Radio Interview for BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Castaway this week is MT. How much does music matter to you?

MT

It's what I go to when I want to take refuge in something completely different, when I really want to get away from worries and go from a very logical life that I've lived and I've always been trained to live, really to a different depth of experience.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] You play the piano?

MT

Yes, but I don't play any longer. I didn't get time enough to practise and I couldn't bear hearing myself play badly. Or, what happens to you after a time is you never learn anything new, you go on playing the things which you learned as a young person and never play anything new, so I'm afraid I just don't play at all now. One day when I've retired I'll take it up again.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] You sang too?

MT

Not solo parts. All my family were musical. My father had a lovely bass voice and therefore we were accustomed to singing at home. We had to make our own entertainment and amusements in those days and we did. So I used to join choirs and I joined the Bach Choir when I was at Oxford and loved it.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] What record first?

MT

Well I'm going to play first the one that I always go to first if I get to the country for the weekend and I just want to get away from politics. I go straight to the record player and I put on the Emperor Concerto, Beethoven.

record played [end p1]

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Closing passage of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto, Alfred Brendel soloist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Bernard Haitink. Would you manage as a castaway? Did you ever camp?

MT

No, I, I haven't had much experience of camping and I just am a little bit worried about how I'm going to manage, but I am pretty practical.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Could you build some sort of shelter?

MT

Oh I think so. I do like doing things with my hands, so I think I would just about be all right. I'm quite a fast learner.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Would you attempt to escape?

MT

I don't think so because a desert island just all sounds very much of an island and I'm cautious by nature, and I would just hope that someone would come and rescue me, my dreams would go that way.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Surely they will. Record two.

MT

Record number two. I've chosen a brass band. You know they played quite a large part in my youth, we loved them, and I thought that I would like to hear something like Going Home.

record played

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Going Home from Dvorak's New World Symphony. You were born in Grantham, a small town?

MT

A small town, yes, very much a community there, living in a town where everyone knew everyone else. Em, I loved it.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] You lived in a flat above your father's grocery shop …

MT

That's right.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] … on busy Great North Road?

MT

Right on the Great North Road.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Not an only child? [end p2]

MT

No, fortunately! I have an older sister, for which I'm eternally grateful. You know blood is thicker than water. When you've got problems there's nothing like close relatives.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] You've said your upbringing was rather puritan.

MT

Well it was very strict. Em, we went to church twice on Sundays and to Sunday School twice. We were never allowed any amusements on Sundays. We did have people in and we talked. Er, I think wartime changed our ideas quite a lot because you had to do all sorts of different things on Sundays. But I can remember, I think the toughest thing of my childhood was that my father taught me very firmly indeed: you do not follow the crowd because you're afraid of being different. [Roy Plomley grunts agreement.] You decide what to do yourself. If necessary, you lead the crowd but you never just follow. Oh, it was very hard indeed but my goodness me, it stood me in good stead.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] You went to grammar school with a scholarship?

MT

Yes

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Your favourite subject?

MT

I was a fairly good all-rounder and had difficulty in choosing which side I went on, the science side or the arts side and in those days, you know, you decided about the age of 15, soon after you'd done your matriculation, and you took all science subjects, or all arts subjects. I can tell you what decided me and I'm sure it's been the same with a lot of young people. We had a marvellous chemistry teacher, a wonderful teacher and a wonderful person and I'm sure that that decided me to take chemistry, which I did.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] During holidays you sometimes helped in the shop?

MT

Oh yes, yes, and this is where one learned to see and talk to so many people and talk easily. I loved it, there were always people coming in and my father was a local councillor and they'd often come in to have a word with him about something.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Your father was a councillor, alderman and mayor. He described himself as an Independent. Which side was he on politically?

MT

Well they were Conservative but in those days, you know, we didn't fight local councils as party politicians. It wasn't the done thing. But we always helped the Conservative candidate and I can remember my first experience of politics was the 1935 election. I was only ten, but I do remember it, very vividly, and we used to go to the Committee Room and help, and the only way in which I could help run between the committee room and the polling station to get the lists of the numbers of people who'd voted and go and check them off. And I remember, it seems to strange to me now, you know it was quite a thrill for those of us working in the committee room when the candidate, Victor [end p3] Warrender, then the Member of Parliament, came round and talked to us. And of course it never occurred to me that I'd been in the same position.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] You were excited.

MT

I felt the excitement, yes.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Record three.

MT

I'm going to something completely different. We love going to opera, it is one of my great relaxations I can't get very often and I love the choral work and I love ceremonial.

record played

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] The Triumphal March from Verdi's Aida, conducted by Zubin Mehta. Schoolgirl ambitions? Why Oxford?

