Recording of La Donna e Mobile
Nicholas Hare
Hello everyone. It's nice to be back with you all again and what a love piece of music to begin this issue with, from Verdi's Rigoletto. The wonderful Placido Domingo singing La Donna e Mobile. And I wonder how many of you know the literal English translation of those words: “Woman is wayward as a feather in the breeze, capricious in word and in thought, always a lovable pretty face but deceitful whether weeping or smiling. He who trusts her or confides in her is always wretched, his heart broken. For he can never be completely happy who does not sip love on that breast”. Well, there you are, those were the words written by Verdi all those years ago, and it's a wonderful introduction perhaps to this issue, which we want to make something of a tribute to our great Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who only this week celebrates one whole decade, ten years in office. When Margaret Thatcher spoke on June 6, 1979, just after she'd taken office, she said: “The mission of this government is much more than the promotion of economic progress, it is to renew the spirit and the solidarity of the nation”.
Margaret Thatcher has dominated British life for a decade in peace and war. She has survived bombs and scandals to become the longest-serving prime minister this century, the longest in continuous office since Lord Liverpool in the first quarter of the 19th century. Her philosophy, that has influenced politicians from Washington to Moscow and beyond, bears her name. She has tried from the beginning to loosen the creators of wealth from constraints, setting them free to succeed. Only in that way, she believes, can power be returned to the people. Those who have taken the opportunities her rule has offered love her, those who have been denied them hate her with equal passion. In this special issue of the Voice of Progress we mark her ten years in office by repeating the interview which I did with Margaret Thatcher on July 13th, 1987.
And I must admit that I came somewhat under her spell when I walked through that hallowed door of Number 10 Downing Street into that black and white checked hallway to be taken up the staircase with all the photographs and paintings of the Prime Ministers over the years to wait for her on that first floor landing. It's something that I shall never forget. It's perhaps the interview that I have done over the fourteen years of the Voice of Progress that I have been most asked to repeat and therefore it seems particularly fitting that we repeat this interview today as our tribute to the lady in politics, Margaret Thatcher, after one decade in power.
[Interview begins] Prime Minister, most of our listeners were brought up in the period when values in society were so much higher than they are today. I know you're on record as saying you're a great believer in the old Victorian values, do you think that they will ever return to this country and would you like to see that happen?
MT
Do you know in a way I think some of them are returning. I think as a matter of fact it's a mistake to limit them to any one age, Victorian values, I mean the fundamental values are much older than that, they are really be thoughtful and kind for one and another and you know, the “Mrs Do-as-you-would-be-done-by” in the older literature. So I think it's a mistake just to limit them to that age, but I notice among young people now they're fed up of not having some standards to live by. They much prefer a school teacher who keeps strong discipline, who tells them what is right and what is wrong, and I was very impressed when I met a young woman aged 18 who had gone up to university and really, she said to me: “You see the trouble is there aren't any rules these days, and I'd rather have some rules”. And I think that that's coming back, and I think the understanding that in a society in order for …to live together, you've got to have courtesy, which is some rules, you've got to be thoughtful to one another, and you've got to know what to do and what you shouldn't, and that really is how we have the best kind of life in our country. The values too are perhaps a little bit deeper, they're deeper than rules. If you only just do what is legal, it would not be a very rich life. And what happened in Victorian times - and it didn't happen in every country, but it did in ours - was that as people, some people began to get more prosperous so - and just remember the old Methodism in this country and the early effect of John Wesley - so they said, as we prosper ourselves so we have a duty to help to prosper others.[sic] And when I was Secretary of State for Education almost every school that we replaced was a school that was built during Victorian times, some through the Church voluntarily, many of the hospitals built with voluntary money, and many, uh, the excellent work in prisons started during that time. And this was the rise in this country which has stood us in such good stead of what Bernard Shaw called middle class morality, it was a duty. Since then people have said duty is a harsh word. It isn't a cold word, it's a warm word because it says that I must think of my fellow human beings. All of that is part of the upbringing which I had.
Nicholas Hare
Yes, the influence of parents is terribly important on family life. What sort of relationship did you have with your parents?
