GT
Prime Minister, you and I spent many years together in the House of Commons and we got to know each other very well indeed, particularly, if I may say so, in those last years when first you were Leader of the Opposition then Prime Minister and I had the great honour of sitting in that chair. And many a time I've sat there thinking to myself, we have a lot in common. First of all our heritage—we both grew up in Methodist homes. More recently, when I was travelling down from the North of England with one of our Deputy Speakers, Mr. Ernest Armstrong, we saw a signpost to Grantham and he said to me ‘Would you like to see where the PM lives?’ ‘Oh I would’ I said. And so we went to Grantham. I stopped one lady in town and I said ‘Do you know where Margaret Thatcher's home was?’ and of course she knew, they all knew. And I went to the shop. I saw the name Roberts above. They call themselves the Premier Cafe now I don't blame them. But I pictured the schoolgirl with the satchel. You had a happy home didn't you?
PM
Yes I did have a happy home. It was a warm family life. I'm always glad that I was brought up in a small town and in a very kind of regular family life. Some people say they don't like to be tied to things but you know I think children do like a regular life. They like to know what's going to happen next. And that was very much so. I remember thinking the other day when we had these bright, sunny days that as a child I really rather liked the winter days because I knew that when we walked home from school you were going into a living room with a nice warm fire. My mother was there. She'd want to know what had happened at school. We'd toast bread for tea and then my father would come in and perhaps he would talk. Then there would be homework to do and then there were certain radio programmes we always listened to. What was it? Monday night at eight o'clock and Tommy Handley, some of the variety shows. And then sometimes on Friday night I remember Norman Birkett on ‘Encounter’. We did very much a mixture of things. But you see we knew certain things were going to happen at certain times. Wednesday I knew that [end p1] my mother would go to the sewing circle at church. Sunday, of course, Sunday school in the morning, church in the morning, Sunday school in the afternoon.
GT
Exactly the same life that I had.
PM
Yes. And then my father was Methodist local preacher and he would always sit down and work out his sermons. But above all, George, I can remember just the warmth of family life and, we're on television now, I sometimes wonder how much activity television has stopped. It's given us new horizons, it's enlarged our understanding. But you know the great character and features of my life was, we always talked, my father and mother and I. We talked about things. And in the shop, the shop you've seen, customers came in and it was part of the day. Not that you just took things off shelves. There weren't supermarkets but you actually stopped and talked. And we stayed open late at night and people would come in and if they got some salt or some fruit or something they would stay and talk about the tremendous things that were happening in those days. And I used to go into the shop and I used first to listen and absorb because I loved listening to this marvellous talk about things that were happening that were worrying. And then gradually I would start to join in. But you see we talked across generations, but always in this very warm framework, always in a church and Christian structure. And George, it's the best upbringing.
GT
It's a wonderful upbringing, Margaret.
PM
It had nothing to do with how much money you had because we had to be very careful.
GT
Exactly the same as mine except your father kept a shop but he had to struggle to get the shop didn't he?
PM
Yes of course.
GT
Well, there were you worshipping over in Grantham and I was down in Tonypandy, whose name I now very proudly bear. [end p2]
PM
That's wonderful, I think it's marvellous, George.
GT
Well you are kind.
PM
Viscount Tonypandy, I think it's absolutely wonderful.
GT
Well you see we both learnt good values in those homes and I think, I don't know what you feel, that those values still influence what we do, in our relationships and in politics.
PM
Well they are eternal values. All right sometimes they're called Victorian values. They're much older than that. They're eternal values and I think you and I—I have only been in politics twenty four years as a Member of Parliament but I've been fighting in politics very much longer—know that so much of politics is really trying to combine two things. It's how to take the very best values which are eternal of the past and to conserve the very best built buildings, the very best values, and then blend them in with the kind of changes which come in every age and it's all a mixture of taking the best of the past, trying to add one's little bit to the future. But you really have the best framework and background for change when you have a stable society and stable values. We don't always live up to the best, who does? But you recognise the best and strive to it and try again.
