Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

Interview for Hampstead and Highgate Express

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: Unknown
Source: Hampstead and Highgate Express, 16 October 1959
Editorial comments: Item listed by date of publication. Republished by kind permission of the Hampstead and Highgate Express.
Importance ranking: Minor
Word count: 293
Themes: Autobiographical comments, Autobiography (marriage & children), Women

Third time lucky for MP

It's a case of third time lucky for 33-year-old Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, the new Conservative MP for Finchley. In the 1950 and 1951 elections she contested Dartford as Conservative candidate without success. Now at her third attempt she has been elected for Finchley with a thumping majority.

Mrs. Thatcher's constituency includes part of Hampstead Garden Suburb which she describes as “a wonderful place.”

Elected to a Parliament with a record number of women members, Mrs. Thatcher is a realist. “It's not a case of having particular interests because I'm a woman MP,” she said, “I take the broad view, which is that I represent the whole constituency, both men and women.”

Her husband is “100 per cent” in favour of her entering politics. “It's no good unless your husband is really enthusiastic,” she remarked. “No, Denis Thatcherhe isn't in politics himself; he's in business. Someone in the family has to earn a decent living.”

Qualified barrister,

Mrs. Thatcher has a resident nanny at her home at Farnborough, Kent, to look after her six-year-old twins, Carol and Mark. She herself has given up her work as a barrister, for which she qualified a few months after their birth, to concentrate on politics. “I can manage two jobs, but not three,” she said briskly.

Mrs. Thatcher's non-political interests include music—collecting records—and cooking. She and her husband entertain frequently, and on these occasions she does most of the cooking.

She faces her new life in the House of Commons calmly. “It will be rather an ordeal to start with, in the same way as any new job is an ordeal,” she said.