March 28, 2015

Finest Hour 127, Summer 2005

Page 51

Senior editor Paul Courtenay was first to identify nearly all of the maypole dancers on the back cover of the previous issue, number 126.

From left to right (roughly): Mossadeq of Iran (overthrown with the help of British and American intelligence), King Saud (likely), General Mark Clark (C-in-C Far East and suitably portrayed facing Mao), German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, unknown European (possibly a Greek or Spain’s Franco), unknown African (possibly Kwame Nkrumah), Mao Tse-tung, Malan of South Africa (or possibly Paul Henri Spaak of Belgium), another African, Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, unknown Japanese, unknown Latin American, Dwight Eisenhower, Juan Peron, Jawaharlal Nehru, Georgi Malenkov, Chin Peng of Malaya, and Neguib of Egypt. If anyone thinks they can better this, they had better let us know!

French Habitations

A reader wrote to ask where Churchill stayed on his many visits to the French Riviera, and whether he frequented the Villa Roccabella. We could find nothing about Roccabella, but those we know about (where he either stayed or visited) include the following:

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Chateau de l’Horizon, Golfe- Juan (Maxine Elliott)

La Capponcina, Cap d’Ail (Lord Beaverbrook)

La Croe, Cap d’Antibes (Duke & Duchess of Windsor)

Villa Mauresque, Cap Ferrat (Somerset Maugham)

La Pausa, Roquebrune (Emery & Wendy Reves)

Les Zoraïdes, Cap Martin (Daisy Fellowes)

La Dragonière, Cap Martin (Lord Rothermere)

Lou Mas, St Jean-Cap Ferrat (Countess of Essex)

Lou Seuil, Eze (Jacques & Consuelo Balsan)

It’s always possible that he visited Roccabella while staying at one of the above, but I don’t think he ever stayed there, and “frequented” is probably an exaggeration. If we knew the identities of previous owners, we might be able to find out more. —PHC