Churchill the Joker From Beyond The Grave

Waterloo Bridge in London is named for the Battle of Waterloo, and therefore, so is London’s Waterloo train station (which gets its name from the bridge). And this provided Winston Churchill with an opportunity – unrealized, unfortunately – to make a last joke at the expense of his French counterpart, even in death. More than a dozen years before he died, Churchill created a plan (titled “Operation Hope Not”) that outlined the details of his funeral wishes. As the Slightly Foxed podcast notes, the plan spelled out that Churchill “wanted the train bearing his coffin to depart from Waterloo rather than Paddington (which would have been the more logical departure point for a train bound for Bladon in Oxfordshire, where he was to be buried).” The reason? To get a great picture of Charles de Gaulle. Slightly Foxed continues: “The French President would thus be forced to walk bare-headed beneath the station’s archway which celebrates the great victory over Napoleon.”