Patrick Kinna, who died on March 14 aged 95, was Winston Churchill's confidential assistant during the Second World War and saw the great man in some of his most private moments.
At Christmas 1941, while Churchill was staying at the White House, Kinna was summoned to take dictation by the prime minister, who was soaking in his bathtub, planning the speech he would make to Congress on Boxing Day. Finding the muse, Churchill stomped in and out of the tub, evading the ministrations of a valet with a bath-towel.
As the prime minister paced the room "completely starkers", Kinna recalled, there was a knock on the door and Churchill went to open it. It was Roosevelt in his wheelchair. Mortified at finding his guest with nothing on, the president prepared to make his excuses, but was prevented by Churchill. "Oh no, no, Mr President," he said. "As you can see, I have nothing to hide from you."
Nice, but if he worked with Bevin:
news of Kinna's skills had reached the ears of Ernest Bevin, now foreign secretary. "If he was good enough for Winston, he's good enough for me," Bevin is supposed to have said. Kinna worked with Bevin until his death in 1951,
I'd love to know things about the end of the Palestine Mandate.
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a similar thing happened to Churchill while staying in the Lincoln bedroom. While getting out of the bath, he supposedly saw Lincoln. Churchill had only a cigar and is said to have stated, "you have me at a disadvantage Mr. President". It is not known if it is true, but it is known that Churchill never again slept in the Lincoln bedroom.
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