THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1950.
The Churchill Story: 2nd Instalment
WINSTON GOES TO WAR AT
IFTEEN hundred tin Foldiers and his father's
fear that he was not clever enough to be a lawyer sent
TWENTY
Winston Churchill into the By Colin Frame
Army.
He and his brother Jack shared a passion for toy soldiers, but with an elder brother's prerogative Winston com- manded all the British. qnes- an Infantry division with a cavalry brigade.
He imposed his own arma- ment limitation so that his brother had only black troops and no field guns.
Jack,
six years
Winston's junior, had a long and gallant Army career and then became a stockbroker, He died in 1947. He Chose Army
ONE
day, in an upstairs room of his London home in Connaught place, Lord Ran dolph Churchill, their father, was invited to inspect the soldiers drawn up on parade.
He knew he would be asked to draw a map of some country or other. So he put the names of all the maps in the atlas into a hat.
He drew out New Zealand, and spent the night before the exam studying it.
"
the paper
First question on next day was: Draw a map of
New Zealand.
"You have seen
us tear
down these barricades tonight; see that you pull down those responsible for them at coming election."
the
After that night of celebra- tion he had to get. back to Sandhurst by horse and trap.
just made He
the morning
parade.
About the time of his father's death, Second Lieutenant Winston Churchill joined the 4th Hussars, the cavalry regi- ment of which, although they now go to war in armoured cars and tanks, he is now Colonel.
Colonel in those days was an Irish character called Brabazon who had a style, his courage and dignity all own. his Rs. He wore an
He could not pronounce Imperial beard in defiance of . Queen's Regulations.
Napoleon could hardly have required his generals to be luckier.
To offset this, ill-luck in a daring military tactic put him to bed for weeks and invalided him for a year.
Cornered
"Where is the London on a bridge 2 boyish
twain?" he is supposed to game, he leapt from it onto a tree, missed and fell 30 have asked the station master feet. He was unconscious three
at Aldershot. "Come?. Bring days. He ruptured a kidney.
another,"
Lord Randolph, in his day the most popular politician THEN the country, entered Parlia- ment in 1874, the year Winston was born.
He founded a "ginger" group among “Conservative MPs and within ten years had captured his Party, turning it towards his own principles of "Tory de mocracy."
He was only 36 when he-be- came Chancellor of the Ex- chequer.
He was a busy man with few points of contact with his children, but he took 20 minutes over this inspection of toy soldiers, a rare act of in- dulgence.
At the end of it he said, "Would you like to go into the Army?" "Yes,"
and
an.
The Lisp
time
Off To Cuba
eighteen, he was for NDER his leadership Chur- the first
chill was to
happy, whether introduced the great men of polities drill manoeuvres of horses and in stables, or on the glittering
house. who called at his father's
He attended
men amid the dust of Long the Com-Valley at Aldershot or in mess. and was fascinated by it. mons during his convalescence, where gay uniforms and gold
ficence plate added grace and magni- arduous day.
to the end of an
Brabazon was
About that time, according to his early biographer "Ephe sian," he went secretly to see a throat
specialist to ask him to cure his lisp.
The specialist told him not handicap him in the Army, to worry since it would not
"No,"
Colonel
one
KDITOR'S PRESS GERVICE, ING-NUEVA YORK
SATURDAY EVENİNİC ~~ST
-1860-
"Will you please change places with To-Gun, dear? He won't sit with his back to a door."
FOR THE BUSINESSMAN
Development Plan
For Uganda Mines
Under ECA Scheme
London, Dec. 12.
A five-year development plan for the wolfram mines at Kigasi in South-West Uganda will raise the output of ore from 200 tons to 3,000 tons an- anually.
A final agreement on the good scheme to develop the mines was with assistance from the Econo- The mic Co-operation Administration
is expected shortly.
