GREAT FRIENDS: Beaverbrook and Churchill

MOST of us who had the privilege of working on the Express titles in their better days will be aware of the great architect of that success, the real Editor-in-Chief, Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook. As an instinctive newspaperman he was an undoubted genius but that was far from the full picture of the pugnacious little Canadian.

He was also the Man who Won the War. Not the battle of newspaper circulations — I'm talking of the Second World War.

And if you think that's quite a claim, then ask yourself this question: If we had lost the Battle of Britain what would have happened? The answer is, almost certainly Hitler would have followed up with an immediate sea and land invasion and, despite Churchill's inspiring rhetoric about fighting in the hills, the landing grounds and the streets, the swastika would surely have been flying over Buckingham Palace within months.

But what has the battle in the air got to do with the Beaver? Everything. Immediately after Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940, he asked Beaverbrook to take the role of Minister of Aircraft Production. Twice he refused but when he came round, he did so only on his very specific terms; he would not be a part of the Air Ministry, he reported to no one, sometimes not even the PM, and there would be no boring Civil Service way of working where agendas, minutes and triplicates were the order of the day.

That is how his grand London home, Stornoway House overlooking Green Park, became the hub of the quest to produce enough Spitfire and Hurricane fighters to see off the Luftwaffe. The first thing he did, naturally, was to bring over to Stornoway three Express people: one journalist, David Farrer, and two managers, because he trusted them. Within a week every room in the vast property was a hive of activity; the ballroom and library were the main meeting rooms (on sunny days the terrace was also in the mix), bedrooms were used for work and not sleep, secretaries, unable to find any other space, perched with their typewriters in bathrooms.  

And his first decision? Close the Vickers Supermarine factory in Southampton where the planes were produced because they were being destroyed on an almost daily basis by bombing raids from just across the channel. All work would be done in a series of satellites ranging from large barns to bus garages throughout the country and strictly anonymously. Suddenly the numbers of planes completed and not destroyed rose. And as for the ones shot down but retrievable, they would be cannibalised and vital parts used to make another fighter. 

The result was nothing short of miraculous; when Hitler launched his air assault on Britain in August 1940, barely three months after Beaverbrook took the role, we had a 749 serviceable fighter planes to go to war. We were still outnumbered three to one by the Luftwaffe but we had the better aircraft and the bravest young pilots. Not to mention right on our side. 

By any standards, and in peace as well as well as war, Beaverbrook was an extraordinary man. He could be tyrannical and like most tyrants, could change his mind as often as drawing breath. When he bought a stake in the Daily Express in 1911 and a controlling interest five years later it was on its uppers. By the 1950s it was selling 4.3 million copies a day. He managed to do that while writing a dozen books, throw lavish parties in one of his three homes in and around London,  serve as an MP, be in the Cabinet in both world wars, have a series of affairs and, most important, be Winston Churchill's greatest friend, confidant and advisor.   

It is this relationship which is now occupying much of my time because I have been approached to write a book on these two giants who grew close in the 1920s, 10 years after first meeting. They did not agree about everything, far from it. They fell out over Churchill's decision, when Chancellor in 1925, to return to the Gold Standard with the Beaver unleashing the Express against him. Most significantly, Beaverbrook was initially an appeaser, supporting Chamberlain's efforts to make peace with Hitler. But earlier, they were allied in their support for Edward VIII and marriage to Mrs Simpson. In the end it came to nothing when the King abdicated or as Beaverbrook said: “Our cock won't fight.”

Beaverbrook said of his friend: “Churchill up was frightening but down he was magnificent!” For Churchill, Beaverbrook was “my foul weather friend” and there could be no greater compliment. And that, despite how Clementine Churchill felt — she couldn't stand him. To her he was a 'malevolent imp', one of the Dreadful Bs, Beaverbrook, Birkenhead and Brendan Bracken. What her husband and the Beaver had in common was that they were mavericks, Churchill changing party allegiances and the Beaver seemingly permanently on manoeuvres, plotting, plotting, plotting.

Come the war, both were magnificent; Churchill mobilised the English language to keep up the morale of ordinary British people and Aitken used his newspapers to inform and inspire despite the effects of paper rationing. And after Aircraft Production came the Hess Affair when Hitler' s apparent ally Rudolf Hess flew to Scotland and the Beaver was sent to interview him. Hess revealed that Hitler was about to invade the Soviet Union and, on June 22 1941, his prediction came true. Beaverbrook, at Churchill's behest, flew to meet Stalin and an unlikely friendship, or mutual admiration, soon developed. Bringing the Soviets on the Allied side was his triumph.

Beaverbrook also began a friendship with Roosevelt and accompanied Churchill to summits with the US President. In many ways, Max was the essential glue Churchill so desperately needed. He was also the one man to whom WSC would turn for advice or to confirm a difficult decision. 

The two great men died within six months of one another and the Beaver said this of Churchill: “Churchill was always a better friend to his friends than they were to him.”  

And this is what Churchill said of his greatest friend: “People who did not know the services he had rendered during his tenure of office or his force, driving power, and judgment as I did, often wondered why his influence with me stood so high. They overlooked our long association in the events of the First World War and its aftermath … we belonged to an older political generation. Often we had been on different sides in the crises and quarrels of those former days; sometimes we had even been fiercely opposed; yet on the whole a relationship had been maintained which was a part of the continuity of my public life, and this was cemented by warm personal friendship.”

And Time Magazine said this of the Beaver shortly after our victory in the Battle of Britain: "If Britain holds out it will be his triumph" 

His finest hour in fact.

 

*****

What the hell is going on with our police? Six cops raid a house in Hertfordshire apparently because a couple complained in a WhatsApp group about the recruitment process for a new headteacher at their daughter's primary school. The parents were fingerprinted, searched and held in police cells for eight hours. Not content with that, they warned a county councillor not to take up their case or she too would be investigated.

Then 20, yes 20, Met police armed with tasers, raid a Quaker meeting house breaking the door, which is always kept open, and arrest and handcuff six women who were inside eating hummus (!) and all because they were discussing a peaceful demonstration, or 'conspiracy to cause a public nuisance'. In Metspeak.

It seems Orwell's Thought Police has arrived while rapes, knife crimes and the shoplifting epidemic carry on regardless. It's not the sort of country Churchill and Beaverbrook fought for.

*****

Sad to see that Patrick Kidd is no longer The Times Diarist. The fellow Wodehouse enthusiast has hung up his clever pen after 12 years. Who will take over? Step forward, Helena and Hermione!    

ALAN FRAME

1 April 2025