GT
And that's why I think you see Great Britain as a good old country but it's been made what it is by the values people have held, by the decencies.
PM
Do you know, it is absolutely a marvellous country George. I don't know another one in the world like it and it is because of this fundamental, you've used the right word, decency, of people here. And when we're in trouble we notice it particularly. And I don't only mean international trouble. I mean if there's local trouble, a local disaster or someone very much in need, or someone who in these violent days has been attacked, or a child, some of the terrible things now that happen. Everyone comes round and the kindness, it's not only the decency, it's the kindness. There isn't another country in the world like it. [end p3]
GT
I think, forgive me interrupting, but I think that you see if this is linked with what you said a moment or two ago about how we grew up realising we had to care for other people. There might be some old lady belonging to the chapel but you'd look in on them, you knew each other and that's why if there's trouble now, for instance when there's trouble in a pit down in the valley—everybody was in.
PM
Of course. I agree. Always do. There were people either who wanted someone to go and see them because everyone is lonely sometimes and you all want to know, everyone of us. It doesn't matter who you are, whatever your background is, you want to know that you're needed by someone, that you belong to something. And we always did, this was again part of our way of life. My mother, we had a bake twice a week, Sunday mornings she got up very early and had a big bake and then Thursday and always there was someone—just to show that you were thinking about them—you would send out some mince pies or a cake or home-made bread. We would go and do it. And when my father was ill, towards the end of his life, he had emphysema and he had to have an oxygen cylinder by his side and I went home from time to time to see him—I was in London and couldn't get down because I was desperately busy—whenever I went there was always someone there sitting by his bed and morning and afternoon. Someone would go and see him and they were people I recognised from the congregation at church when I went to church. And I thought I hope at the end of my life I have as many friends as that and that I can say that I have lived as full a life as my father lived. He was never left alone, people were trying, in a way, to repay him for all the kindnesses, and for all the work that he had done for others. But we're all like it, George, you became Speaker, I became Prime Minister. We all want to know that we're needed and that we belong somewhere and that we've got friends.
GT
It's the meaning of life I think to realise that we're wanted. I'm so pleased to hear you say these things because I've known, I know your attitude to it. Now all the world knows that you're very strong in politics, you've been called the ‘Iron Lady’—it was a great compliment I think—nobody wants a softie looking after our national affairs or a soft touch. But when it comes, as you've just been saying, you can be strong in politics but in personal relationships [end p4] compassion is quite compatible with strength isn't it? In fact, it's necessary.
PM
Oh very much so, I mean look at Winston. My goodness he was strong. He never feared to give his views in the most marvellous language. But he was a very gentle and compassionate person.
GT
He could cry couldn't he with pity.
PM
Oh yes indeed. When I first became a Member of Parliament, like all Members of Parliament I used to have what we call surgeries, interview evenings to talk to ones constituents. And they'd bring cases to you, their problems. And if they come to you, they're coming to you because something has got on top of them and they don't know how to cope with it. Now I know some of my colleagues used to say, they would have fifteen, twenty, thirty people in a queue in the evenings. I could never do it that way. I always had to give about twenty minutes at least by appointment to people and I'll tell you why. When they come to see you they're probably a little bit nervous as I would have been going to see my local MP years ago. And it takes some time to put them at their ease and say look now we're two human beings, you start to tell me your problems. It takes some time for them to relax and then you've got to get out the facts that matter to enable you to do something about it and so I could never rush through it quickly and easily. And at the end of those evenings, Friday evenings, I used to go home absolutely drained, really with worry, and sometimes saying to Denis, if only I could have got at them earlier so they never got into this mess but absolutely drained. I was reading a biography about someone and I just came across a phrase that if you are in public life you have to learn to take people's problems in hand without taking them to heart and I think you know that's what a doctor and nurse must do. They have to learn to get people better without being too desperately distressed at each and every case.
