Meanwhile, Churchill and his personal physician, Lord Moran, whose published diaries are here much quoted, faced the relentlessly advancing health problems of old age.

"He is a marvel," the former Chief of the Imperial General Staff told Lord Moran, Churchill ',s physician, who was at the luncheon.

William Van of Lord Moran.

The Dean, Lord Moran (1882-1977), had close connections with Lord Beaverbrook (1879-1964), already a benefactor and, more important, proprietor of the Daily Express newspaper.

Lord Moran had two sons, John (the present Baron) and Geoffrey.

Churchill at War 1940 to 1945: the memoirs of Churchill's doctor, with an introduction by Lord Moran's son, John, the present Lord Moran.

Charles Wilson, created Lord Moran, was Churchill's physician for many years and in the late 1950s asked outright to be elected.

In The Anatomy of Courage (1945), Lord Moran, who had been a medical officer during the war, wrote:

Churchill was saved by Lord Moran, using sulphonamides, since he had no experience with penicillin, when Churchill fell ill in Carthage in Tunisia in 1943.

"I used it," Anthony Storr, an English psychiatrist who has written about the creative process, said of Lord Moran's book.