This is a far, far better thing.... than I have ever done

1 portrait of Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton

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This is a far, far better thing.... than I have ever done

by Neville Colvin ('Colvin')
pen and ink and Letratone, 1962
15 1/8 in. x 21 5/8 in. (384 mm x 550 mm)
Given by Lady Ruth Marples, 1980
Primary Collection
NPG 5350

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Current affairs

After a series of by-election defeats, the prime minister, Harold MacMillan organises a drastic cabinet reshuffle, dismissing one third of his cabinet. Liberal MP Jeremy Thorpe's wry comment summed up the desperate action: 'greater love hath no man than this, than to lay down his friends for his life.'
Britain suffers the 'Big Freeze' with no frost-free nights between 22nd December 1962 and 5th March 1963.

Art and science

The Beatles have their first hit with Love Me Do and release their first album Please Please Me.
The new Coventry Cathedral is consecrated and creates a showcase for British artistic talent with the first performance of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, a wall hanging by Graham Sutherland, stained glass by John Piper, and sculptures by Jacob Epstein and Elizabeth Frink.

International

The world comes to the brink of nuclear war with the Cuban Missile Crisis. In response to the USA's nuclear advantage, the USSR sent missiles to Cuba. The crisis lasted for 12 days before a deal was finally stuck between Khrushchev and Kennedy in which the Cuban missile bases were dismantled in return for the secret removal of US missiles from Turkey.

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