Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

Interview with Brian Walden (Grantham)

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: No.10 Downing Street
Source: Thatcher Archive
Journalist: Brian Walden
Editorial comments:

1730-1830. Brian Walden’s opening words show that the interview was for an article of some kind, but where and when it was published has not been traced.

Importance ranking: Major
Word count: 5069
Themes: Autobiographical comments, Autobiography (childhood), Autobiography (marriage & children), Conservatism, Conservative Party (organization), Religion & morality, Monetary policy, Family, Voluntary sector & charity

Mr. Walden

Everyone says you are very simple to understand. They say that they can fit you into categories. I am going to write an article in which I say you are immensely complicated, that you are not simple at all, that you are a mass of contradictions and that it isn't easy to stereotype … Now for that I need background evidence and there are two people in your life who interest me very much. The first is your father. Now, first of all, I get the feeling that his original politics may have been liberal. Is that right?

Prime Minister

Yes, they were.

Mr. Walden

When was he born?

Prime Minister

1892.

Mr. Walden

And he lived in Grantham for …

Prime Minister

Alfred RobertsHe moved to Grantham as a teenager. He was born in Ringstead, a small village in Northamptonshire, not far from … Oundle was the nearest small town.

Mr. Walden

And he was a Liberal?

Prime Minister

Yes, he was Liberal in his early days. I can't tell you when he stopped being Liberal. I suppose when I can remember him telling me that there had been a … the modern fights in politics in elections were nothing like the sort of battles in the 1906 election.

Mr. Walden

Has it ever occurred to you - I once wrote it about you and I now put it to you. Ever occurred to you that the person you most resemble is not Disraeli, the chap that Tories always want to identify with, but Gladstone? That much of what you believe in is what Gladstone believed in? [end p1]

Prime Minister

Oh, but that is the true liberalism. Yes, the truth of [Adam?] Smith. Yes, except I think modified in this way. As a set of principles yes, but I do think that the difference between a Tory and a Liberal is that we take those principles and very much adapt them to historical tradition here. Therefore our principles are not merely universal, some principles we believe are universal - the way in which you carry them out has a particular relationship to a history and tradition here.

Mr. Walden

Don't you think Gladstone was sensitive too?

Prime Minister

I don't know. I found Gladstone such a formidable person.

Mr. Walden

How do you feel about formidable men like that?

Prime Minister

I don't know very many.

Mr. Walden

Your father was one perhaps.

Prime Minister

Yes, Alfred Robertshe was. He was very formidable and you're quite right, I have known quite a number because they believed certain things and they never feared to say them wherever they were. And they took the view - you often find them in the sort of locality where I was brought up - that you may not be able to get anyone to agree with you but at least they will respect you for your view and you could always explain it. And you had to explain it. But the worst thing in the way I was brought up was ever to follow the crowd. You never did something because someone else was going to do it. You always made up your own mind. How vividly I can remember this. On so many incidents, you know well so and so's going out for a walk - can I go too? Or so and so's going out to something - can I go too? You never do anything just because someone else is doing it. And this was drummed into one - very tough upbringing, Brian. This stays with you.

Mr. Walden

When did your father die?

Prime Minister

Father died … er … I cannot now tell you the year. Before I was Secretary of State for Education. About late 1960s. Would you mind getting the actual date, Neville? I always get [end p2] mixed up between when Beatrice Robertsmy mother died which was 1963 and when my father died.

Mr. Walden

How would you react …

Prime Minister

Sorry, he died in the early 1970s. He died when I was Secretary of State for Education. He saw me Secretary of State for Education and a member of the Cabinet.

Mr. Walden

I'm not going to make too much of the man&slash;woman thing, but let me put this to you. This can be true, I think, of either sex, it is certainly true for instance of my attitude towards my mother. But some people say, well at least I say - never mind what some people say - that I suspect that somewhere in Margaret Thatcher there is a deep longing for authority which her father supplied but that she has never subsequently found anybody who supplied that kind of authority, so she supplied it herself. Now how would you react to that as a statement?

