Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography (159 page)

*
Yet all but one of the men who were to attract Margaret’s serious interest were considerably older than she.

*
In
The Path to Power
(HarperCollins, 1995) Lady Thatcher incorrectly dates the occasion as being ‘Shortly before my university days came to an end’.

*
Actually it is an ersatz champagne.

*
This is the same letter as that in which she described her solitary dinner in Somerville.

*
Cuthbert (‘Cub’) Alport (1912–98), educated Haileybury and Pembroke College, Cambridge; served war of 1939–45; director, Conservative Political Centre, 1945–50; Conservative MP for Colchester, 1950–61; Minister of State, Commonwealth Relations Office, 1959–61; British High Commissioner in Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, 1961–3; created Lord Alport, 1961.

†
‘For heaven’s sake tell Willie [Cullen, Muriel’s husband] not to mention my name to Alport. I don’t like the man and didn’t get on frightfully well with him in Colchester’ (letter to Muriel, 28 Feb. 1951). When Margaret Thatcher was prime minister, Alport so disliked her policies that he resigned the Conservative whip in the House of Lords.

*
Alan Lennox-Boyd (1904–83), educated Sherborne and Christ Church, Oxford; Conservative MP for Mid-Beds, 1931–60; Secretary of State for the Colonies, 1954–9; created Viscount Boyd of Merton, 1960; chaired mission to Rhodesia sent by Mrs Thatcher 1979. His son, Mark, was to be PPS to Mrs Thatcher, 1988–90.

†
J. Enoch Powell (1912–98), educated King Edward’s, Birmingham and Trinity College, Cambridge; Conservative MP for Wolverhampton South West, 1950–February 1974; Ulster Unionist MP for Down South, October 1974–87; Secretary of State for Health, 1960–63.

‡
The house, Elsfield, was the estate of Tweedsmuir’s father, the novelist John Buchan.

*
In suggesting an almost casual meeting with Tony, Margaret forgets her own letter to Muriel a week earlier which told her of the plan: ‘I’m seeing Tony for dinner and theatre on Friday evening. Plan to wear musquash and pale blue frock. If I can possibly afford it I want Andreas to perm my hair’ (letter to Muriel, 11 May 1948).

*
When asked about Tony Bray in 2004, Lady Thatcher said she remembered the royal-blue cloak she had worn to their dinner before the Randolph Ball. When reminded that Tony had got back in touch with her on returning from the army, regretting his neglect of her while in the army, she said, using words echoing his apology to her in Oxford, ‘It’s no good thinking over the chances you missed,’ and would not be drawn further on the subject. (Interview with Lady Thatcher.)

†
‘How nice to find an immaculate man!’ Margaret had exclaimed to her sister when Ken first came on the scene in the summer (letter to Muriel, 22 Sept. 1948).

*
Edward Heath (1916–2005), educated Chatham House School, Ramsgate and Balliol College, Oxford; served war of 1939–45 (mentioned in despatches); Conservative MP for Bexley, 1950–74; for Bexley, Sidcup, 1974–83; for Old Bexley and Sidcup, 1983–2001; Government Chief Whip, 1955–9; Minister of Labour, 1959–60; Lord Privy Seal, 1960–63; President of the Board of Trade, 1963–4; Leader of the Conservative Party, 1965–75; Prime Minister, 1970–74; captain, Britain’s Admiral’s Cup team, 1971, 1979; Knight of the Garter, 1992.

*
John Tilney (1907–94), educated Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford; Conservative MP for Liverpool Wavertree, 1950–February 1974; knighted 1973. Margaret Thatcher met Tilney when they were both aspiring parliamentary candidates and admired him. He was friendly to her throughout, becoming a particularly strong supporter in the 1970s. His wife, Guinevere, advised Mrs Thatcher on clothes in the early years of her premiership.

*
In her memoirs, Lady Thatcher misremembers this event, stating that the dinner was after the meeting.

†
It is not clear whether Alfred Roberts accompanied his daughter to the drinks. There is no evidence that he met Denis on this occasion.

*
Willie Cullen was part of a colony of Scottish farmers who had come down to Essex together before and during the war to escape the poor state of agriculture in Scotland; they retained a strong collective identity.

†
Margaret appears to have forgotten she mentioned Denis to Muriel a few weeks before.

*
William Cullen was most commonly called Bill by Margaret at this time. He came generally to be known as Willie.

