Margaret Thatcher: Power and Personality

by Aitken, Jonathan

  Welcoming him to her new flat in London was a much more comfortable experience than waiting for him at traffic lights in Dartford. She entertained Robert there royally. ‘Last time he came I cooked a slap-up dinner, four courses, just to show him!’ she told Muriel.41 Yet for some reason, the romance she had nurtured so hopefully broke up some time in the summer of 1951. Its ending was evidently painful to her. As Alfred Roberts described it in a letter of 25 September 1951 to Muriel: ‘The Robert business upset Margaret very much, but that will pass.’42

  What happened can only be guesswork. With the caution of a much older bachelor, well set in his ways at the age of forty-eight, Robert Henderson continued to dither over becoming engaged to a fiancée of twenty-five. Perhaps he was put on the spot by her about his hesitation, for they seem to have split distressingly rather than drifting apart gently. Her father’s words, ‘The Robert business upset Margaret very much’, suggest an abrupt ending.

  At the time when Robert Henderson was finding it difficult to make up his mind about proposing to Margaret, Denis Thatcher moved into matrimonial decision-making mode. Ever since the 1950 election he had continued to see her for dinners at smart London restaurants such as The Ivy, The White Tower and L’Ecu de France. She invited him at least once for a drink in her Pimlico flat, and she sometimes cooked dinner for him at his flat in Chelsea. This was not the same level of romantic treatment as she gave to Robert Henderson, but Denis Thatcher was nevertheless being encouraged by her to stay in the game. Yet this encouragement was deceptive, for she kept him in the dark about her secret and deeper relationship with Robert.

  The decision to propose to Margaret was taken by Denis not when he was in her company but when he was driving around France in August 1951 with an old school friend, Kent Green, in a car he described as ‘a tart trap’.

  As he later told his daughter Carol, the moment of revelation struck him on these motoring travels. ‘During the tour I suddenly thought to myself, “That’s the girl”.’43

  Margaret did not say ‘yes’ at once when Denis proposed to her over dinner in his flat. She needed time to think it over. She also wanted her prospective husband to meet her parents. She thought they might be worried, as she was worried, about her becoming the second Mrs Thatcher.

  Denis had been more emotionally bruised than he let on by the break-up of his first marriage. This had taken place in a moment of wartime passion when, as a young army officer, he fell madly in love with a glamorous girl he met at a tea dance at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane. She was Margot Kempson, a horse-riding beauty from Hertfordshire serving in the WRAF as a transport driver. In March 1942 they married. Soon afterwards Denis was posted overseas. He had a good war as a staff officer in the Royal Artillery in Sicily, Italy and France. He was twice mentioned in dispatches, and awarded a military MBE. In 1946 he was demobbed with the rank of major. When he arrived home he discovered his marriage was over. As one of his close friends described the impact on him: ‘He came out as a sort of gallant, elegant Major – the breakdown of his marriage shattered him totally, and he seemed rudderless.’44

  All his life, Denis Thatcher kept his emotions well hidden beneath a mask of geniality. It is unlikely that he allowed Margaret to catch any glimpses of the pain that he was still feeling three years after his divorce from Margot Kempson. He was wary of making any new commitment. Perhaps that was the reason why he moved so cautiously and patiently before proposing marriage to a second prospective wife. However, he was growing increasingly attracted by her combination of beauty, brains and fighting spirit.

  Denis’s proposal was unexpected to Margaret. Receiving it swung her emotions his way. She may have already been on the rebound from the indecisive Robert. Any further doubts were swept away by the reaction of her parents in Grantham. Alfred Roberts reported on this to Muriel, making it clear that Denis’s first marriage was no obstacle, in his eyes: ‘I told Margaret she could disregard this as he was in no way at fault and actually he is an exceedingly nice fellow. Also, of course, very comfortably situated financially.’45 Later in the letter, Alderman Roberts approvingly noted that Denis owned both a Triumph sports car and a 1948 Jaguar, intending to buy the latest Jaguar model, a Mark V. The only tricky incident in the prospective son-in-law’s reception in Grantham came when Margaret told her parents that Denis liked to drink. ‘I swear her father had to blow the dust off the sherry bottle’, was her fiancé’s recollection of this moment.46

  Although Denis’s proposal was accepted by Margaret with the full consent of her parents, the engagement was kept secret for another five weeks for political reasons. By October 1951, the Labour government was on the verge of collapse, so Prime Minister Clement Attlee called a general election, with polling day set for 25 October.

