Peter Oates; Churchill's private secretary

[Hyfler/Rosner]

The Independent
07 April 2007
Patrick Shovelton
Peter Geoffrey Oates, civil servant: born Surbiton, Surrey
24 January 1919; Assistant Principal, Ministry of Transport
1946-51; Private Secretary to the Prime Minister 1951-54;
married 1947 Stella Budden (three daughters); died Reading,
Berkshire 31 March 2007.

Peter Oates was a private secretary to both Clement Attlee
and Winston Churchill. He joined the Prime Minister's Office
at 10 Downing Street in 1951 working for Attlee and, after
the election in October that year, for Churchill.

Oates liked Attlee and had a high regard for him. He and his
wife, Stella, were welcomed into the Attlee household and at
Chequers required even to play tennis (not croquet). Life
with Churchill was rather different. Oates described working
habits at No 10 and Chartwell and Chequers as chaotic. The
old man could be infuriating, he said, always demanding, but
you felt you were present at the making of history.

In those days a private secretary had to endure long hours
by day and night as Churchill worked in bed in the morning,
had a long sleep in the afternoon and worked after dinner
until 3am or later. The wretched PR on duty had to hand the
papers out of the red boxes to the great man one by one with
explanation, obtaining signature, decision or explosion.

On one occasion, the minutes of appointment of "Spring-heel"
Jack Boyd-Carpenter got its signature, but only after the
doubtful comment, "I hope he'll make a good Minister of
Transport - he's got a very funny walk." On another, when
George VI died, Oates had to escort the Home Secretary into
Churchill's bedroom to break the news. Even sadder was the
evening in 1953 when Churchill opened up to Oates, saying,

Things are going too well. We've seen off Mossadeq [the
Persian prime minister who had seized the Anglo-Iranian
oilfields], we've won Sunderland South and the black swans
have had cygnets. Something terrible is going to happen.

The next morning Churchill had his first stroke.

Peter Geoffrey Oates was the son of an army officer who had
won the MC in the First World War, an experience that
shattered him for life. His mother was determined Peter
should have a good education. He passed the 11-plus and went
to Surbiton Grammar and thence, at the early age of 17, to
Selwyn College, Cambridge.

He read Maths and Physics and on graduating at the age of 20
was too young to take the Administrative Class exam for the
Civil Service, so he entered the Admiralty as an executive
officer and spent much of the Second World War at Plymouth
and Alexandria degaussing ships. When the war ended, he took
the "reconstruction" exam for the higher Civil Service,
passed well and was posted to the Ministry of War Transport.
After his spell in No 10, in 1954 he went to Nato, then in
Paris, for two happy years.

But Oates was a bit of a restless soul in those days,
couldn't wait for promotion and resigned to join a firm of
electrical engineers which eventually became part of AEI
(Associated Electrical Industries). Thence to the Atomic
Energy Authority, where he filled a series of senior posts,
spending some years also with the management consultants of
the day, Tyzack's.

After retirement in 1978, he did work for Victim Support and
was a prison visitor.

Patrick Shovelton