GT
I know exactly what you mean about being drained because people come, they pour their heart out to you and you've had that experience as a constituency MP. But now you're in the isolation of No. 10, [end p5] you're surrounded with the panoply of power. You're bound to have, every Prime Minister is, after all, you're the last word, you've got enormous power of decisions which is a big responsibility to carry. How do you keep your feet on the ground Margaret when surrounded by all this panoply?
PM
Well I don't know, George, except that I've never had any difficulty about keeping my feet on the ground. They've never left it and my head's still the same level above as it was the day when I went in. When you're there George, just as when you were in the chair at the House, you didn't think of yourself as wielding enormous power. I don't think of myself as wielding enormous power. What I am concerned above all is to try to make the right decisions and for that I've got to inform myself, I've got constantly to see and meet people. I know the dangers that you get like peas in a pod, you're only meeting the other peas because the pod closes round you and you're very careful constantly to have other contacts. Your constituency of course keeps you very much in touch.
GT
Yes, and you go to the House of Commons a great deal.
PM
I'm in the House of Commons and Members are bringing me their constituents' problems. And sometimes they'll come with, ‘Please would you see someone’. The other day I saw someone who was well over a hundred and she'd been an absolutely marvellous person in Oxford—she'd been an Oxford landlady for years and years. And then someone said, please would I meet those two wonderful men who went right across the Himalayas for charity.
GT
That's right, oh you met them?
PM
Yes, and we're constantly having evening receptions so that we meet people. And then I have people from industry in and we also, George, try to give in Downing Street receptions to raise money for various charities. You know that I've worked for the NSPCC for years before I was Prime Minister.
GT
My mother used to be on the local committee for that. [end p6]
PM
Yes, and again we were brought up with the League of Pity when we were young. It's their centenary year next year and we're trying to raise £12m. It's terrible that we need to have one still George, terrible.
GT
I know. But I'm afraid we will for a long time.
PM
But cruelty, I don't think it belongs to poverty, I'm afraid it can come with prosperity as well. But all the time, people, people, people and I get out and about. We had a scientific seminar so that we met the scientists. That's another facet of my life. And I don't have difficulty keeping my feet on the ground. But let me say this. We run a very happy ship at No. 10, very happy. It's small and when people come to me in the departments and say they want more staff, I say you won't do your work half as well if you do. You don't want so many people that you can put your work on someone else's desk and then they've got to co-ordinate it with someone else. No. If you have a small staff you all know one another and they are marvellous.
GT
And you also have your little family.
PM
Oh yes and I can always retreat upstairs, just as we did at the shop. I still live over the shop.
GT
Of course, I never thought of that, you still live over the shop.
PM
And people used to come and knock at the door and say, Mr. Roberts I'm so sorry we forgot to order the bacon or we've run out, can you give me half a pound? And so people run upstairs—this telegram's just come in—or there's this bit of news or someone wants to talk.
GT
And you've greatly blessed with that very happy family life.
PM
Isn't it wonderful?
GT
Yes it is. I think the richness of life, and it's the strength of Britain and of every good country, I suppose is family life. [end p7]
PM
Although we each live our own lives we all recognise home as the centre and we all come back and talk.
GT
I take my hat off to you and Denis, you've not got an easy task.
PM
I think he's got a very difficult task and hasn't he been marvellous? Absolutely wonderful. And you saw when you came to No. 10 before we left today to come and do this programme Carol had just popped in because she was going away and wouldn't see her for a week.
GT
I did a radio talk-in programme with Carol late at night one Saturday night when I was Speaker and a lady rang up and said “Are you the Prime Minister's daughter?” and immediately I saw Carol say “Yes” defensively and ready to see what was coming. This lady said “I'm so proud of your mother and you should be proud”. The expression in your Carol 's eyes when she realised that it was kindness that was coming forth from that lady made me think well that is how I would have been with my mother, and your family obviously is one with a great deal of love there. You said you don't think of yourself as carrying responsibilities.
