"Tower of Koutoubia Mosque”

cec1

Senior Insider
. . . though it’s unrelated to St. Barths (thus, the category “Everything Else!”), I was so struck by the story behind this lovely painting that I thought that I would share it — hoping that others also appreciate the work & story.
https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/winston-churchill-christies-sale-auction-record/index.html

“In January of 1943, after jointly attending the Casablanca Conference in Morroco to strategize against Nazi Germany, Churchill convinced Roosevelt to join him in nearby Marrakech and watch the sun drop behind the Atlas Mountains. Their brief sojourn together was memorialized by the painting,”

The words & imagery bring to mind great friendships formed on SBH through the Forum . . . in scenes of comparable special meanings. So many come to mind for me.

 
Nice article and thoughts Dennis. The many photographs over the years of Forum gatherings are like paintings of the good memories and different times.
 
Dennis, right now if I close my eyes I can “see” many “stills” from joy-filled moments spent with friends on St Barth...stills that I would love to see memorialized on canvas. How special must that time with Roosevelt have been that warranted Churchill capturing it. I wonder if Rosè was involved. :blush-smile:
 
Breakfast in bed with cigars!

When he was at home for breakfast, either at Chartwell or No. 10 Downing Street, Churchill was a creature of delightful, bluff food eccentricities: The day began when Churchill was immediately handed his glass of orange juice. It was always bottled orange juice—he didn’t like freshly squeezed—and if it was raining, he’d roundly swear at the weather. He always slept with his own pillow; wherever he went at home and abroad he carried it with him, with his black satin eye mask tucked under it.


Clad in his baroque black silk dressing gown with silver dragons, he’d brace himself for the day to come with a substantial English breakfast of cold chicken, or partridge and grouse when in season—though he was very partial to a grilled sole, too. But he always had something hot with something cold—if breakfast was bacon and eggs, then he had to have a slice of ham accompanying it, racks of hot toast with lashings of butter and jams and jellies. All with a pot of hot tea and an outsize cup


Wiping the last toast crumb from his lips, Winston perched in bed, his arms propped up with sponges placed at each of his elbows to elevate his arms (he said the breakfast table hurt his elbows). He always smoked a cigar in bed after breakfast—which ended at 9 A.M.; his ashtray was right next to his wastepaper basket, so there was always the danger of fire.

He never inhaled his cigars, though, and liked to chew on the cigar when deep in thought, collecting his cigar ends for the pipe of his gardener. This was helped along by a post-breakfast whiskey and soda to moisten his throat—served an hour after breakfast.
And all this happened in bed.

The cigars, the whiskey, British policy, the battle against Hitler, and breakfast. Winston worked through till lunch in bed. Pets were never far from Churchill’s bedside: His poodle Rufus, whose breath could wither flowers, was close by, panting gently through decayed gums
 
We had a pug, MING, breath like Rufus, and he only wanted to sleep with his head on our pillows. A test!
 
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