War comes to England

April 6th, 2012

Apparently, Churchill was an acquired taste.

Today I checked out the Churchill Warm Rooms, which are, quite literally, the rooms from which Churchill and his cabinet conducted WWII.  This was recommended to me by Josh Schnell, CEO of OpDemand, and a fine recommendation it was.  For 20 pounds (which wouldn't get you a footlong sub in expensive American cities like Providence) I gained admission, a self-paced audio tour, and a souvenir guidebook which is a 500 to 1 long shot to ever leave my corporate flat.

So the thing to keep in mind is that these are about 20 rooms, only about a floor underground, about a block from Parliament.  Its hard to get a feel for it, but the whole place takes about an hour to walk and I'd have to think is about half a football field in total area...but all narrow halls and tiny rooms, so who knows.  Most of the bunker is covered by a 6 foot wide steel reinforced concrete slab, imported from Barker Steel in Milford, Mass.

My musical accompaniment for today's tour is The Battle of Evermore.  This whole thing is right out of the Lord of the Rings.  I know my history to some degree, but its easy to lose track of how desperate this situation must have seemed to those in London at the time.  The Nazis, lead by one of the most evil people ever to walk the planet, bombed London for 57 consecutive nights, and the blitz itself lasted from September 1940 until May 1941.  And Churchill ran the country from a basement.  He apparently hated being cooped up and he would go up on the roof in custom 'siren suits to watch the air raids.  I am not making this up

 

Few interesting thoughts on Churchill and the war rooms.  First, what an awesome man, and an amazing life and career.  The vibe you get from the museum and the exhibits is what a singular force of personality was, and how strongly he believed in his vision to lead.  He held some unpopular opinions at times but never doubted himself and eventually, he won.  In his prime he certainly wasn't always loved (see above) but he was respected

• He had a very interesting and distinguished career long before he became prime minister
• His career was almost destroyed by his backing of the assault on the Dardanelle's in the first World War
• He was 70 years old when he became Prime Minister
• His mother was American
• He received 300,000 cards on his 90th birthday
• Even after winning the War...he lost his re-election bid for PM in 1945...the ungrateful bastards.
• He won the big seat at 10 Dowling St back in 1951
• Stallin...what a dick
• They had wooden signs in the rooms that told you what the weather was like outside

I also found myself thinking about what role social media would have played back then.  By all accounts, Churchill was brilliant, but was a bit of a curmudgeon and a difficult personality at times.  He had no tolerance for any messing around, questioning of his vision or for mistakes.  How would that have worked if the bunker had a Twitter feed.