February 28, 2015

Finest Hour 157, Winter 2012-13

Page 10

By Richard M. Langworth

Upon his retirement from the Board of  the Churchill Centre UK

David Boler of Tonbridge, Kent, a mainstay of Churchill Centre leadership for twenty years, is retiring from his work with the organization with the gratitude of his colleagues. In November I had the pleasure of adding to his testimonials, reprinted here on behalf of Finest Hour.

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We met in the early Nineties, and from that time forward he was the soul of inspiration to the Churchill Society of the United Kingdom, which he took from a moribund state to a major role in Churchillian affairs, at first getting little credit and not even holding a leadership office. 

In 1996 he chaired the hugely successful 13th Churchill Conference at Ashdown Park, East Sussex, which we supported from across the pond with the largest Churchill Tour ever conducted: over eighty people. The highlight, shared with David and Diane, was a memorable dinner in the Great Hall of Blenheim Palace. At this well-remembered conference, David laid on some great speakers, including Lord Deedes, who had actually served in Sir Winston’s postwar government, and the best dance band we have ever had.

By then David had long become chairman of ICS-UK, where he installed sound business practices, along with a secretary he paid for himself. A fixture at every Churchill conference since, he soon joined the Board of The Churchill Centre and came to all of its lengthy, deliberate, sometimes hard-fought meetings to determine the future, contributing significantly to the group management that built a $1.5 million endowment by 2005. In 2003 David played a key role in the Bermuda Conference, an ambitious affair at at a historically important venue, contributing the elaborate programme and helping to produce another fine success, this time in an out-of-the-way venue “offshore.”

Nobody, not even David, probably, knows just how much of his time and resources he poured into his work. Nobody who hasn’t done it knows how draining it is to be as active as he was in a volunteer organization, how little credit you can expect from it, but how great the satisfaction is of a job well done and in the thanks of those who do remember you. David has been “labouring in the vineyard,” as Martin Gilbert calls it, for twenty years. All of those who have been associated with him and his supportive wife Diane know how important his efforts have been. And I’m sure that, from his lofty perch, Sir Winston Churchill knows it too.