*
Muriel and Willie’s younger son, Andrew Cullen, made a comparable analysis of the situation, when interviewed in 2004: ‘Margaret probably realised my Dad wasn’t going to up sticks from here [Foulton]’ and so she did not want to marry him.

*
She did not, but returned to Scotland where she never married and maintained a consistently unfriendly relationship with Muriel for the rest of her life, while remaining very fond of her brother. When Miss Cullen was asked what Willie most liked to discuss in their weekly telephone conversations over the years, she said, ‘Ooh, his shares!’ (interview with Miss Agnes Cullen).

*
This was the name for nations such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand, which came later to be referred to as ‘the white Commonwealth’ and, later still, as ‘the old Commonwealth’.

*
Lady Thatcher told the present author that, for this reason, she had never been into a pub alone in her entire life.

*
David Renton (1908–2007), educated Oundle and University College, Oxford; Conservative MP for Huntingdonshire, 1945–79; QC, 1954; Minister of State, Home Office, 1961–2; created Lord Renton, 1979.

*
Margaret had clearly forgotten this earlier impression when house-hunting while prime minister. In 1985, she and Denis bought disastrously in Dulwich a house which proved completely unsuitable for her retirement.

*
This may have been the first appearance of the cancer which was to kill Mrs Roberts nine years later, or it may be a reference to a gynaecological problem.

†
Actually she was Lady Hickman.

*
‘Denis was never a great reader,’ says John Campbell in his biography of Mrs Thatcher (
Margaret Thatcher
, 2 vols, Jonathan Cape, 2000, 2003, vol. i:
The Grocer’s Daughter
, p. 86), but this is not the case. Denis Thatcher has often been misrepresented as unintelligent. As well as being shrewd, he was a serious amateur student of history, particularly military history.

†
It is doubtful whether Denis ever knew much about Margaret’s relationship with Robert Henderson. He told the present author, though he might just have been being discreet, ‘I never heard of a serious boyfriend.’

*
It was also feared that there might be suggestions, by a few, that Margaret’s marriage to a ‘rich’, older man was evidence of social climbing (interview with Patricia Greenough).

*
Clive Bossom (1918–), educated Eton; Conservative MP for Leominster, 1959–74; succeeded father as baronet, 1965.

†
William Deedes (1913–2007), educated Harrow; Conservative MP for Ashford, 1950–74; Minister without Portfolio, 1962–4; editor,
Daily Telegraph
, 1974–86; created Lord Deedes, 1986.

‡
Airey Neave MC, DSO, (1916–79), educated Eton and Merton College, Oxford; prisoner of war, 1940–42; first British officer to escape from Colditz and make a successful ‘home run’; Conservative MP for Abingdon, 1953–79; head of Mrs Thatcher’s private office and Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland; assassinated by Irish National Liberation Army, March 1979.

§
David Maxwell Fyfe (1900–1967), educated George Watson’s College, Edinburgh and Balliol College, Oxford; Home Secretary, 1951–4; created 1st Earl of Kilmuir, 1954; Lord Chancellor, 1954–62.

*
Harold Wilson (1916–95), educated Wirral Grammar School, Bebington, Cheshire and Jesus College, Oxford; Prime Minister 1964–70, 1974–6; created Lord Wilson of Rievaulx, 1983.

*
In
Below the Parapet: The Biography of Denis Thatcher
(HarperCollins, 1996), p. 58, Carol Thatcher records that Denis’s candidacy had been ‘a few years before’. This seems to be erroneous.

†
It took some time to agree on Carol’s name. When she came out of hospital more than a month later because of her low weight and an infection, Margaret still wrote of her to Muriel as ‘the little girl twin’.

‡
In
Margaret Thatcher
(2 vols, Jonathan Cape, 2000, 2003, vol. i:
The Grocer’s Daughter
), John Campbell questions whether it could really be true that the birth took place without Denis knowing, and suspects the story of being ‘romantic embroidery’, but this ignores the fact that telephoning the hospital was not then the easy matter that it later became, and that, as Mrs Thatcher explained in her letter to John Hare (see p. 119), she did not know she was bearing twins until the day – Saturday – that they were born. At a time when fathers were completely excluded from the process of birth, it seems perfectly possible that the operation went ahead without anyone hunting for Denis.

