May 12, 2013

Finest Hour 149, Winter 2010-11

Page 19

Riddles, Mysteries, Enigmas


Harvie-Watt: Behind Closed Doors

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While visiting the secret War Rooms and Churchill Museum in London, we saw the rooms occupied by Winston Churchill’s staff and assistants. The doors were open so that visitors could see where the people worked and slept during the Blitz. But there was one exception: a closed door under a sign reading, “General Harvie-Watt.” Is there a reason for this? I understand that Harvie-Watt was a personal assistant to Churchill, and influential, yet I found no reference to him in the museum. —ADRIAN LOTHERINGTON

Phil Reed, director of the War Rooms, advises that Harvie-Watt’s room has never been open since the area was refurbished in 2003. Although some rooms were restored to their wartime appearance, space limitations prevented more. The room houses computer service equipment.
       
George Harvie-Watt (1903-1989) was Conservative MP for Keighley, 1931-35, and for Richmond, Surrey, 1937-59. He was educated at George Watson’s College, Edinburgh, then at the University of Glasgow and the University of Edinburgh. He was commissioned into the Territorial Army Royal Engineers in 1924 and became a barrister at Inner Temple in 1930. In 1941-45 he was WSC’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, so he would certainly be entitled to a room in the bunker.

Harvie-Watt became a Lieutenant Colonel in the Territorial Army in 1938 and was promoted to Brigadier in 1941—hence the “General” title. Many copies of his memoirs, Most of My Life (London: Springwood, 1980) are available on bookfinder.com. There are several mentions of him in Jock Colville’s memoirs, The Churchillians and Fringes of Power, and of course he comes up in Sir Martin Gilbert’s official biography, Winston S. Churchill.

In Volume VI, 828-29, is an amusing account from autumn 1940, when Harvie-Watt was commanding an anti-aircraft unit during a visit by Churchill and General Pile, which helps explain why WSC later made him his PPS—and why Churchill was able to imbibe so many whiskies—he never drank them neat!….

As they arrived, Pile told Harvie-Watt that Churchill was “frozen and in a bad temper” and suggested that the Prime Minister be brought “a strong whisky and soda.” Harvie-Watt sent a despatch rider to find one.

“Meanwhile,” he later recalled, “everything was going from bad to worse. The field was almost waterlogged and the rain poured down. Everything I tried to show the Prime Minister he had seen before.” The searchlight control radar set, which had worked on the previous night, failed to function.

A few days earlier it had been announced that because of illhealth, Chamberlain would resign as Leader of the Conservative Party. The question being much debated was whether or not Churchill should succeed Chamberlain as Leader. “I said it would be fatal if he did not lead the Conservative Party,” HarvieWatt recalled, “as the bulk of the party was anxious that he should be the Leader now we were at war.”

Churchill, however, “was still suspicious of [the Conservatives] and of their attitude to him before the war. I said it was only a small section of the party that took that line and that the mass of the party was with him. My strongest argument, however, and I felt this very much, was that it was essential for the PM to have his own party—a strong one with allies attracted from the main groups and especially the Opposition parties. But essentially he must have a majority and I was sure this majority could only come from the Conservative Party.”

Not wishing to miss an opportunity of advice from a member of the Whips Office, Churchill questioned Harvie-Watt about “the strength of Ministers and what influence they wielded.” Harvie-Watt replied: “If you have a strong army of MPs under you, Ministers would be won over or crushed, if necessary.” Churchill, he noted, “seemed to appreciate my arguments and thanked me very much. Then he began to feel the cold again and agitated to get away.”

At this moment the despatch rider arrived with the whisky, and Harvie-Watt poured one for the freezing Prime Minister. Churchill swallowed a half-tumbler, then cried out at the taste of the neat whisky: “You have poisoned me.”

Churchill did not nurse a bottle, as an alcoholic would, and occasionally remarked to those who took whisky neat, “you are not likely to live a long life if you drink it like that.” Perhaps this is more than you wanted to know about George Harvie-Watt.

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