In July 1940 an anonymous letter appeared in The Times - the writer, an 11 year old school boy saying he didn't want to be evacuated to Canada and 'would rather be bombed to fragments than leave England'. Winston Churchill saw the letter and was impressed by the fighting talk..
..and despite Downing Street having quite a few things to do in July 1940 asked his staff to try to identify the author so he could pass on approval. His staff managed this & found the 11 year old was David Benn son of Churchill's former Cabinet colleague William Wedgewood Benn..
..William Wedgewood Benn and Churchill had known each other for decades - they'd both been radical Liberals under Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith before Churchill drifted right and Wedgewood Benn left, joining the Labour Party..
..so Churchill was delighted by the connection and wrote to both Benns, sending young David a copy of his memoir 'My Early Life'..
..A couple of years later he also gave William Wedgewood Benn a peerage (on Attlee's request to create more Labour peers) which was some time later famously to cause his son Tony Benn some difficulty..
..I knew this story as Tony Benn mentions it in *his* memoir of growing up 'Dare To Be A Daniel' but was reminded of it as the book Churchill gave David Benn has now turned up for auction the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-…
Won't be buying it myself as I'm not sure I've got the £800+ auctioneer's estimate going spare (I expect it'll go for much more) but a fascinating listing the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-…
..Note the original wrapping paper and the address of '40 Millbank, Westminster' where the Benns then lived - which in another touch of political history later became the site of Millbank Tower and Labour HQ..
(It had earlier been the home of the Beatrice and Sydney Webb so in the days when Blair & Mandelson dominated Millbank Tony Benn used to joke he'd grown up both where Clause 4 in the Labour Party constitution was written and where it was abolished)
There are lots of other Churchill-Bennite connections, not least that Churchill supported (and donated to) Tony Benn's 1960-1963 fight to disclaim his hereditary peerage and re-enter the Commons 'Yours seems to me a very hard case'
..With Churchill's agreement at the 1963 by-election where Benn re-entered the Commons he distributed a copy of a letter from Churchill as election literature joking that he must have been the only Labour candidate ever endorsed by Winston Churchill!
In a typical Tony Benn touch he thanked Churchill saying he couldn't have won the fight without the support of 'up and coming young Tories like Winston Churchill'