MT

I had some very strange ambitions. In my church life I well remember missionaries coming and talking to us of their experience and I remember that in the early days I wanted to go into the, it existed then, the Indian Civil Service, because there was a tremendous desire to serve. And I knew that to do that you had to go university. But quite apart from that, you know the opportunity to go to university was to us a chance almost undreamed of. My father had never done it and I was lucky, I was quite good at school and so it was assumed that I would try to go to university. The subject was clearly marked out for me and so it just seemed perfectly natural and what was there, Oxford or Cambridge were to me worlds that I'd heard about and it's always a good thing to aim for the top, and I did.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] A scholarship to Somerville College to read chemistry. Your first job when you graduated?

MT

My first job was in a factory making plastics and it was in the development section. We were developing new plastics, er, taking them through the pilot stage and then, thinking what they could be used for and where they could be sold. Sometimes I teased some of my Labour Members of Parliament friends and said “You know, I've had more experience of working in a factory than you have.”

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] [laughs] You worked for Lyons later?

MT

Afterwards, yes, that was food processing and food processing and control. And I also did quite a bit of research work there into what's called surface chemistry.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] But had nagging ambition to do law. How does that link to chemistry? [end p4]

MT

I went about a lot with my father as you probably know, and when he went to sit on the magistrate's bench, I used to go along in the school holidays with him. And I met there a person who was a Chairman of the Bench, er, er, a silk—they were KCs in those days, QCs now—who was a Norman Winninglawer, the Chairman of the Bench had to be lawyer, and I talked to him and realized that law itself was having a very great fascination for me, and I remember at the age of 17 saying to him: “But you see I'm already on the science side and I can't change now.” And he said “but don't worry, I took a physics degree at Cambridge, I started that way.” And he said the thing to do is finish you chemistry degree and then do law. You won't be able to afford just to do another degree but work at it in your own spare time because you'll find that there's a whole branch of law for which you need both a science degree and a law degree, and that the branch of law dealing with patents. [Plomley chuckles.]

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] A good deal happened before you were called to the Bar. Next record.

MT

What's next, well I just cannot, em live without some humour there and I love dry humour. Now there's a marvellous record. It's the imagination of what happened had Walter Raleigh been able to ring up and announce that he'd made a discovery of tobacco. It's Bob Newheart.

recording of Bob Newheart's Nutty Walt

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Bob Newheart and Nutty Walt. At young the age of 24 you twice contested a hopeless seat for the Conservatives at Dartford. Fun?

MT

Yes, but you see to me they weren't hopeless. There'd been a tremendous political swing in 1945 and nothing was impossible, we hoped for a tremendous swing back. Em, I don't think we could quite have a 20,000 Labour majority into a Tory seat [ROY PLOMLEY chuckles] but one was young and full of hope. But I loved it. We had meetings outside factories, we went round canvassing and you know in tough seats—and I'm sure both political parties find that—you get the most marvellous band of helpers, really believing fervently in the cause and you get a tremendous bond of friendship. It taught me a lot.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] One of those helpers was a Major Denis Thatcher who was managing director of a paint firm. Do you remember first meeting?

MT

Mm, I do because it was the night that I was adopted as candidate and I had to get back to London, and I spoke to the meeting and it was thought that I obviously must circulate afterwards to get to know as many people as possible, and I missed the last train, so he was approached, would he like to drive me back to London? Mercifully he did like, and so eventually did I.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] When were you married?

MT

Em, oh not until, that was 1949. Not until 1951. [end p5]

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Two years later you took your intermediate Bar Exam in May, had twins in August and Bar finals in December. Action-packed eight months? [Roy Plomley laughs]

MT

[laughs] Yes it was, wasn't it? I had the children in August, I had them the day we won the Ashes, do I remember! It was a Saturday, we couldn't find my husband. [both laugh] He took rather a long time to arrive and he'd sort of mooched off somewhere. And I think within two or three days I had decided that if I didn't do something quite definite, that I would be in danger of never returning to work again. And so I entered my name for the Bar finals. Once I'd done that I knew pride, er, would make me work and that I'd just have to get them

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Yes. How long did you stay in law?

MT

Six years.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Then in 1959 you were elected MP for Finchley. Easy to win?

MT

It was easy in the sense that one pretty well knew what the result was going to be. It had a good Conservative majority. But we worked jolly hard at it, and worked jolly hard to keep it that way.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Within two years you got junior job in Ministry of Pensions followed by other frontbench positions. Then in 1967 you joined Shadow Cabinet and in Government or Opposition you took over Power and Transport, Education and Environment. What coup or battle do you look back on with most pleasure?

MT

I think the time … two bits really, er, I'm sorry I can't have one but I must have two. Em, the two most interesting portfolios I found to handle are Treasury, because it's absolutely central to what happens to the whole of the nation, and apart from Education when I was minister, Fuel and Power. I can remember one bit of verbal fencing. It was the first debate I'd had to do as Opposition spokesman on Fuel and Power, and they were all wondering how this, em, woman would tackle fuel and power and I had worked like a Trojan, I'd worked at all the facts and figures. And someone got up and cited a whole list of figures as illustrating a certain point, and I was able to say because I knew exactly the moment he spoke them, exactly which figures they were, “Yes, those figures would have proved that point had he quoted the right year” but he had quoted the wrong year. And after that I was in on [both laugh] … it was all right, I knew what I was talking about. As he was a person who was supposed to be really up in these matters, it was definitely a plus.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Next record.

