Churchill train episode in KwaZulu-Natal

[John Ashworth]

CHURCHILL TRAIN EPISODE

Railways Africa On September 14, 2011 In South Africa

A three-part documentary made in 2008 by Winston Churchill’s granddaughter Celia Sandys, rescreened recently in the UK, includes a sequence where she is filmed at a rural station in KwaZulu-Natal. She boards a boxcar in a 610mm gauge train pulled by a class NGG16 Garratt. It’s a nice touch appearing to give the narrative authenticity – Churchill indeed travelled by train in Natal – only that was a full-size, 1,067mm gauge affair with much earlier locomotive power, some years before Garratts came into the picture.

The child of Churchill’s eldest child, Diana, and British Cabinet Minister Duncan Sandys, Celia was 21 when her grandfather died in 1965. By then, she had become very close to him, often accompanying him on many trips he undertook in his later years.

One quote from Sandys’ books on her grandfather: “While staying at the Plaza in New York, Churchill said, ‘I am a man of simple taste easily satisfied by the best’”