Prime Minister

Why I hesitate is, because I don't know when I had it or when I found it, but I well remember, not long after I was a Member of Parliament, Godfrey Wynn coming down to interview me - you know when one came in, Brian, and was new and mid 30s, young children, and I was just talking to him and showing him things, and he said to me, it was the first time it ever occurred to me, &ldq;You have a natural air of authority,&rdq; and a number of other people said it to me after that. Now, Brian, I don't know when I arsquired it. I have no idea. But the moment he said it I knew it was perfectly true. I like strong personalities. Some people with strong personalities themselves like to have weak personalities about them. I don't. I like strong personalities who stand for certain things and will stand and stand and stand and argue and argue and not move one inch. In the end, all right, they know you have to compromise but I like strong personalities and I find a tremendous lack of them. You'll find one or two very strong personalities in industry but not many, but I do like strong personalities. Then I understand, then there is something to [end p3] fight. It's anything wishy washy that I can't stand. So I don't know. Do I need some … I do like strong people about me - I really do. I suppose in a way that's why I chose Peter Thorneycroft as Chairman of the Party. Peter is a strong personality. He doesn't fiddle around with detail. He is a strong personality.

Mr. Walden

In your relationship with your father, not when you were a little girl or even when you were a teenager because …

Prime Minister

Can I just tell you something else? Because the other thing was, I was the youngest of the family. I had one Muriel Robertselder sister four years older than me. But all my likes as a child were very much the conversation of older people, and it was a very very fascinating time the 1930s, fascinating, frightening - this combination of factors and we knew all about it, and this is what always gets me very angry when some of my political colleagues think that ordinary folk don't understand what's going on. We were very ordinary but we understood and we knew. Within a small town there was one of our arsquaintances had been a nanny to an old German family. My sister had a penfriend from school who was an Austrian Jewess. All of a sudden we got a message from the father - could Edith come and stay with us, she had to be got out of Vienna. She did, she came and stayed with us and she came to stay with … we couldn't do it alone &dubellip; so several members of the Rotary Club. And you know we had these two contacts and then we had a doctor in the town, called Dr. Jauch - he was naturalised British, but we had a lot of contacts with Germany. And we began to know what was going on. And I must say that I found it absolutely fascinating listening to the conversation and sometimes chiming in and joining in and I read a lot. And then of course there was quite a lot of politics going on too. I remember the 1935 election - I was only ten. Sir Victor Wallender was our candidate. It is now Lord Bruntisfield. He wrote to me when I became Leader of the Party. I did not spend a lot of time with my contemporaries because I found fun things not satisfying enough.

Mr. Walden

When did your father switch to the Tories?

Prime Minister

Well, I don't know. It just happened because we always used to stand as independents for local authority work [end p4] but always in Parliamentary elections I can never remember him being other than Conservative. I think it must have been the break up … the break up of the Liberal Party to him was final.

Mr. Walden

May I ask you a very difficult personal question? And by all means refuse to answer any of these points if you don't want to. Obviously you greatly loved your mother and obviously from what everyone says about her she was a very nice lady, but why is it that I get the impression from everything that I have read about you, even from Patricia Murray who deliberately goes into the more formidable side of it. Why do I always I get the impression that you were closer to your father than you were to your mother?

