Winston Churchill’s Final Journey

The heroic and charismatic statesman’s last journey was replete with echoes of his extraordinary life.

1965

Queen Elizabeth II 1952-2022

Introduction

Winston Churchill’s tenacity, eloquence and principled refusal, regardless of the cost, to embrace seductive European promises of ‘progress’ and ‘harmony’ carried Blitz-torn Britain and persuaded a hesitant America to join the Allies.

SIR Winston Churchill, appointed Prime Minister in 1940 to lead Britain’s successful war effort against the Nazis, died on January 24, 1965, aged 90.

He was to be buried in Bladon, a village near Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire where Churchill was born in 1874.

On January 30th, a funeral train of six carriages set out from Waterloo station in London - apparently Churchill’s own calculated reference to the famous battle in 1815 - behind ‘Battle of Britain’ class steam locomotive No. 34051, which in 1947 had been named in Churchill’s honour; No. 34064 ‘Fighter Command’ was the appropriate backup.

Hundreds of thousands of grateful British subjects — possibly as many as a million, old, young, and even babies in their prams — lined the route muffled in thick coats and woolly hats on a bleak and overcast day, as driver Alf Hurley and 22-year-old fireman Jim Lester carried Britain’s heroic and charismatic statesman to his final place of rest.*

See Fireman recalls day he had a role in Churchill’s final journey (Yorkshire Post).

Sevens

Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.

From which London station did the funeral train leave?

Jigsaws

Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.

A train left Waterloo station. It took Churchill to Oxfordshire. He was buried near Blenheim Palace.

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