PM
Don't think of yourself as carrying power—responsibility always George—just as you did as Speaker. Not power but responsibility and it's a completely different approach.
GT
And you know my heart went out to you when you carried the responsibility during the Falklands, because it was an agonising experience for the country but it must have been particularly a testing time for you. You kept your nerve through one of the most cruel periods I suppose since the War itself, certainly since Suez but I think worse than Suez.
PM
It was an experience I never expected to go through. I couldn't think that the Argentine would invade the Falklands, it was an absurd and totally wrong thing to do but, then it happened and the moment it happened every single cell in one's body, every single fibre of one's being became concentrated on the problems that arose and on getting the decisions right and in the right order. And I knew [end p8] the things that had gone wrong at Suez and I knew that one was responsible for people who you were putting in the field to fight for everything we believe in but those values would not hold the freedom and justice unless someone was prepared to defend them. But then the responsibility came for those lives and I was determined there should be no arguments between the military and the politicians so we had to get together and we did. So we understood one another. So many of the problems in life come to us and people misunderstanding one another; so we got the military and politicians together, sometimes at No. 10, sometimes at Chequers, but every second of the day one was thinking what is happening down there and every time the telephone rang or someone came in with a message it was what has happened now. We would meet our committee once or twice a day then enlarge it and in the end, to my great pride, not only that the operation was successful because the brillance of the military and, as the General said to me there is certain things unknown—“Just remember PM, we've got the best fighting men in the world ever”.
GT
People showed enormous courage and stickability as I call it, didn't they.
PM
But it has been my pride that never once in the field did they lack a decision about the extent of what they would do. Never. We always talked and got the decisions right. But, George, it was the most concentrated period of my life because of that kind of responsibility; and I can only say that you are given strength sufficient until the hour. You really are.
GT
Yes, I know that I've proved that in life.
PM
You do better than your best.
GT
But think, you see you are drawing on all those early years at Grantham. I keep coming back to it because I think the values that are ingrained in you as a youngster—they grow as we grow in experience in life—and you seem to have a gift of being able to switch from very difficult problems to entertaining people, but with the Falklands it must have been in your mind and in your [end p9] heart all the time although obviously you wouldn't be showing other people.
PM
Well it had to be. And I remember the day when we landed on San Carlos Bay and I obviously knew what was going to happen, what we hoped that we would achieve at that landing. I knew that the ships were going in at night and knew how important it was that they shouldn't be discovered and, of course, in the Falklands they are four hours behind us. It so happened that day that I had a very heavy day in the constituency, I had to go and open a new big warehouse that was to give a lot more jobs; I had to go to an old people's home and I also had an evening reception. And I knew when I left in the morning at about 10 am because the first engagement was at 11 am, that I wouldn't know what had happened.
When they are busy doing things down there you don't get on to headquarters and say what is happening, the important thing is that they are left free to get on with the job. And I knew that I had to go because if I cancelled that would immediately have alerted people and so we went and somehow carried on that day and did everything. It was strange the coincidence of this and the band of the Guards which was at the opening ceremony of the warehouse and, of course, I remember saying that although the Falklands was such a long way away it really is a heartbeat away. But one had to go right through and I kept dashing to a telephone and saying in coded signals, any news yet. And it wasn't really until about 5 pm that evening that I knew the operation was successful.
You know sometimes, George, when there have been rows in the House you have to keep your cool and the more and the greater the difficulties, the greater the problem, the greater the cool you have to keep.
GT
I often thought that when I watched you in action in the House. And by the way, the fact that you are a woman never entered into it.
PM
That's right. [end p10]
GT
But if the House was raging or roaring. I don't think I ever saw you lose your temper. You could give a sharp retort. But also I notice you dealt with the issues and not with personalities.
PM
That has been the essence of my life and my training. First again in those early days when we used to talk in pre-days—heaven knows I was only ten, eleven, twelve. I remember again my father saying if you lose your temper you lose control and it's absolutely right. I was brought up with books around me and we read them and we talked about them and you were brought up to find the facts and the facts matter and then to discuss matters from a basis of what really were the facts.
