His finest hour?

On June 18, 1940, the Prime Minister first addressed Parliament, then the British nation, during one of the darkest and most uncertain moments of the Second World War.

The Battle of France was coming to an end, the Battle of Britain was about to begin. The country stood alone against the might of a German offensive that had swept much of Europe before it.

The speech he delivered on June 18 was to become of the most celebrated of the war – and his career.

But while many consider Churchill’s oratorical mastery to have sometimes been improvised or off-the-cuff, a new examination of his papers, held at Cambridge University’s Churchill Archives Centre, reveals the toil that went into early drafts - and the revisions made until the last possible moment before delivery.

In time for the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, Archives Director Allen Packwood and historian Max Arthur have drawn together the wealth of material held at Churchill College’s Archives Centre, including Sir Winston’s own papers, those of his wife, and staff such as private secretary Sir Jock Colville.

Speaking about the first draft of the ‘finest hour’ speech, Packwood said: “The page is covered with his handwritten annotations in red and blue ink. It highlights how much care and attention Churchill put into this speech. He knew how much was riding on this. The country was facing a huge national crisis. France had capitulated and Britain was facing the prospect of attack and invasion.”

Max Arthur, author of the just published Last of the Few, said: “This is a colossal speech, the way he’s evolved it, thought it through, realising more than any other Prime Minister before him just what impact this would have on the nation.”

Despite the warm reception of the public, the private diary of Colville, also held at the Archives Centre, reveals the view from the eye of the storm.

Packwood said: “Colville took a keen interest in the speech, he saw Churchill develop it and went along to hear him deliver it to the House of Commons. But to his mind, Churchill spoke less well than he had in the past and referred to his notes more often.

“He did say that he ‘ended magnificently’, which of course he did. Colville then heard it again on the radio that evening and records his impressions in the diary again. Colville said that it was too long and that Churchill sounded tired. Well, fortunately, most of the nation didn’t agree. Only someone that close to Churchill would have been that critical about the speech.”

The archival papers held at Cambridge University also reveal that the Prime Minister made late changes to his final speaking notes.

Packwood added: “Even at that stage you still have last minute changes and annotations, clearly indicating that he was working and reworking this speech right up until the point of delivery. You can imagine him sitting on the front bench of the House of Commons spotting an error and making a quick change.

“Perhaps the best example of this is on the penultimate page of these final speaking notes. He says ‘The Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin’, and just before that phrase he’s added in his own red pen, at the last moment, ‘all shall be restored’.

“As you move from first draft to finished speaking notes the speech undergoes a transformation. The final note is set out in a blank verse format, set out like the Book of Psalms. It looks like poetry, it brings it to life, it gives him, I think, the rhythm, it enables that great Churchill oratory. Nowhere is that more evident in this speech than in the very final page, that great crescendo.”

Meanwhile, the stress Churchill was under, and the impact it was having on his personality, is laid bare in a letter from his wife, Clementine, during the dark days following the fall of France.

Packwood said: “We also have the most amazing letter from Clementine, written just two weeks after the finest hour speech, giving an insight into some of the terrible pressures and strains he was under at that time.”

In the letter, Clementine writes: ‘My darling, I hope you will forgive me if I tell you something I feel you ought to know. One of the men in your entourage, a devoted friend, has been to me and told me there is a danger of your being generally disliked by your colleagues and subordinates because of your rough, sarcastic and overbearing manner’.

She goes on to say: ‘My darling Winston, I must confess that I have noticed a deterioration in your manner and you are not so kind as you used to be’.

She adds that he must demonstrate ‘Olympic calm’ and ends her letter by saying: ‘You will not get the best results by irascibility and rudeness, they will breed either dislike or a slave mentality’.

Packwood added: “I think there is a big danger in this day and age of Churchill assuming a purely iconic status. The Archives reveal all the aspects of his character. You can see him wrestling with problems. You can see him not coming to the final conclusion straight away, and you can see how he reached that conclusion.

“What you can see here is his self-belief, his determination, his humanity, that leads us on from the dark days of 1940 to final victory in 1945.

“What the Archives hold is the raw material of history. The only way you can be sure of what he wrote is having the original to go back and check. There’s nothing quite like seeing the piece of paper that Churchill signed or the page that Churchill had in his hand when he delivered that amazing climax to his finest hour speech.”