A Child of the House

Winston Churchill was elected to the House of Commons in 1900--when Victoria was still Queen and Gladstone had been gone only five years. Almost immediately he became one of its storm centers. His views were often heretic, often changed--and often right. In his maiden speech, he bolted Tory doctrine to argue--ironically--against trying to match the power of "the clanking military empires of the European continent." Shortly afterward he bolted the Conservative Party itself, joined David Lloyd George's Liberals, only to return 20 years later, completely unabashed: "Anybody can rat, but it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat."

Churchill liked to describe himself as "a child of the house"--and he was often a very naughty child indeed. In debate he was irrepressible and wicked. "I wonder that a great many of my colleagues are on speaking terms with me," he once disclosed.

Something, Sweet Something. Many of his colleagues wondered too. To make his point, Churchill heckled, stormed, pleaded, reasoned, even thumbed his nose and stuck out his tongue. From his front-row seat, a few square inches of green leather on the front bench, he loved to distract opponents by rumbling softly to himself while they were speaking, but reacted violently to interruption of his own words.

He had favorite targets on the Opposition benches. Ramsay MacDonald was "the boneless wonder," Clement Attlee was "a sheep in sheep's clothing." When the postwar Labor government began measuring its home-building program in terms of "accommodation units," Churchill sang mockingly: "Accommodation unit, sweet accommodation unit, there's no place like accommodation unit."

For all his mischief, Churchill loved the House. When German bombs gutted it in 1941, Churchill stood amid the war-torn rubble for five minutes, tears running down his cheeks, then turned to an aide. "This chamber must be rebuilt--just as it was," he said quietly. At war's end, he laid the cornerstone.

Never the LIke Again. Last week he and his House of Commons bade each other final farewell. Leaning heavily on his two backbench volunteer escorts, Churchill--now 89 and too feeble to stand for re-election--rose painfully from his front-row corner seat, tottered up the aisle, turned slowly to make the usual bow of recognition to the Speaker.

Next day, for the first time since 1814, the House formally recorded its admiration and gratitude for one man. The resolution was moved by the Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, and was followed by brief tributes by Liberal Jo Grimond, arch-Conservative Sir Thomas Moore, Labor's Harold Wilson and Emanuel Shinwell.

Finally, former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who after 40 years in the House was also ending his parliamentary career, rose to speak to the hushed chamber: "The life of the man we are today honoring is unique. The oldest amongst us can recall nothing to compare with it. The younger ones among you, however long you live, will never see the like again."

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