  Margaret took the view that announcing her engagement to a divorced man might not go down well with the Dartford electorate. So she went through the campaign with Denis much in evidence as a loyal election helper, but not avowed as her future husband. Then, twenty-four hours before the poll, the news of the engagement was leaked to the London evening papers by Conservative Central Office. Margaret was furious, fearing the gimmick might backfire. It made a good story, but had no discernible effect on the voters.

  In the election, Margaret Roberts again fought a thoroughly professional and energetic campaign. One of its brighter moments came when the Daily Graphic photographed her canvassing in Attlee Drive. But generally her 1951 electioneering was quieter and duller than her first battle the previous year. She felt a dispiriting sense of déjà vu as the earlier fires of excitement and dreams of victory failed to re-ignite.

  Even so, the result in Dartford was a creditable one as the Labour majority was reduced by a further 1,304 votes. But as she made her concession speech at the declaration of the poll, Margaret Roberts must have known that she would not be fighting a third election campaign in the constituency. It was time to move on.

  REFLECTION

  By the time she was twenty-six, Margaret Roberts had fought two general election campaigns and had become engaged to an eligible constituent. Dartford was good to her. But she was already much more than a capable local candidate. In the wider world of political recognition, she was being seen as a young woman with a national future.

  Not everyone liked her. Inside the jealous club of Conservative candidates, she ruffled feathers. But even there she was respected for her abilities, as she was by more seasoned political observers.

  ‘An excellent candidate in every way’, was the view of Beryl Cook, the influential Area Agent for South East England. Writing her valedictory report on the candidate for Dartford, Ms Cook continued:

  I gather she intends to drop out of politics for a time, but to return later. As she is still only 26, she can well afford to do this. She should not be lost sight of, because she is quite outstanding in ability and has, in addition, a most attractive personality and appearance.47

  This was an alpha plus rating by Conservative Central Office. But it ignored the negative factor that in the 1950s women candidates faced a serious bias in many Conservative constituencies. This was to be the next big hurdle for the new Mrs Margaret Thatcher to overcome.

  ________________

  * Alfred Charles Bossom (1881–1965), MP for Maidstone 1931–1959. He was created a baronet in 1953 and a life peer in 1960. His son, Sir Clive Bossom Bt, also a Conservative MP, became Margaret Thatcher’s first Parliamentary Private Secretary in 1957.

  † Patricia Hornsby-Smith (1914–1985), only daughter of a saddle dealer and master umbrella maker. MP for Chislehurst for twenty years, she was Margaret Thatcher’s immediate predecessor as Parliamentary Under Secretary at the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. She became a life peeress in 1974.

  ‡ The annual salary of an MP in 1949 was £1,000; expenses averaged £716. Current equivalents: £29,938 and £21,436 (www.thismoney.co.uk).

  # Election results: Norman Dodds (Labour), 38,128; Margaret Roberts (Conservative
), 24,490; Anthony Giles (Liberal), 5,011. Labour majority, 13,638.

  ** Sir Edward du Cann KBE (1924–), MP for Taunton, 1956–1987; Chairman of the Conservative Party, 1965–1967; Chairman of the 1922 Committee, 1972–1984. In the general election of 1951, Edward du Cann contested his first seat in Walthamstow West as the Conservative candidate. His opponent was the Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee.

  5

  Marriage, motherhood and Finchley

  MARRIAGE

  Margaret Roberts became Margaret Thatcher when she married Denis at Wesley’s Chapel, City Road on 13 December 1951. It was a cold and foggy day, brightened by the radiant smile of the bride. She was given away by her father, who thought the ceremony ‘halfway to Rome’,1 despite being held at the most famous Methodist church in London. Perhaps this was because Denis, chose traditional Church of England hymns. The words of the second hymn – ‘Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us O’er the world’s tempestuous sea’ – were to prove highly appropriate, as the Thatchers’ life story later demonstrated.

