Our next FoWT monthly meeting will take place on Monday 1st July 2024 – 7.00 pm (19.00 hrs) via Zoom.
“Churchill and the Cabinet War Rooms” by Dr. Stephen Goss.
Our guest speaker on the night will be Dr. Stephen Goss, who will talk about “Churchill and the Cabinet War Rooms”.
In 1938 Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain gave the go ahead for the creation of ‘Central War Rooms’ – a top secret bunker from which the Government could safely fight another war should it come. The War Rooms were operational one week before Britain once again found itself at war with Germany.
On a tour of the bunker shortly after becoming Prime Minister, Winston Churchill stepped into the War Cabinet Room and said, ‘this is the room from which I will direct the war’. Hear how a collection of basement rooms under the Treasury served as the centre of Britain’s war effort. What came to be known as the Cabinet War Rooms was occupied by leading government ministers, military strategists and Churchill. The talk takes you around the top-secret corridors of the War Rooms and provides an insight into what life was like in the bunker, the vital work carried out there, and Churchill – the man and war-time leader
About Dr. Stephen Goss
I decided when I was 12 I wanted to be a historian. When I was 14 my dad took me to London for the first time and one of the top things I wanted to see was the Cabinet War Rooms. I went on to become a lecturer in history at Queen’s University, a Life-long Learning lecturer at Stranmillis University College, and a published academic. My area of focus is 19th and 20th Century British, Irish and imperial history, with a specialism in the Cold War. Having spent five years running an award-winning walking tour company in Belfast, when like many an Irishman before me, I moved to the South East for work, I continued to give talks to local groups and historical societies. In 2022 I became a private tour guide at the Churchill War Rooms and Imperial War Museum in London, and that forms the basis of this talk.
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See the complete list of this years talks, presentations and speakers