Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

Remarks visiting Finchley

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: Finchley
Source: Finchley Press, 21 September 1989
Journalist: Amanda Reynolds, Finchley Press, reporting
Editorial comments: 1515-1545 MT visited the Tesco Superstore Car Park, Colney Hatch Lane, to view the Motability Lead-Free Campaign Exhibition Bus; 1600-1700 she opened the David Lloyd Tennis Centre in High Road, Finchley.
Importance ranking: Trivial
Word count: 453

Prime Minister visits Finchley to open David Lloydis new tennis club

MAGGIE'S KNOCKABOUT TURN

It was “anyone for tennis?” when Mrs Thatcher visited Finchley to open the new David Lloyd Slazenger Club in Summers Lane on Friday.

And the Prime Minister showed she was game for anything when she kicked off her shoes and began a knockabout with boys from the Slater Squad—the club's elite junior tennis class—to officially open the centre.

The £4.5 million tennis and fitness centre is the third to be opened in London by the former Davis Cup tennis star. David Lloyd, who was ranked in the British men's top 10 for a decade, opened his first club near Heathrow seven years ago and is planning to build 20 to 30 more throughout the country.

Mrs Thatcher was given a guided tour of the impressive six acre site which has 12 indoor and seven outdoor tennis courts, a fully-equipped gymnasium, dance and aerobics studio and two swimming pools. Its many facilities include sauna and steam rooms, a health and beauty salon, sports shop, hairdresser, a supervised creche, restaurant and banqueting suite.

With six coaching professionals on hand to instruct the players it was no surprise that the family membership—at £425 a year—was filled within two hours of opening.

Welcoming Mrs Thatcher, David Lloyd said he hoped his clubs would help improve the lamentable state of British tennis, but he pointed out that to achieve this many more centres needed to be built both in this country and abroad.

The former tennis star revealed he nursed a secret ambition to produce a champion player. “We are going to produce a champion sooner or later and the Slater scheme is going to be a great help in doing this. That's my intention.”

Sporting a new honey blonde-colour hairstyle and softer make up, Mrs Thatcher, the club's newest member, pronounced the fitness centre a great asset to the area.

She even made a jokey reply to David Lloyd 's complaint about the difficulties caused to his project by high interest rates. She said archly: “We need many more of these centres—but not if inflation continues at such a high rate.”

Earlier in her visit to her Finchley constituency, Mrs Thatcher, anxious to show her concern for the environment, had stopped off to see a lead-free petrol promotion and a re-cycling centre.

Staged by the Motability Lead-Free Campaign, the exhibition at the Tesco Superstore in North Finchley is part of a nationwide tour to promote greater awareness of lead-free petrol.

Using a converted double decker bus, the campaign is spearheaded by Motability, a voluntary organisation founded to increase mobility among disabled people.

The Prime Minister was also shown the Colney Hatch store's new re-cycling centre.