One shawl (Welsh) one antique bureau (reproduction) one bottle of port (No. 515) one coracle (imitation) one ode and Margaret Comes Marching Home
They brought her a boat to cross the Haven but they need not have bothered. She could have walked.
It was not just a visit to South West Wales, after all. It was a triumphant procession, two days for the faithful to pay homage, to pour out of the nooks and crannies of political isolation to greet the Messiah with the indestructible hair-do. They exult.
“Never knew we had so many Conservatives down here, did you?” asks one lady in blue—what else?—sniffing the heady scent of Number 10 over the aroma of canapes at one reception for the converted. Madam, I never knew you had so many people down there.
Or perhaps it is renown rather than sabre-rattling which brings them out. Grab a glance of would-be greatness and go home to polish the picture of Jim. Whatever the reason, Mrs. T. takes them by storm. No doubt about it.
Punctuality
They wind her up quietly. Nine a.m. on the dot—punctuality is the politeness of party leaders as well as kings—the Conservative cavalcade, Volvo, Rover 3500 and Princess, arrives for a factory visit. “They are the easy ones,” says Nick Edwards, M.P., Shadow Secretary of State, and tour major-domo. “Those and the political meetings. It is the receptions that strain you and your voice.”
Not to worry, there are a mere three of those to come, three fresh speeches— “I've got to say something different,” Mrs. Thatcher tells you later. “I've got to watch you chaps there who come around with us” (us chaps there who come around with her being the Press who might, heaven knows why, object to hearing the same thing ad infinitum)—three new oceans of scrubbed, expectant faces straining to tell her personally that if Boadicea or Marie Curie herself walked in she would end up a poor second in any poll for Female of the Year.
But the factory visit, as Nick Edwards predicts, is relaxed, a stroll around Bowling's Reproductions Ltd. in Pembroke Dock, chats to the workers. “She's great, isn't she?” says Pat Clark, breaking off from sanding her cabinet to bask in the after-glow of the meeting. “Ah, but will she be the next prime minister?” you ask us. She is not so sure.
Where, you wonder as she cuts through the clouds of dust thrown up by the wood-working machines, is the fastidious housewife (husband Dennis, by the way, is with her) beloved by the London columnists? Clue number one comes with the first cup of tea.
Picture the scene. A room crowded with antique—sorry, reproduction—furniture. In the middle is a large, expensive table. The leader of Her Majesty's Opposition has it discreetly pointed out that she is approaching injury time for this particular visit. Her cup is hardly started. She looks around for a depository. Her eyes fall on the table, where, horror, milk has been spilt.
It may be no use crying over it, but her reaction is instinctive. “I can't bear to see that,” she says. “We need something to mop it up.” And when it comes to putting her cup down, the concern is again for the table. “It's not going to harm it, is it? I mean, you don't put hot things down on beautiful things at home.”
As the scene fades, so the image changes. She becomes more the Iron Lady ready to take on the world and all who live in her. Or, in this case, a six-mile crossing over choppy seas and into a 30-knot wind between Pembroke Dock and Milford Haven.
Us chaps who have come round with her wait at the other side. No two ways about it, we harbour this secret curiosity of which we are all ashamed. Will this most blue of ladies be tinged with green? Will she emerge an ashen-faced victim of the Haven?
We should have known better. “This isn't rough,” she says. “Goodness me, I've been on a rig in the North Sea when a supply ship couldn't get in.”
The elements, though, have the last say. She has to comb her hair.
Her first speech of the day, performed under the approving gaze of a picture of hers truly (not to mention the Queen), is a tub-thumper for the benefit of the Milford Haven Conservative Club who, thanks to the largesse [end p1] of Mr. Callaghan, still have her available to open a £60,000 extension. The content is hardly awash with originality: “When the general election comes it will mean a bigger majority here and elsewhere in the United Kingdom.”
Still, she could have said, “I read a newspaper today” or “I like broad beans” and the applause would have been as deafening. You can almost see commitment oozing out of her listeners. As speeches go this is a mere hors d'oeuvres.
Haverfordwest is walkabout, press-the-flesh time. Bridge Street and Castle Square are crammed with people. It is the same a few hours and 30 miles later in Carmarthen. If all the people who clamour for a glimpse or a handshake put their votes where their voices are, Mr. Callaghan can call the removal men now.
Only the odd dissenter cracks the solidarity. “Come on, Owen, don't you want to see Mrs. Thatcher?” “Not really interested,” says the belaboured husband, struggling against the tide.
People toss out their grievances as though just telling her will miraculously whisk them away. She fields them and deftly passes them out to Nicholas Edwards. In Carmarthen her prospective parliamentary candidate fields them.
And in between there is the first major speech of the day. The topics are good, Conservative hardy annuals: disillusion with the Government, the power of the individual to stimulate business and economy ( “Labour clobbers private enterprise” ), the defence of Britain and all she stands for, the virtues of selective education. Rapturous applause greets each and every one as she hammers it home.
In Carmarthen, order and phraseology vary but the subject matter is fairly constant.
She had already had her eight hour day but as she is on a productivity bonus to become prime minister she keeps going. Swansea offers a private dinner in the Dragon before she swaps hotels—and creatures—for the Dolphin and reception number three.
Promise
The clans from Swansea East and West, Aberavon, Gower, Llanelli and Neath gather for the pasties and polemics. They are not disappointed. They even get a promise on a Welsh referendum as a bonus. Not that it elicits as much excitement as promised cuts in taxation.
Nine p.m., 12 hours after her start, she gets ready to “circulate.” The reception will not finish before 10.15 p.m. You ask whether she ever tires of the eternal merry-go-round, if she ever wishes she was far away from the hectic life of the senior politician.
Never, she says, though she does wish it was a bit cooler in here. At the moment, thoughts of elections and Downing Street are replaced by an altogether simpler desire … that someone opens a window. She talks about the pressure.
“You can keep going as long as you have to,” she says. “You are only tired after you are finished. Somehow, the adrenalin keeps flowing.”
For someone with a reputation for coldness and arrogance she seems remarkably warm. It could be the fact there are no windows open. But you doubt it. Everywhere she has been there was a presentation. What does even Margaret Thatcher do with one antique reproduction bureau, one shawl, one bedspread, one coracle (imitation), one bottle of vintage investiture port (number 515 out of a 2,000 batch) and one ode to be sung to the tune of When Johnny Comes Marching Home.
“We don't normally get this number,” she says. “For the bureau I will have to send a subscription to charity, the NSPCC. That is the only way I could possibly take it. The drink will keep until the election. And some of them we will share.”
As for Wales it has impressed her, both the people and the place. “It was marvellous, it really was,” she says.
Day two is easier. A visit to a men's wear factory. Swansea market (add Welsh lamb and laver-bread to the gifts) and Smiths Industries, Ystradgynlais. Then London. It can only be quieter.