Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

Remarks visiting Finchley

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: Finchley
Source: (1) Finchley Times, 3 October 1985 (2) Barnet Press, 3 October 1985
Editorial comments: 1300-1455 MT lunched at the United Dominion Trust offices in New Barnet, where she spoke; 1505-1620 she visited the offices of the Barnet Press in High Street, Barnet; 1630-1715 she opened the Barnet Family Practioner Committee’s new offices; 1830-1930 she visited Mill Hill barracks to support the Arny Benevolent Fund.
Importance ranking: Trivial
Word count: 1973
(1) Finchley Times, 3 October 1985:

Local firm offers job to Mrs T

The Prime Minister went to lunch in New Barnet on Friday—and found herself head-hunted for a top finance job.

Managing director Don McCrickland, of United Dominions Trust, a leading finance house, told her there was a place in their team for her after she handed out some pithy financial views after lunch.

“If you want more jobs, create more business … and you get more business by pleasing the customer. That's the essence of private enterprise—production of goods and service. Nothing will get over it … it's a fundamental truth.” she said.

Small businesses were vital, she added. One in three persons was employed in a small business.

“We depend on that sector for future growth of the economy. If you succeed. I succeed,” she told 29 guests—all heads of small businesses.

Mrs Thatcher told North Finchley jeweller Solly Seaton during a question and answer session that a small business comprised up to 200 employees.

On that subject of money, the Prime Minister declared: “There is no such thing as Government money. I've never heard of it. As First Lord of the Treasury I don't take money in—it's the people's money. It's the taxpayers or ratepayers' money—the only Government money is money of the people and we are very careful how we use it.”

Answering grumbles about national Insurance surcharges for employers. Mrs Thatcher said she would have preferred to reduce income tax to 25p in the pound.

“I want to help consistent workers on low wages. To be better off than a family of four on social security, an employee has to earn £160 per week, she pointed out.

Mrs Thatcher also pleaded for more skilled labour.

“We have spent £3 billion on universities and polytechnics yet have not trained enough radio engineers, computer programmers, mathematicians and electronic engineers.”

She asked businessmen to become governors of education institutes and tell lecturers it was their duty to “equip youngsters for the world of work.”

Before lunch, the Prime Minister met employees of UDT, which moved its head office from Eastcheap in the City to Station Road. New Barnet, two years ago.

Mr. McCricard said they had saved £1m on rates and rent and had invested £9m in new technology, pushing down costs, since moving to New; Barnet. [end p1]

Prime Minister hails work of practitioners

Opening Barnet Family Practitioner Committee's new offices at Tally Ho, North Finchley on Friday, Mrs Thatcher commented on the 200 million doctors' visits made annually to Britain's 58 million population.

“The point of the health service is preventative work,” she said, expressing pleasure that Barnet FPC now had central premises in Ballards Lane.

Barnet FPC administers 1,100 doctors, dentists, opticians and pharmacists who provide NHS general medical, dental, opthalmic and pharmaceutical services to Barnet's 300,000 residents.

It has a service budget of £20m and its administrative costs—for a staff of 42—are 1dec;7 per cent of its total expenditure.

This fact was commended by the prime Minister, who also praised the computerisation of patients' records for whom 660 GPs are currently responsible.

Afterwards, Finchley GP Dr Judy Gilley said: “We want everyone of those visits—the consultation rate is not sickness but preventative work for cytology smears, breast check-ups and urine tests. We call healthy men to have their blood pressure checked. We can assure Mrs Thatcher all those visits are necessary—it costs only £54 per year primary health care per patient.

She added: Consultation rates have gone up for all general practitioners. We are doning good things—helping people with diets and precounselling fro pregnancy. People want to be healthy and we are helping them.”

The Prime Minister was welcomed by chairman James Lemkin and administrator Michael Glorney, and met members of the 30-strong FPC committee during her visit.

Guests included Sydney Chapman, MP for Chipping Barnet, the Mayor of Barnet and her escort, D. J. Kenny, general manager at the regional health authority, and Dr John Carter, chairman of Barnet Health Authority.

The Iron Lady is all go

Mrs Thatcher swung into fashion when she spent eight hours in Barnet borough on Friday—and left everyone breathless at her energy.

Wearing a navy and white paterned silk dress with a ruffled collar and matching navy pumps, and adorned with her favourite pearl jewellery, the premier left behind her formal handbag and used a cream leather sling-bag.

It was the same outfit in which she greeted President Samora Machel of Mozambique at Downing Street before setting off for Finchley.

Lunch was at United Dominions Trust in New Barnet—poached salmon, cheese and biscuits, fresh fruit—but no relaxation. She held a question and answer session over black coffee!

Before visiting Barnet Family Practitioner Committee's new offices in Ballards lane, she sandwiched in an hour-long visit to a newspaper's offices in High Street, Barnet.

After tea with guests at the FPC offices, it back to the constituency offices to work, thn on to Inglis Barracks. Mill Hill, for the Army Benevolent function.

“I've got to go to a diplomatic reception—I must change,” Mrs Thatcher told singer Grace Kennedy as she left the building.

It was 8 pm and the Prime Minister had greeted more than 500 people at various times of the day.

