You can buy a jar of Winston Churchill's blood, if you want to

If you were in the market for some memorabilia to mark the 50th year since Winston Churchill's death your search may be over. A phial of the former prime minister's blood is going up for sale at auction next month.

The blood was taken from the wartime leader as he recovered from a hip injury at Middlesex Hospital in 1962 at the age of 87.

The blood is a poignant reminder of an injury which marked the beginning of the end for Churchill and, as such, we expect there to be great interest in it. It could sell for thousands.

• Timothy Medhurst, Duke's auction house

According to the Guardian the blood was about to be thrown out when a student nurse by the name of Patricia Fitzgibbon asked if she could keep it, which she was.

Fitzgibbon kept the phial right up until her recent death and the sample will now be sold at Duke's auction house in Dorset on 12 March. It is expected to fetch between £300-£600.

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