GT
What shone out as clear as daylight to me always was that facts were very important to you. Because if people get their facts wrong it's like giving the computer wrong information and we are bound to end up in Carey Street.
PM
So much news I'm afraid is made by accusations not about whether they are true or false but about accusations and hurling them at one another. I've never liked it, I've never excelled at it and I don't like doing that.
GT
I don't think the British public like the hurling of abuse, personal abuse.
PM
No, I think they do like, and it's one of the things they do like, is the witty comment you know which rings true. I find a lot of them against myself and you know they are really rather enjoyable.
GT
And you can laugh.
PM
Of course. Sometimes you laugh at the cartoons. Don't you think cartoonists are marvellous to work so quickly that they can pick out something that really just hits the right nail on the head? [end p11]
GT
They are like poets because they can pick on an idea and express it in a way that we can't do. I've laughed. You get more cartoons about you. And the ability to laugh at yourself is essential in British public life.
PM
It would be a pity if we couldn't, wouldn't it?
GT
Oh yes. But the decencies of our life have been such I think people can disagree strongly on the way to deal with our economic problems and international affairs but respect each other and each other's integrity.
PM
Yes, indeed yes. That is very true of the House of Commons. There is that great forum and I know you and I feel the same about it. It is still a privilege to be there. And you look at countries that haven't got this great Parliament and its to work out conflicts. Work out conflicts by discussion and whatever is the result people feel better when they have been able to express their views and express them freely.
GT
Forgive me, and I won't come back on the Falklands any more after this but that series of debates we had on the Falklands, and I sat in the chair throughout all of them, but I thought to myself that this is an occasion when the House is speaking for the country.
A Prime Minister from the Far East visited me, I'll tell you after who it was, I must not say on the programme, but he said to me “George, I was glued to the radio listening to the debates from the House of Commons”. It still is a great forum as long as people realise that I love the place and as long as they realise its essence is the right to free speech. You mustn't shout down anyone that you don't want to hear what they are saying. Now may we switch for a moment and go back.
You went to Oxford, I went to University College, Southampton. I loved it. But I think all you young people who went to Oxford who had a few years of your life there, you were fortunate. I was fortunate in Southampton. But why did you take chemistry rather than politics, because you were keen on politics then weren't you? [end p12]
PM
Yes I was keen. I was keen on it not so much as a career but as a part of life that these things were going on and one ought to know about them and to discuss them and have views about them. But I was lucky, I was quite good at many things at school but you know we had to decide about the age of 16 when we got our matriculation, as it was in those days, whether you went on the science side or the arts. Fortunately today you can combine things. I had the most marvellous chemistry teacher. At that time it seemed to us that we were going to get new industries based on the new discoveries of science. Look, all the plastics industries were coming out—it was quite remarkable. You were going to have nylon all the plastics on television in the kitchen—they were just beginning to come out. And there were new worlds opening up. I can remember the first radio we had at home: we called it a wireless, you remember. Rather a large thing, rather ugly. But new scientific worlds were opening up and new opportunities to an enquiring mind. Research is always interesting, it is trying to find out something about the laws of nature that no-one has yet known. It is wonder at nature—wonder—at this marvellous order that has been created because there is an order about it. One may not know precisely how it works and so you had these two things: the marvels of trying to unlock the secrets of nature by working on research and the second thing always related to science, it was opening new opportunities to prosperity for work. It is the same today. There are new technologies opening up still. And so I went into that world. But the other thing George, the very practical thing because you know you and I are both very practical—I couldn't have afforded to go into politics. And, therefore, it was not open to me to think in those terms. I think people were paid £400 in those days with no secretarial, no travel expenses, no living in London expenses. It was not open to me.
GT
Isn't it marvellous though Margaret, you see you didn't have big resources behind you, I certainly didn't in the Rhonda, but we live in a wonderful country. You became Prime Minister, I became Speaker—you Prime Minister in your second parliament. This country is still full of opportunity because I think that there is [end p13] a general desire that people shall grow to their full stature.
