According to the photo of his hand-written menu in Einstein's Watch, by Fenwick and Husselby, on his last flight to the United States as Prime Minister of England in 1954, Winston Churchill, then age 79. ordered his breakfast on two trays.
1st Tray:
Poached egg
Toast
Jam
Butter
Coffee & milk
Jug cold milk
Small piece cold chicken or meat
2nd Tray:
Grapefruit
Sugar bowl
Glass orange squash (ice)
Whisky soda
Cigar
There is no record of whether he wore the glen check suit in the photo.
Photo: Bettmann/CORBIS
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17 comments:
Will, is that a lord's hat?
Breakfast of champions!
Well, except for the cigar (and assuming the whisky soda was a wee one) you could do a lot worse. I'd take this over the Frankenfood that today passes for breakfast.
Hard to tell if the edge is bound but I would say it's a lord's hat.
Matthew, I would take the entire thing without a second thought. Well, perhaps not the orange squash.
Looks more like a normal Homburg to me.
From Churchill's second tray I'd only take the cigar and the whisky. And I'd take tea instead of coffee - where is Churchill's British spirit?
Perhaps Sir Churchill was attempting to get
Into the American spirit with the coffee. I only eat chips with vinegar on the otherside of the pond.
It gives one pause. Churchill lead a life more full than most will by the time he was 30, and by his death at about 80. A writer, soldier, politician, prime minister twice, artist, wit, orator, a relic of the late Victorian era, and yet a thoroughly modern wartime PM. A die hard Briton and champion of the empire, he was born to an American mother. he and FDR are together the fathers of the US-UK special relation. He also could eat. It's funny, he ate like that, smoked like a chimney (in fact, 7 in cigars are named for him), took so many risks, and yet outlived his life expectancy at birth by decades. A character like no other.
Is it me, Will, or are the checks on his breast pocket mismatched? It's a perfect mismatch, mind you.
Simon
I happen to be great friends with the gentleman who purchased the menu in question. To celebrate the successful auction, we made and ate Mr. Churchill's breakfast order. Delicious.
My guess he did not take his breakfast in the glencheck as he would most likely have been eating it in bed.
My mistake - I see it was an inflight menu so every chance he WAS wearing the glencheck! I'll go back to work now...
By the way, if someone is going to use Winston's title then it is Sir Winston not Sir Churchill. Sorry to sound a little pompous but I thought that this site is about getting things right.
But which tray does one tackle first? Or is it mix and match?
And he died at 90 not 80 years of age...thanks, no doubt, to his habits!
As to whether the brim is bound: he was famous for his Homburg and Cambridge hats (the square crowned bowler/derby) and at least one of the grey Homburgs from WW II has been auctioned.
In Google's downtime, my comment on WSC living to 90 years, not just 80, has been lost, so here it is again!
When not wearing his siren suit, uniform or activity wear, it's actually quite rare to find pics of Churchill wearing anything other than his street "uniform" of black coat, black waistcoat, striped pants, black homburg and blue spotted bowtie. Initially he wore a frockcoat and then switched to a jacket when frocks went out after WW 1. I don't think he was very interested in clothes although he did rather like hats. He also always looks as if he was poured into them with the coats always very tight. A fascinating character.
Brummagem Joe - where on earth do you get the impression that WSC was not very interested in clothes! He certainly was very interested in them but always favoured comfort - hence the siren - romper suits (which he designed) and his zipper shoes (ditto). He also had a fabulous collection of uniforms and hats; ranging from silk toppers to Stetsons. He patronized many bespoke makers across the board and some have suggested that, because he was always comparatively short of cash, he used to move around as his credit expired - settling up eventually, of course!
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