LETTER : Nation owes the Churchill family

From Mr Paul Vogel

Sir: Your correspondents (Letters, 28 April) are quite wrong, and so are all others who claim that Sir Winston Churchill's papers should somehow be delivered free to the nation. They belong to his heirs.

I recall clearly, some decades ago, an acute sense of shame when Sir Winston's widow, Lady Clementine, in some financial difficulty, was forced to sell family heirlooms. Where was the nation then? We have already failed miserably in our attitude to the great man's family.

And whether or not Winston Churchill MP is poor or has improperly negotiated the sale of these papers is none of our business.

Yours faithfully,

PAUL VOGEL

Windsor, Berkshire

27 April