The scheme will make Uganda the fourth largest supplier of un-wolfram in the world.
of the new men in the British Army heard a shot fired in anger,
at that time who had There had been peace for full generation. Churchill der said young Churchill, cided that what
was but after the Army I mean to enough for his colonel have a public career and I good enough for him. must not be haunted by the idea idea that. I must avoid every fascinated
of flirting with bullets him. He had all word beginning with 's" the imaginative soldier's won
With his entrance ** said Churchill,
to Sand-derings over his behaviour he has since confessed he had over him. He only just scraped
hurst a strange change came der fire. instant vision of himself in those in the lowest posi would
He detemined that if war în immediate command. It was
not break out for him, decided as easily as that.
tion had to go into the cavalry he must go to war. which "For years," wrote Churchill avoid
most cadets tried to Only suggestion of of this critical moment, in his infantry
because being in the was a rebellion in Cuba. With life, "I thought my father with passed out with honours, eighth the
was cheaper-but he his Colonel's permission and his experience and flair had out of 150,
tug of a few strings in discerned in me the qualities of
Madrid where What
the ambassador. military genius."
had happened? Per was a family friend, this great lops his long Bhut Lord Randolph, in the conciled his restless mind and first action there, marching with illness had re- warrior of the last war saw his rare moments he thought exuberant about his elder boy, was wor-his meetings with men
energy. Perhaps Spain's army against rebels. ried about him.
like Asquith and Joseph Cham- one time berlain had focused hu am-
He
wondered at
whether he could not, send him bitions. to, some job in the Colonies-
Perhaps the answer is just
then the happy hunting ground the simple one that at last he of the unsuccessful. In one was learning something that letter
he warned his son he could see would be of value against becoming
social to him.
wastrel,"
Idolised Father
was
a war
was
He had been in the Army less than a year. He not quite 21. And Hitler, who to pit against him his military intuition, was a brat of seven. In fact
The present owners of the two largest mines, a Norwegian and a Cypriot, are being bought out by an Anglo-American group who intend to spend £500,000 on their development.
Wolfram, the raw material from which tungsten is derived, is of great strategic importance. The world supply position for ated since China, one wolfram has drastically deterior- of the
STANDARD BRIDGE
By M. Harrison-Gray
Dealer: North
Game all.
N.
He was
still occasionally in trouble. The senior cadet,
the now
Earl of Athlone,
larly. He figured, he says "for CO at several months in the Awkward Squad for those who needed smartening up."
it was on his 21st birthday that Churchill heard shots fred in anger, which struck a horse passed within a foot of his head.
KQ43
first
10
One
Q J 9 8 5
A 9 3
W.
E.
J 6
54
10
·K 8 J
A STRANGE and sad part awarded him extra drills regu-
of the
Churchill story 13 the lack of understanding of father for
cast in son, each such similar mould,
Churchill idolised him-"He seemed to have the key to everything or almost
Empire Promenade every-REPERCUSSIONS
of
His First Medal
been
was
any rate I had under
fire," he wrote in "My Early Life," "That something. Nevertheless I be- gan to take a more thoughtful view of the enterprise than I a had hitherto done."
This Spanish campaign, out resulted from one act of in- of which he collected the first discipline -but instead it of his many dozens of medals, stands as his first entry into is important to the Churchili the anna of public rebellion story for two reasons, and political speeches.
thing worth having" but with serious nature might have his son Lord Randolph was reserved, taciturn, distant.
He died without a glimpse of the great destiny to which his son would be called. He of him as a possible. thought ∙cavalry officer.
"HA
Luck
First, it
was by writing An LCC member, Mrs Or-about it for Fleet Street that. miston Chant, had begun a he earned his first pen-money. purity campagin for music He wrote five letters which halls. One of her first sue- were published. For each he cesses TJAVE you got your horses and promenade of the Empire
was to close the bars was paid £5. yet?" were the last words Theatre,
Second, it was this meeting then the favourite with Spaniards that introduced he
spoke to heart broken rendezvous of young people.
