THE stub of a cigar smoked by Sir Winston Churchill is expected to fetch thousands of pounds at auction.

    The chewed end of the fat cigar, which the wartime leader smoked as he was recovering from a fractured hip in hospital, goes under the hammer in October — and experts are already expecting it to fetch a high price.

    The 87-year-old spent several weeks at a private patients’ wing in Middlesex Hospital after falling out of bed while holidaying in Monte Carlo in 1962, fracturing his hip.

    In a time before health and safety restrictions, Churchill was able to puff happily away on his beloved cigars at the hospital, before stubbing one out in an ashtray.

    The stub was collected by a student nurse who saved it for her little brother in a “Middlesex Hospital soiled dressing disposal bag” — where it has been kept ever since.

    This year marks the 50th anniversary of Churchill’s death, and the cigar stub will go under the hammer at Duke’s of Dorchester in October.

    A half-smoked cigar that Churchill stubbed out during World War II sold for 15 times its estimate, fetching £4,500 (US$6,976) at auction in Norfolk in 2010.(SD-Agencies)