Trying to ward off a nasty bout of insomnia, I've taken to reading the Alanbrooke war diaries last thing at night. Not because they're boring - they're not - but because the mandarin prose is so soothing. And the account of all his back-breaking hours of committee work and endless flying from front to front, conference to conference, makes my fretting about deadlines, etc, seem reassuringly trivial.
The entry for 24 June '42 proves, I suppose, that Alistair Campbell and Bernard Ingham weren't the first Downing Street insiders to be experts on image management. On this occasion, the prime ministerial butler (who apparently had a taste for, um, "refreshments") had the final say:
Here Sawyers again distinguished himself. Winston had changed into his Zip suit on the plane and put on his Panama hat for his arrival. The brim of his Panama was turned all the way round and he looked just like a small boy in a suit of romper going down to the beach to dig in the sand! Sawyers took up a position in the middle of the plane and refused to let him pass. Winston asked him: "What's wrong, Sawyers? Why are you getting in my way?" In a very thick voice Sawyers replied "The brim of your hat is turned up, does not look well, turn it down, turn it down!" This was accompanied by a waving gesturing of his hand. Winston, rather red and looking angry, turned the brim down. Thereupon Sawyers stood to one side, muttering to himself "That's much, much better, much better."
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