Churchill's Madeira
“There’s so much made of Sir Winston Churchill’s visit to Madeira, you’d think he had a time-share at Pestana Carlton. ”
Sir Winston Churchill
Inventor of the ‘Selfie’…
Fact is he only visited the island twice - briefly as a young newspaper correspondent on his way to cover the Boer War in South Africa in 1899 and then again to recuperate after his prodigeous efforts during the Second World War.
Arriving in Madeira on the 1st of January 1950, Churchill and his wife stayed at Reid’s Palace Hotel with a plan to stay for at least a fortnight with his assistant/biographer, Colonel William Deakin, secretaries and a small retinue; sources note he planned to write his memoirs and paint.
Knowing how keen he was on landscape painting, a Rolls-Royce was organised by the Leacock family (Madeira winemakers) to take him and his equipment to the nearby fishing village of Câmara de Lobos.
DRINKS CABINET
A quote from Sir Winston as displayed in the Pestana Churchill Bay in Câmara de Lobos.
Sir Winston is one of the world’s more famous politicians, UK Prime Ministers and renowned tipplers. Customarily photographed with a cigar in one hand and a drink in the other, his daily habit was to have two watered-down whiskies through the morning, Champagne with lunch and vintage wine with dinner, followed by a Port or brandy. His whisky of choice, so they say, was Johnnie Walker, Black or Red Label.
Churchill’s arrival at Câmara de Lobos on the 8th of January 1950
VINTAGE MADEIRA
Sir Winston and his wife at Reid’s Palace in Funchal in 1950
Churchill also held a strong affection for vintage Madeira Wine and this might have prompted him to enquire of the British Consul of Madeira “about warm, paintable, bathable, comfortable, flowery, hotels”, on the island that they might stay, he intended to spend a few weeks to recuperate after his prodigious war effort, to work on his war memoirs and to paint!
MADEIRA THERAPY
Sir Winston only took up painting at the age of 36. He freely admitted that painting, along with writing, revived his spirits and was an antidote to his frequent bouts of depression.
He went on to create some 500 paintings with subject matter ranging from his goldfish pond at Chartwell to the ‘Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque’, a view of the city of Marrakesh and the Atlas Mountains.
"‘Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque’ by Winston Churchill is considered his most important work and was bought by Angelina Jolie and subsequently sold at Christie's for £7 million.
Churchill had discovered the light and heady atmosphere of Morocco long before the hippy influx of the 1960s. Before the outbreak of WWII, he visited the city of Marrakesh six times.
CHURCHILL’S VIEWPOINT
This is fairly close to the spot where Winston set up his easel to paint Câmara de Lobos harbour
The view hasn’t changed too much in 70-odd years.
The harbour scene at Câmara de Lobos has changed little in the past 72 years.
On the 8th of January 1950, the photographer, Raul Perestrelo, captured the moment when Winston applied oil to canvas. The Madeira marketing machine has been making the most of that moment ever since!
At the time, the outlook was known as the ‘Espírito Santo’ (Holy Spirit) viewpoint. The current ‘Winston Churchill Viewpoint’ was built in 1963, but you can still stand close to the original spot.
Here is how it looks today…
Looking at the pictures of the occasion, you wonder if he was a tad warm under that big overcoat, but it was January, and sometimes, even in that month, Madeira gets a little cooler. My only question is, did they offer Sir Winston a Poncha to warm him up? I bet they did!
