HE SANK 454 BOTTLES OF BUBBLY IN TWO MONTHS

FACED with a £900 [£54,000 today] demand from his wine merchants Randolph Payne & Sons in 1936, Churchill checked the bill and found the total came to even more — £920 [£55,200], including £268 [£16,080] spent on champagne: ten magnums, 185 bottles and 251 pints of it. AT THE outbreak of World War I, Churchill was smoking a dozen cigars a day, at about £13 a month [£1,300] — and he had not paid his suppliers, J Grunebaum & Sons, for five years. SWIMMING in personal debt (about £1.5m today), Churchill announced some drastic household cutbacks in 1926, the year of the General Strike. The cost of food, servants and running a car were to be halved. ‘No champagne is to be bought,’ he warned his wife. ‘Only white or red wine will be offered at luncheon or dinner. No more port is to be opened without special instructions. Cigars must be reduced to four a day.’ The economy drive lasted less than three months. ON HIS way home from a Mediterranean cruise in 1927, Churchill — then Chancellor of the Exchequer — dropped in on the casino at Dieppe and, playing baccarat, lost £350 — the equivalent of £17,500 today. WINSTON holidayed in the South of France 12 times during the Thirties and always gambled at the casinos. He came home a winner only once. DURING World War II, his personal spending on wine, spirits and cigars was £1,650 a year [£66,000]. IN A two-month spell in 1949, Churchill and his house guests at Chartwell drank 454 bottles of champagne, 311 bottles of wine, 69 bottles of port, 58 bottles of brandy, 58 bottles of sherry and 56 bottles of Black Label whisky.