Churchill Letter to Lord Beaverbrook with Very Good Content

Typescript letter from Sir Winston Churchill to Lord Beaverbrook, commonly known as Max. (William Maxwell Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook) on 10 Downing Street stationery with the Prime Minister’s seal.

Date: 15th March, 1953
2 pages, recto only
Both pages have 3 filing holes as can  be seen in the image below

Salutation: My Dear Max
Churchill signed off with: Yours ever Winston

Clearly Max Aitken was a personal friend of Churchill’s. A British-Canadian media tycoon, Aitken moved his family to England in the early 1900’s and from 1940-1941 he was Winston Churchill’s Minister of Aircraft Production. Here’s more info about Max Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook)

Churchill gratefully turning down an invitation to spend the Easter holidays at Lord Beaverbrook’s estate in Cap d’Ail, France, due to work obligations as well as reasons of personal interest.  He writes:

“In the first place I have two horses running on Easter Saturday and two more on Easter Monday whose fortunes are of great interest to me. But more seriously the budget comes in immediately after the recess and this affects our affairs so much that I feel bound to be in constant touch with Rab, so I am going to stay at Chartwell with a number of grandchildren (…). Hardly a week passes without some unusual misfortune. The Larne packet, the floods, the poor soldiers and their wives flying to Jamaica. The new Soviet Government shooting down our airplane and kiling six men. Neguib, Mussadiq and all the rest. However I am going to welcome Tito on Monday.”

Ending with a manuscript PS: “Clemmie has just shown me your most kind letter which[?] she has called a reply“.

Max Aitken was a British-Canadian media tycoon, wartime minister of Aircraft Production and personal friend of Winston Churchill.