The hands on the Great Clock on Big Ben are set to the time on 13 May 1940 when Churchill made his inaugural speech to the House of Commons as Prime Minister. 1  2  Karsh described taking the photograph thus: “I stepped toward him and without premeditation, but ever so respectfully, I said, ‘Forgive me, Sir’ and plucked the cigar out of his mouth. By the time I got back to my camera, he looked so belligerent he could have devoured me. It was at that instant I took the photograph. The silence was deafening. Then Mr Churchill, smiling benignly, said, ‘You may take another one.’ He walked toward me, shook my hand and said, ‘You can even make a roaring lion stand still to be photographed.’”  BIS central bankers’ speeches  His declaration then – “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat” – is quoted beneath the portrait. Let’s take a look at some of these features with a video. Conclusion “A gigantic historical figure during his own lifetime, superhumanly bold, strong, and imaginative, one of the two greatest men of action his nation has produced, an orator of prodigious powers, the saviour of his country, a legendary hero who belongs to myth as much as to reality, the largest human being of our time.” This was the judgment of his contemporary, the philosopher and historian Isaiah Berlin.
Churchill himself said that “a nation that forgets its past has no future.” Our banknotes are testaments to the outstanding achievements of the nation’s greatest individuals; they are repositories of the United Kingdom’s collective memory. That contribution will continue with the new £ which brings together the future, in the form of polymer and the most advanced security features yet, and Britain’s glorious history, in the achievements of Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3