Prime Minister

Because we used to talk more. I used to talk with my father. You see my Beatrice Robertsmother worked like a slave. I think it is only when one becomes a mother of a family oneself one realises how much my mother did. But my mother didn't take very much part in discussions. She would do two bakes a week, she would help in the shop, she would do the washing, she was a marvellous dressmaker, she made all our clothes for us, she was able to upholster, to do loose covers, she&slash;was very very house proud in a sense of whatever we had and there was not very much. It had to be spick and span and very well polished. Absolutely clean. Cleanliness was next to Godliness. So she was a kind of Martha. She was not a Mary, she was a Martha, and we were turned out beautifully and everything was washed and brushed and she was also a pillar of the Church and she went &dubellip; but if you both ran a house, did the sewing, did a lot of the housework, did the cooking, went to Church a great deal, did a lot of Church work, and was often in the shop, always there. Because my father did a lot of voluntary work and was a Councillor and was on everything, so my mother often ran the shop. So you see she worked like a Trojan, she really did. I have never known any woman work harder than my mother did. But you know the cruel thing is you tend to take that kind of work for granted. You only really repay your mother when you do that amount yourself for your own children. I tended to take her for granted. You only really repay your mother when you do that amount yourself for your own children. I tended to take her for granted but she was marvellous and she was a completely self-sacrificing person and this is why I know just what parents will do for children. …eventually sacrificed herself for us. And you know what I mean when I say you only really repay what they do for you by trying desperately to do the same things for your children. Only to some extent you [end p5] give your children what you know you didn't have and I feel that my parents gave me what they didn't have and they didn't have education, they would have loved it. You see, my mother had her own dressmaking business before she knew my father. And I tried to give my children a bit more fun because fun was the thing that I did not have.

Mr. Walden

Can I ask you two questions put together so that you will see exactly what I am asking? The first is, is there any value or belief that your father had that you don't share? And the second one is not so much a question but an interrogative statement. How would you react to the statement that your father really created all your values, all your objectives in life? Now let's take the first one. Is there any value or belief that your father had that you don't share?

Prime Minister

Well, I think there are old-fashioned &dubellip; because to some extent, highly prejudicial &dubellip; I can remember in my early days, as you know we were taught to think that to invest on the Stock Exchange was wrong because it was a form of gambling.

Mr. Walden

Your father believed that did he?

Prime Minister

Well it is, it is a form of gambling. But Alfred Robertshe changed so much, you see, he changed and grew too. The War changed my father tremendously and when I say it changed him it is not quite right, it is just that he adapted, he was capable of adapting to the needs of the times. … in and out of the Stock Exchange, and my father thought that was wrong. It was perfectly right to invest in someone, to help someone who was trying to start up a business. That was all right. But to buy himself shares he thought was a form of gambling. And that was wrong and there was a slight sort of criticism of anyone who did that. That was not sound. You weren't finding the person who was wanting to create something. It was right to create and build up a business but not right to go in and out of the Stock Exchange. We never had a drop of drink in the house. It was wholly temperance, to the extent that you didn't have anything in the house to offer others. He changed after he became Mayor. You had to offer things around and after that we did have some things in the house. Then you never never played games on a Sunday. It was wrong and therefore [end p6] I couldn't ever go swimming on a Sunday. It was wrong, you didn't do that. You couldn't play a game of cards in the house on a Sunday, you couldn't play rummy on a Sunday evening. But these things were - do you understand - they belong &dubellip; grandmother was alive it was not nice for any woman to go to the theatre.

Mr. Walden

She was even stricter I gather.

