Churchill remembered for his granddaughter in Cuba

By: Arturo Delgado Pruna

Inspired by the memory, Celia Sandys, granddaughter of Winston Churchill, recently visited the town of Arroyo Blanco, located in the central region of Cuba. After a journey of several days aboard a cruise and then continue by land almost the same route that her grandfather took in 1895, the visitor was received at what is popularly known as Community House Arroyo Blanco, being the site where local legend says that her predecessor rested when he was just 20 years.

But most important is not whether Churchill chose at that time the house for shelter but what he left in writing about the town in a memoir that many seemed to know by heart due to explicit descriptions and illustrative map that accompanies them. Therefore, we thought everything was said. Then came Lourdes Mendez Vargas, whose ancestors were part of a family of separatists who opposed Spanish colonialism in the nineteenth century, coincidentally in Arroyo Blanco.

Mendez Vargas, a former Cuban diplomat without any experience as a professional historian, presented the preliminary results of her research at the International Seminar Cuba in Anglo-Hispanic interests. Reflections on the 250th anniversary of the siege, defense and capture of Havana, developed at University College San Geronimo de La Habana, in 2012. And then, as she structured her book, exchanged emails with Celia Sandys to brief her on this work.

So, although they had not agreed it, the meeting between them was inevitable for historical and personal reasons. If Sandys returned to Cuba she did not only enjoy tourism plan, but above all to concatenate what her grandfather left incomplete at his memoir with what Lourdes reveals in the book Arroyo Blanco, the Cuban path of Churchill, published by Ediciones Luminaria in Sancti Spiritus.

Thus, in the porch of the ancient Community House, Lourdes Mendez Vargas gave Celia Sandys her book and then discussed common issues, she said, “Celia, I’m sure your grandfather remembered Arroyo Blanco all his life long» ; to which she replied, “It was in the heart, and mine too.”