  Because Denis had been married before, Margaret chose not to wear a traditional white dress. Nevertheless, she was arrayed, literally, like a duchess. For her outfit was a replica of the dress immortalised by Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, in the renowned Chatsworth portrait by Thomas Gainsborough. It was made of sapphire-blue velvet with a matching hat crested on the right-hand side by a spectacular plumage of ostrich feathers.

  The reception had originally been planned to take place in the Bull Hotel, Dartford. But when Sir Alfred Bossom was told of the engagement, he had a better idea. ‘We had a jolly good wedding reception recently for my son Clive and his bride at my home in Carlton Gardens’, said the hospitable MP for Maidstone. ‘Would you like to have your reception there?’

  ‘You bet we would’, said Margaret, who had often been a guest at parties in his magnificent house overlooking The Mall.2 Even so, being a practical fiancée, she asked if she could come and see the kitchen before accepting Alfred Bossom’s offer.

  The first night of the marriage was spent in the Savoy Hotel. The newly-weds then set off for their honeymoon, by flying boat, to Madeira. It was the first time Margaret had been abroad, but the travel arrangements were not to her liking. A bumpy seaplane landing shook the new Mrs Thatcher so badly that she resolved never to use that form of air transport again. So the homeward journey was by ship. However, the three-day crossing to Portugal made her so seasick that it gave Margaret a lifelong aversion to boats.3

  Arriving back in London in the New Year, the couple moved into Denis’s flat at 112 Swan Court in Chelsea. Two sentences describing their early life together in Margaret Thatcher’s memoirs are positively elegiac in their Jane Austen-like echoes of marital bliss: ‘To be a young married woman in comfortable circumstances must always be a delight if the marriage is a happy one, as mine was. But to be a young married woman in the 1950s was very heaven.’4

  The heavenly circumstances of Margaret Thatcher’s first years of marriage were not unconnected with money. In the early 1950s the continuing growth of Atlas meant that Denis was taking home around £100 a week or over £5,000 a year in salary and dividends – an equivalent of over £150,000 in 2013 money. He was paying £7 a week for his rent-controlled flat in Swan Court. So there was plenty of surplus income for re-decorating, entertaining and even buying two of the best seats in the covered stands opposite Westminster Abbey for the Queen’s Coronation on 2 June 1953.

  These comfortable circumstances meant that there was no need for Mrs Thatcher to work, but a life of ease would have been alien to her nature. So she concentrated her energies full time on reading for the bar and attending lectures at the Council for Legal Education. She ate her dinners at the Inner Temple, and passed part I of the bar exams in July 1953.

  Meanwhile, a political career was still firmly in her sights. Her reputation as a successful candidate in Dartford resulted in a steady trickle of speaking invitations and also occasional media opportunities. The most interesting of these was a commission from the Sunday Graphic to write an article about the role of women ‘at the dawn of the new Elizabethan era’. Queen Elizabeth II had succeeded to the throne on 6 February 1952. Eleven days later, the newspaper wanted a female contemporary of the monarch to comment on the opportunities for women that might open up in the new reign. With foresight, the paper selected Mrs Thatcher (just six months older than the Queen) for this task. She rose to it with enthusiasm.

  Under the headline ‘Wake Up, Women’, Margaret Thatcher sounded a trumpet call to the regiment of ambitious female careerists. She dismissed the notion that women should have to sacrifice their professional lives for their husbands and families. Taking a viewpoint that was advanced, almost revolutionary, for the 1950s, she championed the cause that came to be known as ‘Having it all’, and specifically applied it to her own field of politics. Not only did she want more women in the House of Commons; she had a vision of them rising to the highest offices of state: ‘Should a woman arise equal to the task, I say let her have an equal chance with the men for the leading Cabinet posts. Why not a woman Chancellor – or Foreign Secretary?’5

  No one else in politics was voicing such thoughts in 1952. At the time when this article was published there had only ever been two women cabinet ministers – Margaret Bondfield, Minister of Labour, and Ellen Wilkinson, Minister of Education. Both were Labour politicians, unmarried and with low-ranking posts in the cabinet’s pecking order. Margaret Thatcher was setting her sights higher, although not yet as high as becoming prime minister.

