Death of Sir Winston Churchill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 25 January 1965.

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Photo of Sir Alec Douglas-Home Sir Alec Douglas-Home , Kinross and West Perthshire 12:00, 25 January 1965

I beg to support the Motion moved by the Prime Minister. The right hon. Gentleman has spoken in eloquent words in appreciation of the life of Winston Churchill and has told us of his long Parliamentary career. In doing so, the Prime Minister voiced the feelings of the House and of the nation.

Yesterday, when we saw the pageant of that life and career unfolded before us, it did not seem possible that a man could have achieved so much within a mortal span, and anyone who tries to measure the qualities of Winston Churchill knows that there is nothing that can now be said or written which can add to the stature of the man, because each of us knows with certainty that he has lived in the presence of one of the greatest men of all time.

When, on his 90th birthday, Mr. Harold Macmillan quoted from his writings the now famous words: In War, Resolution;In Defeat, Defiance;In Victory, Magnanimity;In Peace, Good will Mr. Macmillan was, I believe, right in saying that those words provided perhaps the most satisfying picture of the complete man. For they convey the rich, full-blooded life which was his: the ups and downs of fortune in politics and war; the tempest and the controversy; the grandeur; the boyish, infectious zest for living of a man for whom life was an endless adventure; the deep humanity and simplicity, of which the Prime Minister has spoken, of a man with a large heart and an open countenance. Winston Churchill knew his mind and required others to do so. He was impatient of hesitation and, except in military affairs—let us admit it—had little time for detail, for he saw things whole and wide and far.

Our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren will praise him for his vision, but for us inevitably today there is, in the forefront of our minds, his leadership of the nation to victory in war. We remember him coming here from the high councils of the allies, from every battlefront which he visited with the forces, eager always to be on the ramparts. We remember him as a master of strategy in his own right, acting as a stimulating influence on the soldiers, sailors and airmen in charge of the operations of war.

Indeed, I have often thought that it was a mark of the force and magnetism of the man that those individuals he chose as the particular instruments of victory seemed somehow to be infected with a touch of his genius and to assume a part of his mantle.

But the picture which will never die in the minds of any is his unquenchable courage during those long months when the nation stood under siege—and then, in truth, he was the incarnation of defiance of evil and of the triumph of right over wrong. And it was because conquered men and women saw in Churchill the enduring, immovable rock that hope was able to live on and to triumph over despair in many other countries other than our own.

Pericles, speaking of the Heroes' defence of Athens and of democracy, said: And having each one given his body to the Commonwealth they received instead thereof a most remarkable sepulcher—not so much that wherein they are buried so much as that other wherein their glory is laid up, on all occasions both of word and deed, for to famous men all the earth is a sepulchre: and their virtues shall be testified not only by inscription on stone at home but in all lands wheresoever in the unwritten record of the mind, which far beyond any monument will remain with all men everlastingly. Be zealous therefore to emulate them and judge that happiness is freedom and freedom is valour and be forward to encounter the dangers of war. So it might be said of Churchill, and all our people whom he inspired in his and their finest hour.

As the Prime Minister has said, his horizons of thought and imagination stretched well beyond those of other men. Years back, he would discuss with his great friend, General Smuts, and much talk of one world, and his speeches on the themes of the rôle of the English-speaking peoples and the unity of Europe and the interdependence of nations revealed a mind restless and fertile with ideas, seeking always to turn men's minds to better ways and to what he described as "the uplands of peace".

On his 90th birthday, we spoke of him in the House as a great Parliamentarian, and rightly so, for politics was his life. Because the Prime Minister has already done it I will not try today to add to the words on his great Parliamentary career, but where there was controversy there Churchill was certain to be found, using in debates in the House the broad sword and the rapiers of wit and repartee and turning and tuning them with his sensitive ear to every mood of the House.

But he was a politician in the most honourable sense of the word, for he came here into Parliament through politics to serve the nation. He was, of course, the Leader of the Conservative Party, both as Prime Minister and from these benches, and today we are heavy at heart but at the same time full of gratitude to one who gave to his colleagues unstintingly of his friendship and his loyalty, which he conceived to be two of the greatest of the virtues.

As we take leave of him, I would like to recall to the House the very last words of the book which he himself called, "My Early Life". In the last few lines, he had been talking of the worries and the struggles of politics and the challenges which he would have to face, and then he wrote this simple line: … until September, 1908, when I married and lived happily ever afterwards. To Lady Churchill, who has stood by him all his life and who was with him at the end, we would like to join with the Prime Minister in sending our admiration and our affection, and we stand in homage with the nation.