Tag Archives: Winston Churchill

The Prime Minister Who Dodged Tax

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primeministerwho dodgedtaxI know what you are thinking. It’s Dave, right? Well, no. There is no evidence Prime Minster David Cameron has avoided tax. Not so one of his predecessors. In fact, one of the most well thought of Prime Ministers earned a fortune and used his power to dodge tax.

Winston Churchill made a substantial amount of money but he conspired with the chairman of the Inland Revenue to cut his tax bill. The Inland Revenue have two thick files on Churchill, but no one found out about his tax dodging when Churchill was alive. In fact, the only newspaper I have read about it in is the amazing Sunday Times. In an article written by David Lough, author of No More Champagne: Churchill And His Money.

You only have to read Churchill’s archive to find out that Churchill was not as patriotic as one would think. He was happy to pay tax for the first 40 years of his life, even supporting Lloyd George’s introduction of a super-tax. But as soon as he was rich enough to be affected by it he seemed to change his mind.

When Churchill was Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1924 he owed £400,000 in todays money but could not pay. He personally called on the Inland Revenue Chairman Richard Hopkins who sorted the issue out for him. Hopkins went off and found out that if Churchill retired as an author on the last day of the tax year, fees paid the following year could be treated as capital receipts not income. Capital receipts were not taxed. Churchill did so.

This was not the last time he called Hopkins to his office and Churchill resumed writing. He dodged much more tax and the Inland Revenue barely put up a fight. In 1945 he made £6 million from selling film rights to his books, all of which went untaxed. The IRS would not have any of it however, and Churchill’s executors had to settle with the American tax authorities after his death.

What do you think? Did you know that Churchill dodged tax?

All Hell Let Loose In World War 1 By Wendy Breckon

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THE UNTOLD STORY OF WILLIAM AND TOM so that we can give thanks to all those represented by the poppies planted in commemoration at the Tower before memory fades into the frenzy of Christmas.

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Patriotic fever, uncertainty and a touch of sadness are in the air. The year is 1915. Our country is at war. This is the moving story of two men, both connected to my family.

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The first, my great grandfather William Ralph Wootton, was born in 1877 in Ardwick Manchester.  The other, born in Bedfordshire in 1884 many miles away, Thomas Henry Seamer, my husband’s grandfather.

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Two young men leaving their families, not sure of their future, but that is where the similarity ends.  One returned and sadly one did not.

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The father of five sons, William Ralph, Lance Corporal Wootton (2748) of the 5/7th Lancashire Fusiliers was killed on the 9th August 1915 in Gallipoli.  He met his bloody end a few weeks after joining up in the battle of Krithie Vineyard.

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My poor great grandmother paid the price as he did, for the ‘Hell Let Loose’ campaign, (a term coined by one of the battalion survivors).  Now the repercussions started.  My grandfather, William Richard, the oldest son, had to go out to work to support the family.  As well as losing his dad, his dreams of further education as he was such a bright lad, were scuppered.  He never got over this and remained resentful.

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Years later, he and his brothers were working in a mill in Lancashire when Winston Churchill visited.  As they blamed him for their father’s death, due to the mishandling of the Gallipoli conflict, all five of then turned their backs on him and continued working, as Churchill walked down the aisles.  Each of the Wootton brothers had their pay docked for not switching off their machines.  Such feelings are understandable, as sadly they had all paid the price of growing up without their father.

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In my hand, there is a faded brown leather wallet, a bullet, and a selection of torn letters. Their owner was my husband’s late grandfather, Private Tom Henry Seamer of the 1/8 Middlesex Battalion who fought at Ypres in France.  One of these was from his little daughter Lizzie, saying ‘she looked like a toff in her new coat’ and ‘please come home soon daddy’.

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The other one was from his employer who owned a flour mill in Hertford.  The rich owner of the business, wrote from Falmouth on his honeymoon, to Tom in the trenches.

‘We are having a blissful time.  The weather is beautiful.   You wouldn’t have thought there was a war on here Seamer because all the men are away’.

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One evening whilst on active service, Tom took out his prayer book to read a psalm and noticed that… a stray bullet had penetrated the wallet which he kept in his breast pocket.

This had ripped through his letters and photographs but miraculously, because of its full contents, his life had been saved.

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Private Tom Henry Seamer did return to Hertford after the war to his wife and daughter, taking up his old job with the mill, driving a cart and his horse.  Life in the trenches was rarely talked about to friends and family.  Always at the back of his mind, he would have realised that he was a survivor, whilst too many of his friends were not. I suspect a great loneliness was his companion as he went through life.

 

 This article is dedicated to the memory of Lance Corporal Wootton and Private Seamer and written by Wendy Breckon, (nee Wootton) x

 

 

 

Is It Art?

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Art can be controversial. With the comment ‘That’s not art’ a common thing, especially in the face of modern art. But is it a fair comment? Well, it’s a matter of taste but I now have a theory: If something makes you ask ‘Is it art?’, then it is art, because it made you ask the question, it made you think. It’s also different from saying ‘that’s NOT art’.

Modern artist don’t have to draw, paint or even (controversial thing) have talent. Sure, they will have imagination, but they can just put their unmade bed in a gallery or all the names of people they have slept with (Tracey Emin) or pickle a shark and cut it in half (Damien Hirst, incidentally worth over £100 million, financially, one of the most successful artists in history). They can take black dummies and dress them as the SS in Nazi uniforms, complete with swastikas. (Jake and Dino Chapman) I remember watching a documentary on the Chapman brothers a few years ago and one of them, Jake or Dino, who knows?, walked around an art gallery and contemptuously pointed out a drawing of Will Smith that a talented artist had done, as it takes a lot of talent to draw well, and sneered ‘What is the point of that?’. Well, what wasn’t the point? It was someone drawing a portrait of a famous people. That is what art mostly was for centuries. It was good and it was, without a doubt, art.

Now, although it may seem like it, I am not attacking Emin, Hirst or the Chapman’s. I think they do have talent. Hirst particularly. They are different, avant garde. But can you be an artist without the talent to draw or paint? Evidently you can. From Duchamp’s urinal to Jackson Pollack’s splatter paintings art opinion has always been divided.

But I still think it takes more than putting something in an art gallery to make it art. And more importantly, I think it takes talent to make it good, and that is what it really comes down to: good art.

Winston Churchill once said: ‘Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.’