'ส
him to the siesta-the Sandhurst cadet who had
after- Churchill, on leave from lunch nap-which was to be his hurried through the January Sandhurst, used to visit it habit in two strenuous wars and snows to his death-bed.
twice a month.
to which he attributes his ability Many
years later Churchill crashed
the to work long and tedious hours. brilliantly through them
Rebuked By Prince
this barricade between and wrote a
biography of his
to
He was appalled by canvas screens erected separate the bars from the promenade, He saw in them
A
NRY
S.
A 10 9 7 6 2 K Q 8
K
10 6 2 Another example of a successful psychic trial bid in a teams-of-four match. The auction started in both rooms with One Diamond by North, One Spade by South and Two Spades by North. Bouth's Jump to Four Spades in Room I was fully justified, but he was unlucky when West led 44, the only attack to beat the contract.
South's rebid of Three Clubs in Room 3 at first sight looks like waste of time, since he must go to: game with his strong land even though North signs off in Three Spades. But as a lead-inhibiting bid it served its purpose; North. with A, four good trumps and a singleton.. jumped to Four Spades, and West shied off the Club lead. His actual choice of 3 allowed South to make 11 tricks.
London Express Service
able to slip into his place un- observed.
father which showed that in an infringement of the right of
FEW months after his some uncanny way the boy, in the individual and some rather
return from Cuba his re- filial adoration, had understood typical British hypocrisy and but just before it left, there. But he
giment was ordered to India, the man.
humbug. But so it
was the fourteenth occurred what must have been diner and the Prince was was that Lord The story goes. that on one about the most embarrassing superstitious. Randolph, probably with a sign Saturday night he stood on a experience in
Consequently of relief, turned
the boy's chair and made such an im-tenant Winston Churchill's "Don't they teach you to be -Second-Lieu- everyone awaited him in the feet toward the Army.
drawing room. took Churchill three at-Follow me and charge the Deepene, near Dorking. The punctual
He was invited to dinner at pass into Sandhurst. barricades" that they tore the Prince of Wales (later Edward Winston?" demanded the Prince, in your regiment. preliminary examina screens down. Actually that is VII) was to be there, Churchill who had been kept waiting 20
minutes.
than
for the Army he had one strokes of luck which passed his life to con decisions stranger
on.
passioned speech to the crowd
pleasant but inaccurate. Young Churchill helped in the crowd's attack upon the canvas screens. Then, standing on the deb he made his speech,
6
caught, a latish train changed in the compartment despite the scandaliesd looks of his fellow travellers and arrived at twelve minutes to nine expecting to be
Churchill's colonel was among To make matters worse,
the diners.
(TO BE CONTINUED)
sus-
world's largest suppliers, pended shipments some months ago.
The position was made worse when supplies from Korea, another important supplier, were cut off when the fighting began. -Reuter.
DRASTIC
ACTION
FORECAST
Washington, Dec. 12. Industry sources believe the United States Government will soon announce it is taking over as sole buyer of natural rubber for use in the United States, in- cluding purchases for civilian Consumers such as tyre manu- facturers.
For civilian
the past few years, consumers were able to do their own buying.
Under "Government sole buy- ing," the United States agency entrusted with the task would conduct all purchase
negotia-
tions with rubber producers and re-sell to civilian consumers in the United States under an allotment system:
Final discussions on the ad- visability of ordering "Govern ment sole buying" are in-pro- gress, now, and it is possible that such an order would be issued later this week. Buying for defence and stockpiling may be resumed as soon as the Gov- ernment completes its review of the situation and decides on the "sole" buying order.-United Press.
Irregularity In London Tin
Landon, Dec. 12.
The tin market closed irré- gular. Turnover was 115 tons, including five tons for spot.
Prices closed today at the end of the official morning session as follows:- Spot tin, buyers
1,150 Spot tin, sellers
1,160 Business done at Three-months tin, buyers 1,025 Business done at Three-months tin, sellers 1,030 Settlement
1,155
1,050-1,030 1,155 -United Presoc
here closed today unchanged
New York, Dec. 12, Prices in the metal market with the following exceptions:
Tin Grade A (88.80 per cent 140. Platinum, fort, or higher) New York, ner lb. cent fine) per Bunce, asked United Press.
99.5 per
bid/90