MT
Well, a very close one. Don't forget they were completely different days as some of your listeners will know. I was born in 1925, therefore I was young and impressionable through the mid-'thirties when we knew what the problems were in this country, the problems of unemployment, without being able to have the kind of income or benefits which you have now and the problems of the rise of Hitler and the fears. But also they were times when I really knew one family in our town that had a refrigerator, not many people had a telephone. We didn't have a car. And I remember the day when we got a radio, that was a tremendous advance, and there certainly was no such thing as television. So we did far more talking and discussing in families. We met other people very much more, if you went to buy anything in shops you'd often stand and talk to other people there or with the shopkeeper, of whom my father was one. We went to church, we had guilds, we had discussion groups, we had to make our own entertainment. I used to play the piano and our greatest pleasure was I would go out to tea with other people and have other people in. So we did get a great deal of discussion from young people. I was young, I was impressionable, I loved sitting listening to my elders talk, talking about things I could see and hear around us. And it was very much that kind of atmosphere, and I sometimes wonder today, well, we learn a great deal from television, a fantastic amount, we know what's going on half way across the world, do we know what's going on next door? Television has brought us so much, we hear wonderful music, marvellous and wonderful plays, but how much ordinary discussion between grandparents and child has it stopped?
Nicholas Hare
Looking back on your life as a teenager, would you have liked to be a teenager today where society seems so geared towards them all the time?
MT
I have never wished to be younger than I am. Each age has brought new experience and one's always wished “My goodness me, I wish I'd had that experience years ago”. and of course that is perhaps the history of all people as they're getting older. No, I wouldn't wish to be young again today, but young people I think, in a way it's much more difficult for them. There is far more money about and there is far more freedom and far fewer rules, and that means that they have to exercise an even greater degree of personal responsibility than we did.
Nicholas Hare
Now Mrs. Thatcher, after school of course you got a degree and you became a research chemist I believe, and you were called to the Bar as well. Where did you first, looking back on your life, where do you first remember wishing that you could go into politics, or how did that happen?
MT
I was always interested in it, as I said. My father was interested in local politics, but he had had to leave school at 13 and, but he was a very well educated man because he read and read and read. And every Saturday morning I went up to our local public library and I - my father knew the librarian - and I had to go to the librarian and say, “please I want one book on current affairs if there is something latest out, maybe we could have it, we'll not take long to read it”. It might have been the life of someone great, it might have been, uh, some great commentary at the time, and I would take that one home and then I would take something much more in the latest fictional line for my mother. And I would take those two books home and they would be read within the week, and I also would read them, usually the one of public interest and my father then would take me every Thursday evening to what was called a university extension lecture, uh, some university professor would come and talk to a small public meeting, and I suppose there'd be about 70 or 80 of us who attended regularly. And it would be on some issue of current affairs, which was mostly overseas affairs because as I say it was the rise of Hitler, a very interesting time, and still the previous world very much in memory and all of the problems of post-war reconstruction and the problems of the Depression. And we used to ask questions and again one's mind was alerted. I used to belong to a debating society at school, and so, and we used to listen on the radio. I wonder if any of your listeners will remember, J.B. Priestley used to talk sometimes - 9:15 on Sundays. Always we used to have a talk, we always used to listen to it, sometimes it was Winston, sometimes it was J.B. Priestley, sometimes it was, I think it was one or two Americans, one called Quentin Reynolds who used to talk about “Dr. Schickelgruber”, who was of course, was Hitler. Ah, and at, um, Fridays there used to be something called On-looker, with Mr. Justice Birkett. Now I used to listen to these with fascination, they opened my mind, and we had, it was known that those days were the days of science and Einstein's theories were coming through. And don't forget I lived in a town which so proud of Newton, Isaac Newton because he was born not far from Grantham.
All of this was part of my daily life. It was the mental food and discussion was as much a part of our menu as the breakfast, dinner and evening meal, and I sometimes used to wonder, did I teach my children as much as my father taught me? Because I have found something, which I'm afraid so many other parents must have found, you try to give your children the things that you didn't have. My father did not have education but he tried to give me education, not in the way of what you get at school only, but what you get in the wider sphere. So when I was musical, yes, I went to be taught the piano, and all of the other things which I did. If any quartet came to our town I was taken to listen to them, if any great politician came to our town - I remember Herbert Morrison coming, he came to our ARP headquarters, well Papa was in ARP so off we went. I was taken, this was part of my father's capacity to educate me, so now if ever I see someone bringing their family I immediately go across because it brings back the memories of what my father did for me, so I can start to repay to others. This morning King Hussein came to see me to talk. Just the other side of Number 10 Downing Street were a whole group of primary school children, they'd come from Harrow, all waiting, and they'd come up to see Number 10, so immediately I said to the King “Look, I think they've come to see us. Would you mind if we walk across and talk to them” so we both went across to talk to them and it was, partly we might have done it anyway but it was partly I could, we could just have disappeared, we had so much to talk about, into the door, but no, this is what life's about, he has a family, and so let's go across and talk to the children. You know the personal contact is so important and it was throughout my childhood.
