to May 1940, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's war cabinet met at the War Rooms only once. However, following Winston Churchill's appointment as Prime Minister, he visited the Cabinet Room in May 1940 and declared that, 'This is the room from which I will direct the war'. A total of 115 Cabinet meetings were held at the Cabinet War Rooms, the last being on 28th March 1945, when the German V-weapon bombing campaign came to an end.
In the Map Room, a map of Europe with pins and colored wool identifying strategic positions at the end of the European War
During the Blitz-bombing campaign against Britain, it was decided to increase the protection of the Cabinet War Rooms by the installation of a massive layer (up to 5 feet or 1.5 m thick) of concrete known as 'the Slab'. By spring 1941, this increased protection had enabled the Cabinet War Rooms to expand to three times their original size, including dormitories for staff, private bedrooms for military officers and senior ministers, and rooms for typists or telephone switchboard operators. Of the many interesting personal accounts exhibited in the museum, one of the most memorable was by Churchill’s personal secretary who related (after the war) how frustrating it had been to come home at night and silently listen to her father criticize how unimportant her boring, fictional office job was to the war effort, when she really wanted to respond that she worked right next to Winston Churchill every day.
From 1943, a SIGSALY code-scrambling encrypted telephone was installed in the basement of Selfridges, Oxford Street connected to a similar terminal in the Pentagon building. From July 1943, this allowed Churchill to speak securely with American President Roosevelt in Washington. Extensions were installed to both 10 Downing Street and the specially constructed Transatlantic Telephone Room within the Cabinet War Rooms.
Churchill's office-bedroom included BBC broadcasting equipment, using which he made four wartime broadcasts from the Cabinet War Rooms. Although the office room was also fitted out as a bedroom, Churchill rarely slept underground, preferring to sleep at 10 Downing Street or the No.10 Annex, a flat in the New Public Offices directly above the Cabinet War Rooms.
The main communications room with colored telephones and notes pinned on maps
The Cabinet War Rooms were abandoned in August 1945 after the surrender of Japan, with the doors locks and nobody entering again for several years. Eventually, the historic value of the Cabinet War Rooms was recognized and in 1984 they were opened to the public as part of the Imperial War Museum. In 2005, the Churchill Museum was added and this series of innovative exhibits of the various stages of Churchill’s life and career, present an exhaustive accounting of the man, warts and all. He was certainly not a man without flaws in character and professional conduct, and he was reviled not only by his enemies but by allied groups that felt that he had unnecessarily abandoned them during the War (e.g., in Hong Kong). However, there is no doubt that, particularly during the darkest hours, he said and did incredibly inspirational things to the beleaguered people that he governed and it is difficult to imagine who else could have provided better leadership at that harrowing and pivotal time.