Colville and his fellow private secretaries, having worked a succession of two A.M. nights, hoped to have a week off for the holiday. Principal secretary Eric Seal crafted a delicately phrased minute asking permission. The request “incensed” Churchill, according to Colville. Scrooge-like, Churchill scrawled “No” on the document itself. He told Seal that his own plan for the holiday, which fell on a Wednesday, was to spend it either at Chequers or in London, working “continuously.” He hoped, he wrote, “that the recess may be used not only for overtaking arrears, but for tackling new problems in
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