Stolen Churchill Letter Found

By Angela Gooch on November 17th, 2008

Stolen Lady Churchill letter found after 15 years

Found – after 15 years! A letter from Lady Churchill to Skegness photographer, Norman Beckett thanking him and his brother Cyril for raising money towards her ‘Aid for Russia’ fund.

The letter, along with £50 in cash and various papers was stolen from the home of Mrs Clara Beckett in Scarbrough Avenue [Skegness] in 1951.

Schoolboys, whilst clearing out rubbish from under the cricket pavilion at Skegness Grammar School, found a mahogany box. Inside was the letter from Lady Churchill, plus marriage and birth certificates, but the £50 was missing.

Aid for Russia

It was September 1943 when Lady Churchill sent the handwritten letter from No 10 Downing Street to Mrs Beckett’s two sons, Norman and Cyril, expressing gratitude for their contribution toward the Aid for Russia fund.

The letter to Norman and Cyril,then aged 11 and 12, read as follows – “I am most grateful to you for the trouble you have taken to help the heroic Russians in their terrible but victorious struggle against the wicked invaders of their country”.

It was signed, ‘your sincere friend Clementine Churchill’.

Norman, now aged 34 and married with six children, commented, “I think we sent about 25s [shillings] to the fund. It’s nice to know we have still got something to remember our war effort by”.