Flight SuitOne evening before a flight, Winston Churchill visited an airfield to be fitted for a flight suit and oxygen mask. Conferring with the flight expert who was to accompany him on the journey, Churchill requested that a special oxygen mask be devised - so that he could smoke his cigars while airborne.
Incredibly, the request was granted, and the following day found Churchill happily puffing away - at 15,000 feet - through a special hole in his oxygen mask.
[Though Churchill made a ritual of using his favorite ashtray (a small silver pagoda with a little trough at the top to hold his cigar which he took wherever he traveled - packed in a specially designed suitcase), he often dropped ash on himself. Phyllis Moir, one of Churchill's private secretaries, fondly recalled the stately Churchill "sunk deep in the depths of a huge armchair, a little mound of silver-gray cigar ash piled on his well rounded midriff."]
Churchill, Winston Leonard Spenser (1874-1965) British politician and writer, First Lord of the Admiralty (1911-15, 1939-), prime minister (from 1940), Nobel Prize recipient (Literature, 1953) [noted for his remarkable eloquence and leadership ability; for his memoirs and letters; and for such works as The Second World War, The Great Republic : A History of America and My Early Life]
[Sources: Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life; Cigar Aficionado, 1996]More Winston Churchill anecdotesRelated Anecdote Keywords:
Cigars Smoking Exceptions Demands Flying
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