They still address me by my Christian name

Lis Birrane and Moira Stanbury meet Margaret Thatcher

Looking at Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's calm, composed expression it was hard to imagine that, in her agent's words, she had been through “an awful week.”

She had come straight from talks with the President of Cyprus, was going on to a Chamber of Commerce dinner in South Mimms and faced a vital vote in the Commons the next morning.

But it was the same composure which she had maintained on the day British troops landed on the Falklands, concealing from her constituents and the rest of the world any clue that the momentous event was taking place.

That day, which she spent in Finchley, is etched on her memory.

For, of the many events at local level since her election as MP for Finchley 25 years ago, this stands out.

“Most vividly of all I remember the day our troops landed on the Falkland Islands. I was here from dawn until dusk carrying out engagements, knowing what was planned in that island 8,000 miles away, and unable to betray a single emotion,” Mrs Thatcher recalled.

Inner strength

“Then early evening the news came through that the Union Jack was flying over San Carlos Bay. Our hearts burst with pride and thanksgiving.”

This ability to remain in firm control of her emotions in public has also been witnessed in the face of blows such as the death of Airey Neave, the loss of life in the Falklands and the Brighton bombing.

But she explained: “When faced with danger or crisis I think most people find an inner strength to see them through.

“We all feel the same emotions and do our utmost to help those who are bereft of family and friends. I think it is important not only to help when the tragedy occurs but to go on helping. So many of my friends tell me that after a few months they are very lonely and can feel forgotten.”

This iron control is not achieved without effort and Mrs Thatcher admits: “It is never easy.”

However, she has found that “it becomes automatic to carry on” even though “some things are just heartbreaking.”

Only in privacy does she occasionally permit herself to “flop down.”

And she commented: “Sometimes you have a flop day or a flop hour. You are sometimes drained. You only do it when you can.

“Like you, I have to work to deadlines. It is only when the fantastic pressure is over that you flop.”

Mrs Thatcher maintained that this is “the same for every working mother.

“We keep going the whole time. Very, very rarely do you sit down—you are always doing something in the kitchen, ironing something, tidying out the airing cupboard or defrosting something for dinner,” she said.

In fact her role as a working mother has proved an invaluable training ground for her chosen career.

“You have to learn to be well-organised. If you can cope with twins and a children's party you can cope with anything,” she said.

It is as a mother that Mrs Thatcher is at her most vulnerable. She wanted to protect her family from the glare of publicity which has surrounded her, but says it is inevitable that they have suffered from the lack of privacy.

There can be few who do not remember the occasion when her composure cracked to reveal her inner anguish when Mark went missing in the Sahara.

But she said: “You just have to cope. Somehow, most women manage to do just that. It is easier when you are very busy. You can bury yourself in your work.”

Sense of duty

Mrs Thatcher has a strong sense of duty to her children and she acknowledges that were it not for a fortuitous combination of circumstances a career in politics would have been very difficult to achieve.

She explained: “I was lucky in that Denis worked in London, we had a home in London and the constituency was in the Greater London area.

“I am the first to say had I married someone in Glasgow, Yorkshire, Lancashire or Devon it would have been very difficult to leave the children when they were young for the whole of mid-week because I would have felt I wasn't doing my duty by them.”

Mrs Thatcher continued: “Finchley was very easy to manage with a young family. There were some constituencies I knew I could never possibly represent because they were too far away from London and I would not have left my children mid-week—I personally couldn't.”

She always made a point of being home from 5.30 pm to 7 pm to be with the children. Then she would frequently return to work afterwards.

One of the things which has meant a great deal to her was that she always knew that wherever the twins were “if anything happened I could get to them quickly.

“We have always been close as a family and it is only in the last year or two that Carol and Mark have moved out of the family home.

Given these strong familial ties it is not surprising that she views the concept of commercial surrogacy with horror.

“I recoil from it, and as you know we are going to change the law, with Parliament's consent and make commercial surrogacy illegal,” she said.

So far, the Prime Minister's performance had not matched up to her public image—stern, autocratic, and uncaring—as satirised in ITV's Spitting Image.

Although she has read about the programme in the Press she has never watched it because: “I told myself don't watch because I knew it would hurt.”

We were unable to resist asking whether she thought her public image was the correct one.

Loyalty

“I don't think you can ever judge your own image. Nor should anyone spend too much time worrying about it,” she said.

“It's what you are that counts, not the image.”

Our editor Dennis Signy was once asked by BBC Television whether Mrs Thatcher was bossy. He replied that she was not.

The Prime Minister's own view on this is: “In my job you have to be firm and decisive.”

However, it is undeniable that her style of leadership has attracted, perhaps more than any other Prime Minister this century, the deepest and most enduring loyalty on the one hand and the most ferocious criticism on the other.

And Mrs Thatcher thinks this is because: “If you believe in something strongly and do it, you will attract the support of those who agree with you and the criticism of those who don't.

“That is much better than sitting back and doing nothing. Alas in politics you can't please everyone all the time.”

But she is by no means impervious to criticism and is deeply appreciative of her supporters, among the most loyal of whom are those constituents who have kept her in Parliament for 25 years.

“Sometimes I have very difficult days, and it really is an absolute joy and relief to come here because you know you are absolutely amongst the most devoted and loyal friends,” she said.

Even though tight security now surrounds her visits she says: “We do go about really almost as we used to. Our friends haven't changed either—to them I am still MP for Finchley. They still address me by my Christian name.”

She is resolutely determined that “nothing has changed” and that nothing will.

“If one becomes Prime Minister you have to recognise some limitations on your freedom. Unfortunately we live in violent times but it mustn't stop us from getting about. If it did, violence would win and that would be the end of democracy,” she said.

Mrs Thatcher loves her work and says she feels “privileged” to do it.

But she explained: “You have to want to enjoy politics, like it, feel a fascination.

“You have got to have a yen for it, a vocation. If you have that then it is absolutely fascinating.”

She said it was “very difficult” to lay down general rules as to how a woman could manage to combine a political career with family life.

“They have to be rules that suit that couple, that family.”

Less confident

To try and follow a rigid set of guidelines would create stresses and strains which would make the whole thing unworkable.

“You will be unable to give your time and attention to the main job in hand and not be able to fit everything in that you do now,” said Mrs Thatcher.

She thinks that one of the reasons women are reluctant to put themselves forward for positions of high responsibility is because “we have less self-confidence than men.”

But she says she looks forward to the day when, on merit, “we will have a woman chairman of a national clearing bank or a great national daily newspaper.”

And she is adamant that her own career has by no means emasculated her husband.

“My husband has his own life, his own work, his own personality and his own interests. He isn't playing second fiddle. We are each playing first fiddle,” she said.

Those qualities which have helped Mrs Thatcher first rise, and then remain as leader of the Conservative Party, have been exalted as superhuman by some and condemned as inhuman by others.

Her own assessment of them is far more down-to-earth.

She indentified her three most influential attributes as “keeping a sense of proportion and trying again if things don't go right first time” and bearing in mind one of her father's maxims:

“It is easy to be a starter

But are you a sticker too?

It is easy enough to begin a job

It is harder to see it through.”