TV Interview for ATV (visiting Grantham)

Document type:	Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue:	Grantham, Lincolnshire
Source:	Central TV Archive: OUP transcript
Journalist:	Bev Smith, ATV
Editorial comments:	Exact time and place uncertain, but MT was out of doors and St Peter’s Hill appears to be in the background.
Importance ranking:	Minor
Word count:	458
Themes:	Autobiography (childhood), Industry, Privatized & state industries

Film of MT visiting Kesteven and Grantham Girls School; film of her name on school honour board; MT chatting to shoppers in Grantham itself.

Bev Smith, ATV

[first words missing] … who could become Britain's first woman Prime Minister.

interview begins

Bev Smith, ATV

Mrs Thatcher, you've come home. pauses

That's right.

Bev Smith, ATV

What do you think of Grantham today?

Fortunately there is a lot of it that's still the same and I've met of people who knew my family, and some who knew me and some who were at school with me. It's wonderful to be back.

Bev Smith, ATV

What about your old birthplace?

What about it? Well, it's still there.

Bev Smith, ATV

It is, isn't it?

Oh yes.

Bev Smith, ATV

tries to interrupt

And I was not born in hospital either. I was born in a … proper home. [end p1]

Bev Smith, ATV

It is not very fitting though, nowadays, for perhaps Britain's first woman Prime Minister one day … not a very … uh, …

Well, I don't know, my …

Bev Smith, ATV

… coming sort of place is it?

My father … my father sold it, um, when he retired, and as you know we live ourselves in a house up the road from the business.

Bev Smith, ATV

Have you met any old friends here, that you knew in your own schooldays here?

Um, not so many personal friends, but I've met a number of people who were at school with me and lots of people who knew my father.

Bev Smith, ATV

Can I turn you now to the troubles at British Leyland. How do you think that situation is going to resolve itself?

There are several problems in Leyland. There is undoubtedly a very real grievance in that … differentials haven't been catered for under the pay policy. That's one problem. Then there's the … longer, more enduring problem of British Leyland—that they haven't been able to get uninterrupted production and therefore I'm afraid foreign cars have penetrated rather a lot into the English market. And then, of course, there is the third problem: can they ever get enough profits to plough back, to invest, to match the money which the Government's promised. If they can make profits themselves.