Winston's finest hours relived

On the eve of the 40th anniversary of Churchill’s death, the museum, next to the Cabinet War Rooms under Whitehall, is a fitting testimony to the saviour of liberty.

His "finest hour" was not one of the stirring wartime speeches that put steel in the spine of a nation bowing to defeat. And it had nothing to do with his military tactics, which could be confused and were intensely irritating to General Alanbrooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff. The finest hour for Churchill came in May 1941 when, with the fall of France and the scramble of British troops at Dunkirk, Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, urged a negotiated surrender to Hitler.

In Halifax’s mind, capitulation was preferable to destruction. In Churchill’s heart, destruction was preferable to capitulation. As Simon Schama wrote in the final volume of his History of Britain: "There was no longer any prospect of a British Vichy. British Jews would not be rounded up at Wembley and shipped to Auschwitz. To some of us this is not a trivial thing."

The British public showed its gratitude when Churchill died, aged 90, on 24 January, 1965. For six days, as the famous newspaper report by Vincent Mulchrone recounted, "two rivers ran through London"; alongside the Thames, a great river of people flowed day and night past Churchill’s coffin as it lay in state at St Paul’s. On 30 January, Britain came to a standstill for his state funeral. More than 100 nations watched on television.

The coffin, draped in the Union flag, was taken down river by barge and even the dockyard cranes dipped their heads in respect, a sight that made Noel Coward burst into tears.

He was not alone. At her home in north London, Ruth Ive, also watching on television, broke down. Now 86, she had a unique and secret relationship with Churchill, a man she spoke to, but never met. During the Second World War, Ms Ive worked in the Postal and Telegraph Censorship department of the Ministry of Information, where, from her cramped office, she monitored the Prime Minister’s telephone calls to President Roosevelt, wrote verbatim transcriptions and interrupted if Churchill deviated from the strict rules preventing discussion of military details, conference venues, enemy damage or civilian morale.

"He made a lot of calls from his bed; you could hear papers being rustled and often you could hear the cat and dog in the room," Ms Ive told The Scotsman.

Only on one occasion did she have cause to disconnect the Prime Minister. It was in 1945 after a V2 bomb had landed on a market at Holborn, when Churchill made a call to Anthony Eden, then Foreign Secretary, who was in Canada. "He started off by saying ‘At midday a terrible thing...’ I interrupted the call and told him there should be no mention of enemy damage. I asked him if he would like to be reconnected. He said yes, so we started off again and he started talking about the bombing again. I interrupted him once more and said: ‘Could you speak to the Foreign Secretary about another subject?’ He just put the receiver down. He was terribly upset."

On 10 February, Ruth Ive will be presented to the Queen, along with two other veterans with experience of working with Churchill, at the museum’s opening. For Phil Reed, the director of the Cabinet War Rooms, the opening will be the culmination of an eight-year struggle, first to secure the space from the government, who wanted to build a car park, then to raise 14 million: "I felt it was important there was a museum dedicated to his life and the War Cabinet Rooms seemed the most appropriate place. The interesting thing about Churchill was how respected he was by politicians throughout the world. As a Zionist, he was respected by Israel, but Yasser Arafat visited the Cabinet War Rooms and said how much he respected Churchill."

The new museum is at the cutting edge of technology. Visitors step on to a spot in the floor and hear his great war speeches. Lift up a tray of "golden eggs" - the term Churchill used to describe the intercepted information cracked by the code-breakers at Bletchley Park - to reveal what the Prime Minister did and didn’t know about events in the Second World War.

His life is told in five distinctive stages: "The Young Churchill (1874-1900)" follows his rise as the unloved son of Lord Randolph Churchill, the drunken and philandering Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was academically weak: his father believed he would amount to nothing and begrudged paying for him to take a commission in the cavalry.

"Politician to Statesman (1900-1929)" follows the flourishing of his political career, while "The Wilderness Years (1929-1939)" charts his role as the lone voice warning about the rise of Nazism. "The War Years (1940-1945)" and, to a lesser extent, "Cold War Statesman (1945-1965)", during which time he coined the term Iron Curtain, are at the museum’s core. At the centre of the museum is a unique electronic table, 90ft long, which acts as a "lifeline", allowing visitors to go to any date in his 90-year life and examine genuine documents. Look up 6 August, 1945, the date the Americans dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima, and the entire table shakes as a digital mushroom cloud rolls across it.

The smaller items, however, are just as touching. There is the correspondence between Churchill, signing his letters with a drawing of a pig, and his wife, Clementine, who drew a cat. There are school reports, his iconic spotted bow-tie, even his hairbrush, donated by Andrew Roberts, the author of The Eminent Churchillians and Hitler and Churchill: Lessons in Leadership.

Roberts, who bought the brush at auction shortly after leaving Oxford University, believes Winston Churchill is a figure of inspiration. "I’d happily give my right arm to spend just one afternoon in his company." The entrance price to the museum is not nearly so high.

The Churchill I knew and will never forget

THE first words Winston Churchill, the prime minister, dictated to me were: "This is a melancholy story ..." I don’t remember what the memo was about, I only remember thinking how appropriate those words were.

The year was 1941. We were at war with Germany and I had recently been appointed to the prime minister’s staff as a stenographer.

The first time I met Churchill was on board HMS Prince of Wales as we sailed from Scotland across the Atlantic, where he was to meet President Roosevelt for the first time as prime minister. I had previously worked as clerk to the Duke of Windsor and stayed with him in Paris until the Germans got too close and we were instructed by the British government to leave, as they were frightened the Nazis might capture the former king. I then returned briefly to the Treasury, only to be sent to work, temporarily, with Churchill.

Before I went on board I had been told he was rather difficult and I was not to allow the sailors to whistle, as this greatly annoyed him. The first time I heard whistling, I spoke to the ship’s officer and he gave an order that whistling was now forbidden.

The trip was exhausting. Churchill worked day and night on the Atlantic Charter and I was exhausted by the end. But it seemed to go well; when I returned to London, I was told the prime minister had liked my work and would like me to join his private staff. It was the beginning of a remarkable four years in which I travelled the world with him.

On one occasion Churchill was at the White House as a guest of the president. One morning there was a knock on the bedroom door and it was his valet, Sawyer, a very devoted man, and he said: "Can you come along to the PM’s suite? He’s just having a bath and wants to dictate." There he was, having a bath and dictating to me. He then rose, clambered out the bath and was walking past the bedroom door when there was a rat-tat-tat. As he was closest to the door, he automatically opened it. On the other side of the door was Roosevelt in his wheelchair. He was startled to see the prime minister in the nude, but Churchill simply said: "Good Morning, Mr President, do come in. As you can see I have nothing to hide from the United States."

There was great laughter. I then disappeared to let them have their private chat.

Churchill could be very touchy at times, but he was a kind-hearted man, and when things were not going well you could tell by his expression and tone of his voice. But even during the dark days my confidence was never shaken. We were all driven on by his personality, brightness and humour, so I always thought, we are going to win.

I remained with him until the general election in 1945. After he had lost, he invited me into his office and began to reminisce about all the trips we had made together and people we had met. He said: "I wonder if you would be interested in working with me as leader of the Opposition." I took a day or two to think about it, but I was exhausted, I couldn’t go on working day and night.

It was a time, however, and he was a man I shall never forget.