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Rabat – On the occasion of the International Marrakech Storytelling Festival, British Ambassador Simon Martin shared the “love story” between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and “the beautiful city of Marrakech” in a storytelling circle in Jemaa El-Fnaa.
Ambassador Martin started the halqa (circle) by welcoming the crowd in Arabic, French, and English then carried out his introduction, “I am the ambassador.”
In a playful interaction with the crowd, he asked the audience to guess his country of origin just before showing his UK flag-themed socks.
After a round of applause, Martin started his story. “I am not a storyteller but I want to tell you about a love story. It is a love story between my country and the beautiful city of Marrakech,” he said.
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The story revolves around Britain’s late Prime Minister Winston Churchill who led the British empire during the second world war.
“In January 1943, he came to Morocco, to Casablanca ‘dar lbida’ to meet the President of the United States Franklin D Roosevelt,” the ambassador stated.
The story refers to the Casablanca Conference or Anfa Conference that finalized the allies’ “unconditional surrender” strategy against the axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan). At the time, the exiled French government and Britain had carried out several operations around the world to counter the Axis powers, including the Nazi-led Vichy regime in North Africa.
To counter Nazi and Italian fascist expansion, the allies led major operations in North Africa such as Operation Torch (1942) in Morocco and Algeria and Western Desert Campaign (1940-1943) in Egypt and Libya.
In the middle of a period of intensive planning and growing social distress particularly in Europe, “Churchill said [to Roosevelt] ‘hang on a minute I need to take you somewhere.’ He said ‘you cannot visit North Africa without seeing Marrakech,’” Martin added.
Martin’s storytelling session was part of the International Marrakech Storytelling Festival organized by the Storytellers Union for Cultural Innovation and the Art of Storytelling & World Storytelling Cafe. The event gathered together 40 Moroccan and international storytellers to revive the storytelling scene and promote tourism in the Red medina, John Row the festival’s artistic director told Morocco World News.
Read Also: Inaugural Marrakech International Storytelling Festival Starts February 12
Churchill’s love for Marrakech:
Churchill’s granddaughter Celia Sandys wrote a book on her stories with the former British leader. Titled Chasing Churchill: The Travels of Winston Churchill, the book refers to a few of Churchill’s visits to Marrakech.
Looking for a great place to complete his writing, Churchill chose the Red City as his winter vacation destination in 1935. Over his multiple visits to Marrakech (1935, 1943, 1947, 1950, and 1959), Churchill resorted to the city for a change of scenery. As he once wrote to Lord Rothermere “I never take holidays.” For him, “change rather than rest was ‘the master key’ to a satisfactory life.”
Additionally, Marrakech appealed to the artistic side of Churchill. Inspired by the city’s beauty, he made a couple of paintings during his visits. The most prominent one is the 1943 Tower of Koutoubia Mosque painting. The only painting Churchill created during the second world war.
During his stay at Villa Taylor with President Roosevelt, Churchill once again captured the city’s landscape in an artwork now worth $ 11 million. Gifted to Roosevelt then owned by Angelina Jolie, the painting was sold in March at Christie’s Modern British art evening sale.
As the Churchill-Marrakech love story ended in great terms, Morocco-Britain relations continue stronger than ever. In January, the two countries celebrated 300 years of bilateral “prosperity and progress.”
