Churchill's Secret

10 Downing Street, June 1953: seventy-eight year old Sir Winston Churchill still holds the most powerful position in the land. On the brink of a summit in Bermuda to barter a peace with Russia, the great man is felled by a devastating stroke. And yet it would take many years for the world to know precisely how close Britain had come to catastrophe.

With his foreign secretary Anthony Eden in Boston for emergency surgery, the situation becomes critical: there is no one at Britain's helm. As Churchill lies fighting for his life, the people must believe all is well. In the months that follow, his devoted wife Clemmie and a handful of loyal companions rally to the Prime Minister's support in his clandestine sickroom. None of them knows if he will survive, but they keep the faith as once more their inspiring leader goes into battle.

At once gripping and uplifting, Jonathan Smith's brilliantly imaginative recreation of an astonishing sequence of events sheds new light on the wit, bravery and determination of an incorrigible man who lived by his own legendary motto: KBO - Keep Buggering On.