PM
Yes. You mentioned Oxford. It opened up again new vistas for one. But you see we were so excited to have the opportunity to go to university and I am not sure that everyone has that same excitement or regards it as an immense privilege, but it is. And I think you know we went through a difficult period with some of the universities in the early 70's. They did all over the world. We are through that now. Young people do realise that it is a tremendous privilege. You don't necessarily go to get a job according to your degree but you know that it is something which enlarges your horizons, enables you to use your talents and abilities and gives you a bigger vista on life.
GT
You go by the people you meet and the atmosphere of the college.
PM
And also you know you find this too. It gives you contacts the world over. From those at my school where there were only 350, and university. You know wherever I go in the world someone will ring me up and say, “Do you remember I was at school with you?” Now that is a school of 350 in a small town of 20,000, I wonder if other citizens from other countries travel as much as we do or find their jobs in so many other countries. Or is it something to do, George, with the fact that Britain has always had this outward looking sense from the first Elizabethan times when we went out on adventure and discovery. Then we built up an empire which we tried to give the laws of justice to and people were trained to go out and administer and I find now when I am in international discussions and international fora that we British have an outward vision. We take into account not only our own needs but we see one world and the needs of other people I wonder if it's because of that, the combination of that empire we built of the values we tried to give it and the people we are.
GT
I often feel that the empire which was still there when I went to parliament, we governed over 800 million people in that imperial parliament in '45. But where we can look the people in the face [end p14] our name is good isn't it? I keep hearing that as I move around the world.
PM
Of course you make mistakes: who doesn't? But I think that we were the best empire throughout history and there are many, many peoples who learned what justice is who would never had the chance to learn otherwise. Again when I travel sometimes to countries who don't have the justice and liberty and you talk to some of their politicians who have no idea, no concept of an ordinary citizens being able to go to a court to enforce his rights because to them the courts can only do what the government said they can do. And here government cannot interfere with the courts and it is a fantastic strength.
GT
There are times when we should count our blessings. I believe that. Mind I was brought up and always count your blessings and help you to face your problems. But with the Commonwealth I think it is still very important, I am a great Commonwealth believer.
PM
Yes and we still get together and I think it's the only international forum where we do not have to have people translating from one language into another. In Europe there are ten of us and each one speaks in their own language and everything is translated so you are listening half a sentence behind to the language being translated. In the Commonwealth and we meet again in Delhi this year in November, 46, 47, 48 of us and we all speak in English. So you begin to understand, you begin to have a genuine discussion and debate.
GT
Because language is so important for all our abiding misunderstandings.
PM
And for debate. You can genuinely debate if you understand language. You said we should count our blessings. George there is one thing I want to say to you I count myself very lucky that I was Prime Minister when you were Speaker because we are not going to have a better Speaker in the House of Commons. Never. We got on marvellously together and I hope that we tried to keep the standards [end p15] up of that remarkable place.
GT
I'm deeply grateful to you. But I think that if the House of Commons doesn't set high standards the country will suffer. It is important for people to realise; those who are privileged to be members, that the rest of the world holds that place in such respect and I got embarrassed time and again when I travel abroad and the BBC are broadcasting …
PM
Prime Minister's Question time!
GT
And the people ask why are you so noisy. Well I had my defence that there were some parliaments where people would be afraid to raise a point of order. We are a free country but even when that is said and done it is important, I think, for that House never to forget it. Burke described London as the mother of free parliaments. The world looks on Westminster as the mother and just to have served there is a privilege. Well I want to say thank you to you. I am deeply grateful for this chance to talk to you again and I want to say God bless our country and the service that I know you are determined to give to it, so that our name shall continue to be a good one. And we all want all the time to see Britain standing for the right values.
PM
And giving a lead at home and overseas, and I hope we always shall.
GT
Thank you very much indeed, Margaret.
PM
Bless you George, thank you.