How does she do it? In a Vogue magazine interview this month, the Prime Minister says: “Our family have always had to be healthy. My mother helped in the business, ran the house, made up clothes (she was a professional dress-maker), did the upholstery. In the Methodist Church we were taught to use the “shining hour.” That was the way I was brought up. We are all energetic. (2) Barnet Press, 3 October 1985 [end p2]

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher saw the faces behind the scenes at her premier local newspaper on Friday.

It was her first visit to the paper that has chroncicled her rise to power since she was elected MP for Finchley and Friern Barnet 25 years ago.

Politicians change, and so do newspapers—and the Press office she saw on Friday was a far cry from the old-style newspaper offices of a quarter of a century ago.

But there was little doubt that Mrs Thatcher was pleased with what she saw.

“I enjoyed it tremendously,” she said. “There is a fantastic spirit here where everyone feels they are working for the same paper.”

The visit that prompted such a glowing response began amid tight police security as the official motorcade swept into the rear of our offices in Barnet High Street.

Flanked by detectives and by her agent. Andrew Thomson, Mr Thatcher's first port of call was to meet the Press' most public faces—the front office receptionists who deal face to face with readers and advertisers.

Among all the protocol that preceeds a Prime Ministerial visit had come the message that Mrs Thatcher didn't want formality. She wanted to see the Press in action—and the only exception to that request was when the front doors were closed for a few minutes while she met the front office staff. Frances Poulton, Joyce King and Vanessa Knill.

The low-key nature of the visit was obvious from the start, with Mrs Thatcher—with the dust of Egypt only hours behind her—swapping anecdotes with the staff of her local paper.

It was while she was in the front office that she voiced the only criticism of her visit—the title of the Finchley Press was in the wrong colour. “It shouldn't be in red—and the word Finchley should be bigger,” she said.

Then it was up the stairs to the Press offices's imposing frontage to see the circulation department. “It's rather like a rabbit warren,” she quipped as the stairs and corridors wound ever upward. “Just like Number 10—we've got lots of stairs there too.”

Again there was time for the personal touch as she saw an Elvis calendar belonging to circulation assistant Jenny Wright. “It's terribly sad when people who you would think have everything have to end up like that,” she said.

From circulation, Mrs Thatcher moved one floor-down to see the Press's newest venture, the travel club, run by Denis Burnham. There memories of her Egyptian trip were again brought back when she saw the club's latest offer of a trip down the Nile—and the memory prompted a remark about the state of local roads.

“There's one thing about Egypt,” said Mrs Thatcher. “There are very good main roads, where no-one tosses out litter—they are beautifully clean.

“If you look at the central reservations here, the amount of stuff that's just chucked out is incredible. If you could just manage to keep Barnet. Finchley and the other areas clean. It would do a lot for the environment. I'm a passionate environmentalist, and I do believe in preserving it. It's something that everyone can do!”

The conversation wandered to other tours run by Denis, and Mrs Thatcher mentioned the Arctic Circle—and made a plea for the recently-discovered Titanic to be left in peace.

“I hope they don't raise it. I really think people have a right to be left. These things bring out the worst in people—leave them in dignity!”

From circulation, Mrs Thatcher's next call was the reporters' room, where the news that fills the paper is gathered and sifted.

“Local papers are a much better read than the nationals,” she offered. “They're left around all week.”

Mrs Thatcher came face to face with a reminder of her start in politics, with a file copy of the Press recording her first election victory.

“I remember the declaration of that poll,” she recalled. “We then went back to watch the results coming through. We had a majority of 100, but none of us knew how the result was going to go. It was not a foregone conclusion.”

Mrs Thatcher then moved to the commercial side of the Press with a tour of the accounts and advertising departments, and showed great interest in the papers' classified columns.

Then it was downstairs to see the technical side of the operation. Linotype operator Jim O'Malley showed Finchley's MP how all type used to be set on the Press—and still is in Fleet Street—with the intricate, clattering type-casting machine, now used for small print orders.

And then, just a few feet away, she came up to date with some of the latest printing technology.

Instead of using metal type, images are now created photographically using highly sophisticated computer-controlled cameras. Her first comment was: “It's all so clean. Newspapers I've visited where they still use the old technology are invariably noisy and dirty, but here it's so clean.”

In the camera room, where pages and pictures are photographed, she saw an old picture of herself on the casel, prompting a few wry comments about how hemlines and hairstyles have changed over the years.

Then, with production manager Ron Offord to guide her, she was shown the keyboards and terminals where all the words in the paper are set—from the front-page headlines to the small ads. Les Spicer's fingers flashed across the keyboard—and just minutes later the words he had typed emerged from the photographic processor ready to be pasted onto a page.

After her tour of the printworks. Mrs Thatcher came back upstairs for a group photograph—featuring many of her people who work for the Press—and then a well earned cuppa and a chance to sit down.

As she rested she praised what she called “the fantastic spirit” of everyone she had met.

And then, with half a day's work still ahead of her, Mrs Thatcher climbed back into her armoured Duimler and was whisked off to her next appointment.

In the office, though, there was cause for celebration. After all, it's not every day that the Prime Minister comes to tea.