Maggs Bros.

With a bold gift inscription from Mary Soames to Grace Hamblin OBE (1908-2002), the longest-serving member of Winston S. Churchill’s secretarial staff, in black ink to the title page: ‘For dear Grace from Christopher and Mary with our great affection Christmas 1985’. Additionally inscribed by Soames to Hamblin ‘Dear Grace A very happy Christmas & New Year from Christopher Mary with our love’ in black ink on a Christmas gift label loosely inserted.

Hamblin originally served as a junior secretary to Churchill from 1932-1937 during the so-called “Wilderness Years”, then acting as Clementine Churchill’s assistant from 1939-1945, accompanying Clementine on her post-war tour of red cross hospitals in the Soviet Union. After the war, Hamblin was appointed secretary and administrator at Chartwell, continuing in her role as Chartwell’s first Curator after the house became a National Trust property in 1966. In 1965, Hamblin was one of the very few non-family members invited to attend Churchill’s burial service at St Martin’s Church, Bladon. “Grace Hamblin died in 2002, aged ninety-four. She had spent seventy of those years working with the Churchills and strengthening and promoting their memory, the longest-serving member of Churchill’s secretarial staff” (Stelzer, Working with Winston, p. 45). Hamblin earned some posthumous notoriety when her apparent role in the suppression of Graham Sutherland’s controversial portrait of Churchill was revealed.

Just about a very good copy overall, jacket price clipped with light wear and creasing to extremities.