Rotarians ‘Something special’ says PM

Mrs Thatcher recalled her childhood as the daughter of a leading Grantham Rotarian when she spoke to members of the Finchley Inner Wheel on Friday.

The group were holding their 40th anniversary celebrations at Avenue House and were honoured to have not only the Prime Minister as one of their guests but two of their founder members, Lillian Williams and Frances Bolton.

Congratulating the group on their achievements, Mrs Thatcher reminisced about the “great Rotary dinner” which her parents attended each year.

“From my earliest years I knew that Rotary meant something very special,” she said.

She remembered her father saying at one of the dinners that it was a compliment to Rotary that Hitler had banned Rotary clubs in Germany.

“Rotary and everything for which they stand flourish in a free country, and the tyrants cannot allow people that freedom,” she said. “This marvellous motto we have of ‘service before self’ shows that Rotary carry out all the duties of citizenship.

“We would not be the country that we are but for the fact that everyone is prepared to play more than their part in the life of our society.

“In a country like ours and in the whole of the western industrialised world we cannot only have leadership from the top, we have got to have it throughout the whole of society.

“One of the foremost organisations of leadership is Rotary,” she said.

She thanked the Inner Wheel members for “upholding the values of service before self.”

Mrs Thatcher then cut a special birthday cake and spoke to individual members of the club.