depression, his ‘Black
Dog’, and spent his later
years at his home in
Chartwell,
Kent,
declining an offer of a
Dukedom from the Queen
due to his son not wanting
to inherit the title (out of
deference to the wishes of
his son, who harboured
Chartwell
dreams, never to be
realised, of carrying on
the family mantle, and following his father into the Commons). It was here that
in his final years, Churchill did what he most loved, painting, and suffered at the age of 90 a stroke from which he never recovered. His funeral on 30 th January
1965 was the largest state funeral in history at the time and was attended, contrary
to custom, by the monarch Queen Elizabeth II.
Churchill was one of the very few people that we can truly say, along with figures
such as Wellington, Disraeli, Gladstone and Lady Thatcher, shaped the Britain as
we know it today. He saved us from the evils of Nazism and raised the morale of
British people with his oratory and courage during the darkest periods of our
history. He was a person who gave Britain a glimmer of light when there was
only darkness, the British Bulldog who came to represent the resilience and
determination of the British people and British identity itself. One could argue
that Churchill, despite being a politician, was one of the few that was beyond
politics; an icon and hero whose smile, cigar and memory should be and is,
entrenched in British history.
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