MT

Oh, I think I shall go back to the years when I was a young woman, there was some such marvellous music written then, wonderful lyrics and wonderful music. You know I don't [end p6] think Jerome Kern or Cole Porter have ever been beaten. And I think the one that I love most of all is the one called “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” .

record played

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” , Irene Dunn. In 1975 Conservatives changed leader. Did you ever think you would become leader?

MT

Never.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] All very sudden. Had you organized supporters? How did you do it?

MT

No, I hadn't an organized group of supporters at all, em, some of them came to me and said “Look, if you'll stand, we'll back you” and that was really … so I knew that I had quite a bit of backing. But it all really happened rather suddenly. It was quite clear that there was going to be an election for the leadership and then it looked as if no one would put for the leadership. Oh I remember very vividly saying well, if no one else will do it, I will. And the moment I said it I never had a moment's hesitation about it. I knew it was absolutely the right thing to do, I wasn't worried that I'd said it. I wasn't worried that I'd made the decision, the decision was made. And then we just had to do the best we could and take what came.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] You are the first woman to lead a major British political party. How many women MPs are there?

MT

Oh, comparatively few, we haven't got more than about 25 or 26.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Is the number increasing?

MT

No, it hasn't changed since the thirties. It's absurd, when you think the number of women who have a really good training, so many more of them ought to come forward to offer themselves as candidates.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Another record please.

MT

Well I'm going to take again another record which reminds me very much of my childhood. In our church we performed a lot of oratorios, we had a very good choir, em, we hadn't of course the lead soloists, we always had to get those down from London and it was a great occasion. And I therefore have chosen an oratorio record, this time one from Elijah: “Be Not Afraid, Our Help Is Near” .

Record played

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] “Be Not Afraid, Your Help Is Near” from Mendelssohn's Elijah, Gwenneth Jones soloist conducted by [word inaudible] de Burgos. Problems you’ve faced because of your sex? They bent the rules to let you join the Conservative Carlton Club?

MT

Oh, they were very sweet about it. I didn't join the Carlton Club as a woman, they said “the leader of the party has always been a member of the Carlton Club” and I don't think they recognized my sex.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Ladies in Carlton Club aren't allowed on the staircase, but presumably you are as the leader?

MT

Oh I think they've relaxed that a little. It's such a beautiful staircase that we all wanted to go up it when there were receptions there. It's a lovely staircase. So we all go up it now.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] You know No. 10 Downing Street very well. Would it be nice to live there?

MT

It's not a home. It's very much a residence. [Roy Plomley chuckles] You know the difference and I've always thought that some of the decorations there have a slightly heavy touch. But, um, one can't just redecorate it, one might make one or two changes but they wouldn't be expensive changes.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Record seven.

MT

Record number seven is one that my son introduced me to. He's very keen on acquiring as many records and as many tapes as possible. And if I go home in the evening and I always call out, “Anyone at home?” and nothing answers me but some music comes from the bathroom, well I know he's in. But recently, just before Christmas he came home with this one and I think it's one of the most haunting records I've had.

record played

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Andante for Trumpet composed and directed by Saint Prieur. [phonetic] Your last record?

MT

Oh we must finish I think on a high note and preferably one with something rather more than earthly qualities about it. Let's have that wonderful record, the Easter Hymn from Cavilliera Rusticana.

record played

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] The Easter Hymn from Cavilliera Rusticana, the chorus and orchestra or the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden conducted by Lamberto Gardelli. [phonetic] If you could choose only one of your eight records, which?

MT

Oh it would undoubtedly be the Emperor Concerto, it has so many varying moods. [end p7]

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Your luxury for the island, a thing of no practical use?

MT

I thought about this a lot. And I decided the thing I would like most of all would be a photograph album of the children. We had some wonderful photographs and I would only have memories and hopes to live on.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] One book apart from Bible and Shakespeare, not including encyclopaedias.

MT

Well I think if we had the Bible and Shakespeare I'd be having enough intellectual and philosophical exercise, so I should turn to something practical, and I've found a book, it's called The Survival Handbook—Self Sufficiency for Everyone and it even tells you how to make a boat, it tells you how to weave, it tells you how to cook all sorts of things, about making long bows and arrows. Don't you think that would just be right?

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] A book every castaway should have. Who wrote it?

MT

It's compiled by a person called Michael Alleby [phonetic] with a number of other people.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] The Survival Handbook. Thank you, Mrs. Thatcher.

MT

I've loved it. Thank you very much.

Roy Plomley, BBC

[Question paraphrased:] Goodbye everyone.

theme played