Nicholas Hare
Wonderful. Prime Minister, have you found that combining your family life with the career that you've chosen, politics, has caused your family to suffer in any way?
MT
It …look, the children of people who become well-known, or known as Members of Parliament, always suffer, they're always in the public eye. Most children can make their mistakes out of the public eye and heaven knows everyone makes mistakes, you don't do anything in life if you don't make mistakes and don't learn from your own mistakes, we all make them. It's very difficult for children whose parents are in the public eye and we all know this, and so we hope to goodness that they get other things, other perhaps little possibilities, where they can see the Trooping of the Colour, they can perhaps come and stand in the Royal Gallery and see the state opening of Parliament, and can come and see various things that just compensates them for somehow having to stand up for their parents to other children at school and at college.
Nicholas Hare
One of my listeners would like to know if you enjoy being a mother-in-law?
MT
I love it, but I have a lovely daughter-in-law. I have just longed for one of my children to get married“for both of them”and Diana ThatcherDiana is lovely, she's a charming girl. She's lovely not only to look at, but lovely in disposition and we're so very happy.
Nicholas Hare
Mrs. Thatcher, the majority of our listeners I suppose it's fair to say, are ladies and they'll never forgive me if I don't ask you, has being a woman been a help or a hindrance to your involvement generally on the international scene with presidents and kings and people like that?
MT
I'm quite often asked and I scarcely know how to answer, um, because I've never been a man prime minister, so I haven't really …you know I can't compare it. Certainly I think that one stands out because one is different - and I wish we weren't different, that is to say if there were more of us it would be more helpful. Um, I don't think it's a drawback, sometimes you're the butt of some jokes and was it just recently Mr. Chirac said “Well, she's just a housewife”. I said “What a compliment. Yes, I do run this country the way of good housekeeping and if more of you did that we'd have fewer problems”. But isn't awful to turn around and say “Well she's just a housewife”, as if not being a housewife, as if being a housewife was something not very good, it's a great compliment. It is one of the great managerial gifts, it is having the future in your hands. So I was quite pleased, but he didn't intend it that way at all.
Nicholas Hare
Another question, Mrs. Thatcher, which our lady listeners would like me to ask you I know as you're always admired greatly for your impeccable appearance. Do clothes therefore matter a great deal to you?
MT
Well it's not always impeccable [laughs], you know sometimes when you're really working extremely hard, you, uh, you don't always look very good. You try to start out looking neat and tidy and if you're going out to two things, to Parliament obviously you must go looking nice, that …it's part of the job and it's part of the way you would do it anyway because if you're neat and tidy in your appearance, you tend to be neat and tidy in other things as well. Believe you me you don't always have the time to be impeccable although you always try to look reasonably nice and tidy.
Nicholas Hare
What colours and styles do you like most?
MT
Always neat but not gaudy, I think, is what I would say, uh, I do love, obviously I love the cornflower blue, but I genuinely love, but I also love a fuchsia colour, not a scarlet, I find scarlet rather garish but a lovely fuchsia, a lovely cerise, the bluey-pinks are absolutely beautiful. I love the clear jewel colours, the sapphire, the emerald green, the ruby, the amethyst, they really are beautiful. But I tend to spend quite a lot of my time in the blacks and navies and the kind of beiges and greys, because you can wear those again and again and put something on to brighten it up, and people don't realize you're wearing the same things again and again, which of course you have to, and they tend to be very tailored.
Nicholas Hare
Mrs. Thatcher, at the end of a particularly trying day - and goodness knows your days must be extremely trying - do you find the time to relax and if and when you do, how do you like relaxing?