Prime Minister

Yes. Because that was the Victorian thing. No woman ever went into a pub - ever. Now, when war time came, and I do really hand it to Alfred Robertspapa, because he did have an inner wisdom, and we had a lot of troops stationed near the town and we were not far from Cranwell and we had an aerodrome &dubellip; troops stationed in the town. He was the first I remember to vote in a local authority thing that the cinemas should be open on Sundays, that the parks, and tennis courts and swimming pools should be open on Sunday. Now do you realise what this meant to a person like my father? He said it is much, much better for them to have somewhere to go than be walking the streets with nothing to do. And I always think that was one of the most remarkable and wise things, and really the things that I've taken that I thought were a little bit prejudiced - even in those days one was beginning to question some of them - were perhaps values that he had taken on from his parents and hadn't thought about but the moment they came up for test then he nevertheless made out of this thing that he was always talking about to me - you must make up your own mind according to the circumstances. But he made the wisest and shrewdest judgement. And so we did two things. First, that public things had to be open and secondly, when you went to Church on Sunday evenings, if anyone there from the forces, in any form of uniform, it was always understood that some member of the congregation would take them home for supper. Never, never, never would anyone come to our Church and not find friendship warmth and friendliness there. Never. And never, never, never would my Beatrice Robertsmother do a bake which was done twice a week on Sunday morning before Church and on Thursdays. Never, never, never would she do a bake without sending something out to someone [end p7] who she knew would either like it or needed it. Just quietly - &ldq;wrap that up, take it to Miss Holmes&rdq;. You know I can remember the names - you just did. &ldq;Mummy's just made a cake, she wondered if you'd like one.&rdq; Always in that way. And you see all our thoughtfulness, kindliness, friendliness was done really as a matter of course in our lives and it was really second nature. But they did it you see and my father, who was very ill towards the end of his time and I used to go down and see him, whenever I went down - he had bad lungs and had to have oxygen. I should think that for the last six months he was in bed for some part of the day. He had a fantastic number of friends because by the time he had done all his voluntary work in the local community and in the Methodist Church the friendship endures.

Mr. Walden

Does it strike you, to ask you something that is relatively critical, that the description which you gave me earlier on of the man obviously &dubellip; but nevertheless prepared to change in different circumstances is the difference between an authoritarian personality and an out-and-out dogmatist? Now a lot of people portray you &dubellip;

Prime Minister

No, I'm not an out-and-out dogmatist. I don't think I ever could be. But I have to stand on certain things. But you can't have a set of beliefs that is totally devoid of the human beings to which they relate. They are useless if that is so. No, I suppose one was brought up with a certain amount of dogma and one rejected it, making up one's mind that this was the way to go.

Mr. Walden

What about the second thing that I asked? How would you react to the statement that your father shaped your values and set your objectives?

Prime Minister

Alfred RobertsHe certainly shaped my values, both by discussion and by example. In the sense that somehow it was always thought that &dubellip; I well remember my mother, when I was comparatively young, &ldq;Yes, we hope she'll go to university&rdq;. You see this was the zenith. People take it so easily these days, Brian. [end p8]

For us to have the opportunity, opened up something better than all the gold mines and all the diamond mines in the world. It opened up the world of the mind, the world of friendship, the world of contact - almost for ever.

Mr. Walden

Let me ask you another question &dubellip;

Prime Minister

… and a very strong sense of duty &dubellip; we used to have overseas missionaries come to our Church and they would also tell us things, and we sat at so many people's feet, and imbibed this wonderful world that was outside and imbibed the sense of duty that you had to do things. And you certainly did imbibe &dubellip; quite wrong to live up to the hilt of your income, let alone beyond it. Oh, I can well remember Beatrice Robertsmy mother criticising someone - oh, she lives up to the hilt of her income because that I remember that person, always used to be turned out in rather spanking clothes and it was wrong. You know, there certainly was a puritanical thing. You didn't spend too much on yourself, you didn't live up to the hilt of your income. You saved. Yes, in that sense Brian. But after one had got that one was very much &dubellip; what one did with one's life it was up to one's self. I can tell you something else which you would never know to ask me. I well remember one of my friends criticising one of my father's friends who had had son, an only child, who became an artist - really a rather good one, who constantly came back home penniless asking his father and mother - just like my parents - for money and then went off and spent it and lived a very bohemian life, constantly coming back overspent, constantly coming back, parents savings used. I well remember someone saying to my father, &ldq;How absurd, why they don't say well there's just no money, you must go, get out, you mustn't come back any more.&rdq; And I well remember father saying to this person, &ldq;Perhaps you don't understand the parent, that home is a place that you can always come, whatever you've done. And always, always, always, whatever anyone's done, if they can't go home where can they go?&rdq; And you see, that was really the deepest thing. It was always the thing that was etched on one's memory which I've always thought with my own children. You always, but always, come home. It is a centre of comfort, of loyalty, affection, [end p9] of understanding and help.

