The Chequers Trust, which paid the wages of Chequers’ staff and the routine costs of maintaining the estate, donated £15, or just under $1,000 in today’s dollars, for each weekend, about half of what Churchill actually spent—or, as he once put it, just about enough to cover the cost of feeding the chauffeurs of his guests. For the period from June through December 1940, his costs at Chequers exceeded the trust’s overall contributions by the equivalent of $20,288.
