Thieves walk out of pub with prized Churchill portrait
Talk about lack of decency.
A thief made off with a painting of Sir Winston Churchill that hung for decades at Ye Olde King’s Head Pub, the classic English pub on Santa Monica Boulevard in Santa Monica, proprietors say.
The culprit purloined the enormous oil painting of the legendary British prime minister at the very moment pub patrons and staff were most vulnerable: business hours, between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m.
“They just took it off the wall and walked out with it,” said manager Dusty Kerr.
Kerr and a number of pub regulars interviewed Sunday morning couldn’t quite pin down when it was stolen. Ten days ago, maybe? The establishment has chosen not to involve the police, although a reward has been offered for its return. (Nobody could recall just how much that reward was Sunday morning.)
Still, Kerr said, “it’s the talk of the town. Where’s Winston gone?”
The painting came over from England when Phil Elwell opened the pub 35 years ago and put it on the main wall of the restaurant’s dining room. It portrayed Churchill, serious and pugnacious, above a cloud and a stark cityscape. Behind him hung a torn Union Jack, upside down, symbolizing the danger the country faced during World War II.
It stood there for generations, presiding over diners as they savored plates of bangers and mash, kidney pie, and fish and chips.
So it’s not surprising that days after the theft, King’s Head staffers can scarcely conceal their grief.
“We’re very upset,” employee Debbie Malone insists. “Everyone used to comment on it all the time, didn’t they?”
Kerr agreed.
“We’re looking for another one,” she said. “We may try EBay.”
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