Mr. Walden

A funny sounding question. I know you have a sister, Muriel who is four years older than you. Why is it, however, in all that I ever read about either of you, I always get the impression that you're the elder sister?

Prime Minister

I have no idea. I didn't even know you had that impression. Because Muriel Robertsshe is very much older than I am. Anyone with four years difference and has an older sister, there's quite a gap, very much older, and you will get told off now and then - either you're not wearing the right clothes or you haven't got the right hairstyle, on TV you're talking too fast or too slow or you look too pale.

Mr. Walden

Then why did you find - and these are difficult questions to ask - was it then that your father was closer to you than he was to your sister and if so, why?

Prime Minister

No, it was because I was much, much more interested in those things &dubellip;

Mr. Walden

What things?

Prime Minister

In the learning, I was obviously very interested in learning, I was musical - my father was musical and had a good bass voice, my mother played the piano - I was taught to play the piano at an early age. At the age of five I was sent off to start to learn. My sister was not musical. Curiously enough she always read the papers a lot and I thought she was an absolutely classic example of where school did not bring out the best performance from her. But certainly my father and I would have more discussion. My sister &dubellip; my father was obviously keen and interested that we should both do something and think. You must understand something else in those days, Brian. We were in trade. Now the people who had a much more secure existence than we had were the people in professions and, even in those days, people in the public sector. So the thing to do if you were in trade was to get your children into a profession. You remember the times? And people tend to look down on you if you're in a trade. [end p10]

So, we really set out - my objective was university. It was thought that my sister would never go to university and therefore we had to set out to go into a profession. We hadn't the money to buy ourselves into an expensive training and I well remember - a delightful person we knew, our local physiotherapist, a Mrs. Ward. I can remember all of these names. On saying to my father, &ldq;Well there's my profession for your elder daughter, a physiotherapist.&rdq; And we knew Mrs. Ward, I liked her, and I always think it's whether you like a person that shapes so much of what you do afterwards, and it just came like that and she was a delightful person and she had a very good standard of living. And so my sister, at the age of seventeen, went away - well, Mrs. Ward recommended her to the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Birmingham because there was a way of becoming a physiotherapist without having to pay to take the training. And that way was to become an orthopaedic nurse which took you three years and then you were trained for the next two years to become a physiotherapist. Now that took five years, so Muriel went away at about the age of seventeen until twenty-two, and she was away from us for so many of those War years in Birmingham and we were all desperately worried because Birmingham was bombed. She came back and had had experiences that were worse than we had ever had. And then she opened up for me vistas which I had never seen or known. I remember going to stay in Birmingham. But you see there are years when I talked very closely to my father when Muriel wasn't there because she was away training so I think that was the explanation. I was about thirteen you see when she went away. But we still talk. Because she did show me vistas that I didn't know existed and so it's a broadening of the mind.

Mr. Walden

Where does she live now Prime Minister?

Prime Minister

Muriel RobertsShe lives in, not very far from Colchester. Married with three children. She's older than I am and two of the children are married, her husband's a farmer. But we're still very close because this is the essence of our family. We're not demonstrative, we're not flambouyant but we are very, very close - it comes from telephoning. And we just are. It doesn't depend on how much time necessarily you spend with one another. Carol ThatcherCarol and I are very, very close. Isn't it [end p11] extraordinary, I was very close to my father but Carol and I, my daughter and I, are very, very close. So are Mark Thatchermy son and I too.

Mr. Walden

You said that they were very different from each other.

PM

Yes, they are totally different personalities. Mark is very, very much more extrovert. Very much a salesman personality. Lives really by contact with people. Carol also has quite a lot of contact with people but doesn't necessarily seek to be in the crowd so much.

