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Churchill, Winston (1874 – 1965)

‘You have followed month by month our steady march from mortal peril to what is now almost certain victory’

A superb wartime autograph letter signed by Winston Churchill, 1st August 1943, on Downing Street headed paper. The wartime leader writes to his aunt Leonie.

In full: ‘Dearest Leonie, Shane tells me he is going over to see you next week, so I send by him these few lines. It is always a great pleasure to me to feel that you have been watching so interestedly all the tremendous matter of war and State in which I have my part, and have followed month by month our steady march from mortal peril to what is now almost certain victory. You have sent me a lot of charming messages which have cheered me greatly on this long journey. They give me what no one else can give me, the link with my youth and with my mother. I love to feel your presence on this distracted but triumphant scene. May you long be spared to wave me and all of us onward. Your ever loving Winston.’ In very fine condition.

Whilst the war was far from over in August 1943, it was nonetheless an inflection point. Germany was on the defensive on the Eastern Front, close to defeat in the battle of Kursk, and the Allies had invaded Sicily three weeks earlier, Mussolini had been overthrown.

An extraordinarily candid and tender letter by Churchill that encapsulates his mood towards the end of 1943. He reflects soberly on the long journey that has been so far travelled (‘from mortal peril to… victory’) whilst expressing a yearning for his childhood and his mother. Such letters are extremely rare to the market and highly prized.