Winston Churchill's Forgotten Private Secretary. The tragic story of Gillian Maturin

[@AdventuresUnseen24]

Watching now 🤗

[@tacraling]

@@AdventuresUnseen24 Thank you, Marsha. I hope you enjoy it! 👍😀

[@spitfirekev]

What a fantastic story. I'm a big Churchill fan too Andy. Excellent Job done 👏👏👏👏👏

[@tacraling]

@spitfirekev Many thanks, Kev. That's greatly appreciated, and I'm glad you enjoyed it. I hope to have the second film available in the very near future. Thank you for your continued support! 👍😀

[@spitfirekev]

@@tacraling I've some interesting stuff of Churchill. I may have to do some smalls.

[@tacraling]

@@spitfirekev That would be great, Kev. I've done a few videos on items in my history collection, and I hope to do more. The research is half the fun! I look forward to seeing what you have. 👍

[@edwardkingthompson]

Excellent video Andy! A tragic but important story which I'd never heard. Thank you for bringing Gillian's life to our attention. A person only really dies when they are remembered for the last time. So you are keeping her legacy alive by sharing this extraordinary tale!

[@tacraling]

@edwardkingthompson Thank you, Edward. That's very kind of you. It's a remarkable but tragic story that was fascinating to research. Hopefully, I will have the second video available very soon. 🙂

[@peterhewson3216]

Every detail of every artefact or photograph can reveal the most interesting stories if you care to look further, and that is what history is made of- the loves, lives of all and not just the major events. People make up the world and hence its story too.

[@tacraling]

@peterhewson3216 Yes, indeed, Peter. For me, history is about looking "under the surface" to find the hidden details and the broader picture. No one can truly understand the present without a knowledge of the past. Many thanks for watching. 👍🙂

[@TravelWithLisaMH]

Wow. Interesting, but sad story. Thank you for sharing this ❤

[@tacraling]

@@TravelWithLisaMH Many thanks for watching and for your continued support, Lisa. It's greatly appreciated. 👍😀

[@TravelWithLisaMH]

@@tacraling You are more than welcome 😊

[@markshrimpton3138]

Having read several biographies of Churchill it’s clear that he expected a lot from people, his secretaries included. For example they worked ludicrously long hours sometimes until midnight and the great man never imagined that they might require time off or had private lives. Perhaps Gillian succumbed to the pressures placed upon her. My only Churchill story concerns my Dad’s brother, my late Uncle Peter, who was a pilot in Coastal Command during the war. He had the dubious honour to fly Churchill a couple of times in the Mediterranean. Dubious because the old man was a terror and it was an effort to keep him from trying his hand at flying the plane. Churchill as you probably know had undertaken a few flying lessons in the very early days of flight and fancied himself as a pilot.

[@tacraling]

@markshrimpton3138 Many thanks for watching, Mark, and I love the story about your Uncle Peter! What a claim to fame! I have heard about Churchill's fondness for taking the controls, but unfortunately, he was not mechanically gifted. Apparently, Clementine was thoroughly relieved when he gave up driving!

[@markshrimpton3138]

@@tacraling my uncle, operated Sunderlands then the American Catalinas which he loved. He was court-martialled for landing another aircraft at an airbase somewhere and forgetting to lower the undercarriage! So used had he become to bringing in seaplanes that he just forgot.

[@tacraling]

@@markshrimpton3138 🤣 Oh my goodness, what a story! I can just imagine his embarrassment at the court martial. I bet his colleagues never let him forget it! 🤣

[@markshrimpton3138]

@@tacraling after the war he never flew a plane again, but worked for Marconi in design.

[@tacraling]

@markshrimpton3138 Now that's spooky! My late uncle was also in the R.A.F. during World War II, serving as a mechanic throughout the liberation of Europe campaign. He later worked for Marconi as well! In his case, it was around the late 1950s and early 1960s, I believe, and he was based at a factory somewhere in south London. It's a small world!

[@joanmatchett8100]

What a tragic family, so sad . I'm not a big fan of Churchill, but he is a very big part of WW2 history. I visited Churchill's war room's in London year's ago . Well worth the visit.

[@tacraling]

@@joanmatchett8100 That's a place I really want to visit one day, Joan. However, I'm not sure I would be willing to leave! 🤣

[@joanmatchett8100]

@@tacraling It's well worth the visit, looking at all the room's, a walk back in history.

[@tacraling]

@joanmatchett8100 Yes, I don't doubt it. I'm sure I would really love it. I visited the tunnels at Dover Castle many years ago and saw where Operation Dynamo (the evacuation of Dunkirk) was coordinated. That was fantastic, too! 😀

[@peterhewson3216]

Wonder what her father did in the RAF and if that impinged upon her selection to take up such a prestigious post?

[@tacraling]

@peterhewson3216 Her father's first spell in the R.A.F. was from 1920 to 1924. He resigned whilst holding the rank of Flying Officer. A couple of the theories relating to Gillian's position do indeed relate to the R.A.F. but they're very speculative. However, it does make you wonder.

[@thebeatentrack156]

Great story 😊

[@tacraling]

@@thebeatentrack156 Thank you very much for watching. I'm glad you enjoyed it. 🙂

[@pooooornopigeon]

There's very good evidence his father Lord Randolph Churchill was one of the main players in the Jack the Ripper gang ( originally known in the police files as The Whitechapel Murders ) It was a group of masons killing off Mary Kelly and her prostitute friends as they were blackmailing the royal family. My great grandfather was born in 1874 in Whitechapel and knew Mary Kelly well, the artist Walter Sickert was also involved to some degree, I have a picture of my great grandmother drawn by Sickert as she was an artist's model.

[@tacraling]

@@pooooornopigeon I've heard about the potential Masonic connection, Michael, but never about a possible link to Randolph. That's very interesting. He was certainly a complicated man, to say the least! What an amazing piece of family history you have, too! Those are the kind of stories that should always be preserved within families. Many thanks for watching and for sharing. 👍😀

[@pooooornopigeon]

@@tacraling You're welcome Andrew, you've made a fascinating video once again. It's also one of the reasons the papers were put on a 100 year rule, sounds familiar eh ?

[@tacraling]

@@pooooornopigeon Yes, indeed! I'm glad you enjoyed the video, Michael. I hope to have the second part available soon. 👍

[@john211murphy]

In 1937, Churchill stated that: I do not admit ... for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.