Mr. Walden

Let me ask you, I think it is the last major question I want to ask you, and it is perhaps the most difficult to put. I think anybody who has seen you at the House of Commons or on a platform privately would have said - and this is one of the complexities and contradictions - a woman of deep passion. But you yourself, I always remember something you once said to me, you said &ldq;We don't want too much passion, that sort of thing burns out. I am not very much in favour of passion.&rdq; Now I think that is true too. That opposites can exist in the same personality. Why is it, if it is true, that you have this hesitancy about passion in the way that passionate people usually don't? What passionate people usually tell you is that everybody ought to be passionate and that they have got no use for people who aren't. From whence cometh your deep sense of caution about a strong element in your own nature?

PM

What you refer to as passion and what I say, that kind of thing burns out, isn't what I have called passion. That is a temporary anger, intense feeling which boils over at the time and that is why I say it doesn't endure. It is something which boils over and the deep passion comes from within. And it is what you feel and actually do alone or with great friends - it is what you feel and actually do it is not what you talk about - it is what is within you. It is the quiet things you do which no-one knows about. It is not the public persona. One is a boiling over and the other is a feeling from which you can never escape. It is a difference between an utter internal desperation and distress. [end p12] When you see a child that someone is being cruel to it is much deeper than boiling over about it. You might boil over at a particular time, you might boil over, but the other thing the horror, the desperation, the awful feeling that somehow these things can still happen. That will last and it is that which will make you do something - you will either give some extra, because you don't do a great deal yourself you will say I must provide the money to someone, I don't do it, I don't go out and help these children myself, therefore I must help by providing money or I must help them here in No. 10 and must have a group of those children - they must come here for a party. I must be able to give them something which they wouldn't otherwise have so that I can build into their lives things to remember. As I have things to remember because those memories of the children will endure. And it is just all that difference. Have I explained it? Do you understand?

Mr. Walden

Yes, I do. I promised that was the last question but one very final supplementary question. Do you see - I mean obviously none of us like the stereo-type caricature we read in ourselves normally - but how much do you, can you understand goes beyond that? Have you always had the consciousness yourself which you are, that you are an immensely complicated woman?

PM

I know there are lots of different sides to me. I know that very few people see them all. I don't recognise a caricature neither do my children. And that really is just the greatest compliment. You see, I just thought it was the greatest compliment that they both stayed and lived at home for quite a long time. So long as we lived in London they didn't say &ldq;I am going to get a flat on my own&rdq;. And maybe home was always home. But equally, Brian, I didn't interfere too much or pry too much because one recognised that being together is a base for living your separate lives as well. And if you are going to do things alone it is far better in a way to demonstrate that you can do them alone to someone with whom you have done them together. Do you understand what I mean?

Mr. Walden

Yes, I think so. [end p13]

PM

So you simply cannot have a light that smothers everything. Your home is a base for your children becoming responsible beings and going out into the wider world. I think I did get this from my father - you are absolutely right. Home is a place where you come for comfort, affection, total loyalty and from which sometimes you take inspiration, ideas. But it doesn't smother you. You must never smother a personality you must just try to develop it. I also have another thing which my father taught me which has always turned out to be so true, and it did turn out to be so true in life, is the very opposite of Rousseau's The Noble Savage, that would have found no favour with my father at all, in any way. He said, and it has come back to my time and time again in life, everyone is born with good or evil in them and the task of being the mother and the task of teaching is to bring out the good and to push down the evil. And of course it is. And as I grew older and I looked at some of the political creeds and I saw people trying to teach and spread the idea that if only everyone had a good education, good health and a reasonable amount of money, everything in the world would be wonderful. And I knew it wouldn't. Because then you would be left with the problems of human nature and they are much more complex than being able to be solved by public programmes of governments. But you can make people go wrong by having the wrong programmes but what you can't do is make them good by having the right programmes. That really is what it is all about.

Mr. Walden

Prime Minister, I am finished.