GREAT BRITAIN: Good Old Winnie!

The little man with the Robert Mantell delivery and the uniform of the British lighthouse service got home last week and shed the first strong light on the Atlantic conference. Nearing the last lap of the return, the crew of the Prince of Wales knew they would fetch Winston Churchill home unharmed. All the ack-acks aboard raised a jubilant barrage. Five hundred-odd miles north of the northernmost tip of Britain’s isles, their precious charge went ashore at Reykjavik, capital of Kentucky-sized Iceland.

Landing at a Scottish port two days later, he spent most of the night working in his train, the crack Peregrine express, which was reported to have been Nazi machine-gunned only 24 hours previously. Next morning at King’s Cross Station, suburbanites on their way to work were surprised to see a great crowd of Government and fighting-service notables gathered on one of the platforms. Out of the rear car stepped the roly-poly figure.

“Good old Winnie!” roared the laggard suburbanites in one voice.

Mrs. Churchill (“Clemmie”) sprinted down the platform. Behind her trotted slim Clement Richard Attlee, the Lord Privy Seal, and massive Sir John Anderson, the Lord President of Council. Churchill grinned and watched their approach. Then he gathered his wife in a vast bear hug and bussed her on both cheeks.

Donning his land-going suit of solemn black, his black bow tie, his black Homburg, Churchill was driven to Buckingham Palace to deliver President Roosevelt’s letter to King George. As his car rolled past the exultant crowds, he waved the letter at them.

What was in the letter? What had been said at that mystic tryst off the rock-bound Coast of Somewhere? While the whole world cupped its ear, the Ministry of Information permitted correspondents to cable that His Britannic Majesty’s Prime Minister had refused an option on 600 of the long, three-shilling (60¢) Havanas he loves.

Impatient of cigars, the world waited the week out for Winston Churchill to speak, knowing that in one closed hand he held the answers to all the mysteries. Last Sunday he finally opened a finger or two (see below).