  Throughout 1952 she continued to manoeuvre towards her goal of a seat in Parliament. Although just before her marriage she told Conservative Central Office that she would put her political ambitions ‘on ice for some time to come’, she reversed this stance a few months later.

  In June 1952, She went to see ‘Auntie Beryl’, as she had come to call her Conservative Central Office friend, Beryl Cook, and told her: ‘It’s no use; I must face it: I don’t like being left out of the political stream!’6 Beryl Cook arranged for her to see John Hare MP, the Party Vice Chairman of candidates. After hearing that her husband was supporting her re-entry into the fiercely competitive arena of constituency selection races, John Hare fought her corner and managed to get her on the short-list for the inner London marginal seat of Holborn and St Pancras.

  To his surprise Margaret Thatcher withdrew her name, ostensibly on the grounds that, ‘I would rather not tackle an area so close to Central London, as it has no community life of its own’.7

  This was a disingenuous explanation. The real reason she pulled out was that she thought she deserved a better constituency than a Labour marginal with a majority of 2,000.

  In search of a safe seat, she put herself forward for Canterbury. She was interviewed but not even short-listed. This was a disappointment and also a reminder that her speeches could polarise her listeners. Sometimes she did worse than merely polarise them.

  There are embarrassing accounts of how she positively affronted a gaudy of Somerville alumnae in the summer of 1952. Instead of delivering the light-hearted fare of after-dinner witticisms expected on these occasions, Margaret Thatcher gave a ponderous presentation about marriage and home life.

  ‘That was dreadful. I’ll never invite her to speak again’, spluttered the college Principal, Dame Janet Vaughan. She was agreeing with another Thatcher critic in the audience, Ann Dally, who had found the guest of honour’s cut-glass accent embarrassing, and her content ‘alien and uncongenial’ because of her ‘sanctimonious platitudes’.8

  Whether Margaret Thatcher’s speeches were being met with favourable or unfavourable reactions, her attempts to find a constituency came to a temporary halt in early 1953 when she discovered she was pregnant. Politics had to be eclipsed by motherhood. Contrary to her intentions, the eclipse created a five-year gap in her political career.

  MOTHERHOOD

  Margaret Thatcher had a difficult pregnancy. She suffered from
unusually heavy morning sickness and from long periods of feeling unwell. The reason, unknown to her at the time, was that she was carrying twins. The gynaecologist decided that an urgent Caesarean operation was required so, six weeks ahead of schedule, Mark and Carol Thatcher arrived in the world on the afternoon of Saturday 15 August 1953, at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in Hammersmith.

  Their father, unaware of these medical dramas, had ‘very sensibly’, in the view of his wife,9 gone to the England v. Australia Test Match. He returned from the Oval to find himself the head of a family of four. It was the first of many great surprises that his marriage to Margaret would give him.

  She handled the challenges of maternity with impatient efficiency. In those days, it was standard practice for nursing mothers to stay in hospital for three weeks of recovery after the birth. She persuaded her doctors to discharge her after a fortnight. Even so, she chafed at finding herself with time on her hands.

  Unaccustomed as she was to relaxation, she spent some of this spare time filling in the application for her bar finals, sending off a cheque to pay the examination fees in advance. She explained: ‘This little psychological trick I was playing on myself would ensure that I plunged into legal studies on my return to Swan Court with the twins.’10 She also recalled thinking: ‘If I fill in the entrance form now, pride will not let me fail.’11

  Having psyched herself up to combine her new life of motherhood with bar exams, Margaret Thatcher set about achieving the difficult target of passing her bar finals four months after giving birth to Mark and Carol.12

  As a young mother, Margaret was both dutiful and bountiful. She gave her children everything they wanted and more. But it was motherly love by over-compensation. She was no more tactile or intimate with Mark and Carol than Alfred and Beatrice Roberts had been with her and Muriel. Even though Margaret’s maternal instincts were to be less strict with rules and more liberal with home comforts, she found it difficult to be generous with her time. She seemed to think that everything could be fitted into her schedule with good planning and organisation.