Major ‘looked into’ plan to rename Heathrow Winston Churchill Airport

JOHN Major considered renaming Heathrow ‘Winston Churchill Airport’, declassified documents reveal.

The then prime minister asked his transport secretary to consider the possibility after he received a letter from a businessman friend.

Describing it as an ‘intriguing idea’, Sir John wrote back saying he would ‘look into it’, the files in the National Archives at Kew reveal. They show that he raised it with the then transport secretary Sir George Young, but there is no record of what became of the discussions.

The idea was brought to Sir John’s attention in a letter from property developer Harvey Spack in September 1996. Mr Spack told him that he had read the novel Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and had been inspired by the islanders’ reverence for Sir Winston Churchill.

‘It is about a Greek island and what happens to its population during the Second World War. It is firstly invaded by the Italians, then the Nazis and finally by Greek communists,’ he wrote.

‘Throughout all this, the people are very brave and keep looking to the heavens to pray for salvation by “Wiston [sic] Churchill”.’ He adds it would be ‘superb PR’ to rename the airport after the war leader.

‘New York has Kennedy airport, Paris has de Gaulle, and we have the stupid name of Heathrow!’ he wrote.

The files show Sir John then directed his parliamentary private secretary Alex Allan to forward the letter to the Department for Transport. Mr Allan wrote the Prime Minister ‘would be grateful’ for views on the idea, ‘both on its merits and the practicalities’. Sir John then responded to Mr Spack, thanking him for his ‘intriguing idea’ and saying he was looking into it.