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Mrs Thatcher was always kind to children, however. When she was secretary of state for education, civil servants noted that she was much better than her predecessor at paying enthusiastic attention to pupils during school visits. But, perhaps because of the seriousness and literal-mindedness which she recognized in herself, she never seemed quite to get the hang of children’s behaviour. At one lunch party in the country in the 1990s, two young sons of one of the guests ran outside to play and came and tapped on the window of the dining room. They then stuck out their tongues and shoved their thumbs into their ears and wiggled their fingers derisively. Lady Thatcher very sportingly wiggled back, but then turned to the present author and said, ‘What a funny gesture. I wonder what it means.’ It seemed strange that she could have been a mother without ever finding out.

*
In childhood, as later, the Thatcher twins competed against one another. Mark remembered Carol being annoyed that there was a Sussex village called Mark Cross, but no village bearing her name. For his part, Mark was annoyed that people sang carols, but not ‘marks’. (Interview with Sir Mark Thatcher.)

*
Denis Thatcher was also, in later life, afflicted by a sense of guilt about the way the twins were brought up. He told the present author that he should have spent more time with them when they were young. Business frequently took him abroad for almost the whole of the summer. He delegated a good deal of the twins’ upbringing to their nanny, Abbey. ‘Teach the children some manners,’ he instructed her (interview with Carol Thatcher).

*
This is a very typical Mrs Thatcher judgment of another woman. In fact, Clarissa Eden was well known for her beauty, intelligence and strong character.

*
Frederick Lawton (1911–2001), educated Battersea Grammar School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; criminal advocate; QC, 1957; High Court judge, 1961; Lord Justice of Appeal, 1972; knighted, 1961.

†
Robin Day (1920–2000), educated Bembridge School and St Edmund Hall, Oxford; President of Oxford Union, 1950; barrister; joined BBC, 1955; newsreader, ITN, 1955; presenter of BBC
Panorama
,
World at One
etc.; chairman, BBC
Question Time
, 1979–89; knighted 1981.

*
Mrs Thatcher liked even the most trivial cases. ‘I had to go to Cambridge Assizes last Friday,’ she wrote to Muriel in May 1955, ‘and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a case about onion seeds!’

*
John Brightman (1911–2006), educated Marlborough and St John’s College, Cambridge; tax lawyer; judge of Chancery Division, 1970; judge of Industrial Relations Court, 1971; Lord of Appeal, 1982.

*
Patrick Jenkin (1926–), educated Clifton and Jesus College, Cambridge; Conservative MP for Wanstead and Woodford, 1964–87; Minister for Energy, 1974; Secretary of State for Social Services, 1979–81; for Industry, 1981–3; for the Environment, 1983–5; created Lord Jenkin of Roding, 1987.

†
Anthony Barber (1920–2005), educated Retford Grammar School and Oriel College, Oxford; Conservative MP for Doncaster, 1951–64; for Altrincham and Sale, 1965–74; Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1970–74; created Lord Barber, 1974; chairman, Standard Chartered Bank, 1974–87.

‡
Geoffrey Howe (1926–), educated Winchester and Trinity Hall, Cambridge; Conservative MP for Bebington, 1964–6; for Reigate, 1970–74; for Surrey East, February 1974–92; QC, 1956; Solicitor-General, 1970–72; Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1979–83; Foreign Secretary, 1983–9; Lord President of the Council and Deputy Prime Minister, 1989–90; created Lord Howe of Aberavon, 1992.

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Mrs Thatcher admired Eden much more than most post-Suez commentators. She saw him, because of his record in the 1930s, as ‘the man who wanted to stand up against the foreign dictators’; she was also deeply impressed by the fact that Eden, who had fought in the First World War, would make a point of filling up his car from petrol stations run by ex-servicemen from his regiment. (Correspondence with Professor David Dilks.)

*
The paper possesses a photograph of Roberts removing the robes. It has been asserted that cameras were not permitted to witness the occasion. If so, it is interesting that Roberts was willing to restage it for their benefit.

*
Mrs Thatcher consistently avoided making any commitment to having to live in any constituency which might select her. There was a limit to what could be imposed on Denis and the twins.

†
In fact, it turned out to be a shortlist of four. One candidate, the war hero C. M. Woodhouse, had dropped out between rounds because he had been selected for Oxford, and so the executive committee, rather than allowing the contest to be between only two, inserted the next two candidates down. If anything, this made Mrs Thatcher’s task easier, since two of the four were known to be slightly below par.