MT
[Speaking over Nicholas Hare] No. Very very rarely do I relax because now today, I have to go when we finish this, this interview, I have to go immediately across to Parliament to stay some time, and then I have to attend a dinner this evening, which will develop into a discussion, and then when I come back, which will at about 10:30, then I, there will be some red boxes. I'm answering questions in the House tomorrow and I have to think tonight how to prepare myself for that, and that will take quite a long time. Uh, there's tomorrow morning, I have three or four meetings, there'll be the papers for those meetings, I must go through them carefully and decide what conclusions I would like to get out of those meetings and what the discussion points will be. Uh, and then tomorrow morning we have to meet, we have a state visit, the King of Morocco, we'll have to meet the King at Victoria Station at 12 o'clock and then dash back to prepare again for questions. Then I have to meet a whole group of Members of Parliament tomorrow evening, and then come back and then go again to, there will be a state banquet, go there, and then when I come back after that - and that will not be until after midnight - then again I must get down to those boxes. Now I've trained myself over the years to do this.
So you see there isn't much time to relax. I'm only too grateful if I can get when we're working flat out like that - and it's a flat out week next week because I'm going to Washington on Thursday night and Washington all day Friday, and then Jamaica all day Saturday and back here on Sunday for a luncheon. It's a flat out week. Now I couldn't do that unless I'd trained myself over the years to do it and paced and measured oneself. And I know I'm not going to be able to relax until about the first week in August. But I know that and therefore I keep fit, uh, yes, I take Vitamin C every morning, and when I go to sleep I am very tired so I go to sleep and sleep deeply, although not long.
When I relax, you just sit down, collapse in a chair in a little sitting room upstairs, Denis and I and we just talk, what have you been doing today, or if one of the children is in, that's marvellous, and at weekends I go for a walk, go round the garden, love the garden, the roses, it's the first time all the roses have been out. They were beautiful. And then talk to friends, and read, and read. You must always read something first. I, someone sent this little book I didn't know, C.S. Lewis, I've been devoted to C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters he lectured at the university when I was young. I don't know his book on what's called The Abolition of Man, it's really the use of language and, to make certain that you're saying what you mean. And I just find time to read about half of that, and then one goes back to the classics sometimes. Always go on filling your mind with something new, something to enlarge your horizons, but always spend a part of the day getting down to fundamentals, the things which really matter.
Nicholas Hare
Mrs. Thatcher, to wind up, when the Thatcher years come to an end which, heaven forbid but I suppose they will one day, you'll be remembered very much I think, as much as for anything else, for the Falkland Islands and the way you stood up for this country at that period. You have in front of you two of your favourite verses which I think typify your attitude to this country. I wonder if you'd like to close by just reading those two verses for our blind listeners?
MT
How very kind of you. These are two verses from Kipling, and I may say that I first learned about Kipling in the year 1935, when I was asked at my Primary School, aged 10, we were set an essay, to write an essay about Kipling and his life, because it was a particular anniversary. And so I went got a small book called Thirty Poems of Kipling and I had already read Kim and learned all about Rikki Tikki Tavi, and so on, and a number of the tales of Kipling, but I learned a good deal more about him as long ago as that when I was ten. And I still keep beside me a whole anthology of all his poems and all his books, and this is one that just typifies every single thing about what liberty means to, to we British, although it's about the English. And it all goes back to Runnymede, because the history of liberty in this country is the history, as the baron said to the king, you've got too much power, we want it more widely distributed. And the barons to the squires and members of parliament, and then we've distributed the property and rights more and more widely. And this is the history how it started at Runnymede, and it's called The Reeds of Runnymede.
At Runnymede, at Runnymede.
Oh hear the reeds at Runymeade.
You mustn't sell, delay, deny a freeman's right or liberty.
It wakes the stubborn Englishry,
We saw them roused at Runnymede.
And still will mob or monarch lays too rude a hand on English ways,
The whisper wakes, the shudder plays across the reeds at Runnymede.
And Thames that knows the mood of kings, and crowds and priests and such like things,
Rolls deep and dreadful as he brings their warning down from Runnymede.
I heard Lord Denning finish with that, the great Lord Denning at a speech at a dinner. I went and found it and I think so often of it. Our liberty started at Runnymede, and the reeds at Runnymede quietly remind us always of our duty. And so when it came to the Falklands and their liberty was at stake I had no doubt. The whisper waked, the shudder played across the reeds at Runnymede, and we went down. They whispered as far as the Falklands, and they weren't content until the Falklands were free again.
Nicholas Hare
Prime Minister, thank you very much indeed.
MT
Thank you.
Nicholas Hare
And I shall always remember to my dying day, sitting there in front of the Prime Minister in the lovely drawing room at Number 10 Downing Street, hearing her read that emotional poem by Rudyard Kipling, and her eyes filled with tears as she read and told me about her loyalty to our great country, a moving experience indeed.