When visitors come to London’s National Gallery it is an overload to the senses. There are so many styles, so many characters, so many stories. There is too much to take in! Well, let me tell you where you might start…. As the famous song says… ‘Start at the very beginning…!’ When entering via the modern Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery you are introduced to some of the earliest paintings.

Charles de Gaulle, a junior minister in a collapsing government and a relatively junior general in an army that was ceasing to exist, landed at Heston airport after a gruelling and perilous flight from Bordeaux, on Monday 17 June 1940. Few of his British hosts knew who he was, Winston Churchill being the exception. During his visits to France, Churchill had immediately noticed “a young, energetic general called de Gaulle.” `(In Gabriel Le Bomin’s biopic of de Gaulle, which features the early days of the two men’s relationship, Churchill is brilliantly played by Tim Hudson – who is also a London Blue Badge Guide!)