MT
Hello, hello Emma, hello dear! Tigger! Tigger, hello, hello, hello. Yes, you're a lovely spaniel, aren't you? I think he'd better have a long lead. I think you'd better have a longer lead. All right, that's better. Now he can go and explore [laughs].
Reporter
In her Downing Street garden, Mrs Thatcher shares an off-duty moment with the Chancellor's daughter, five year-old Emily Lawson. [end p1]
MT
Oh, we haven't got any here. Do you see the duck when she comes over to lay her eggs every summer? There dear, would you like a little, a little juice? It's getting quite warm, isn't it? There.
Reporter
It's a rare glimpse of the private side of a woman leader who's proud of the Iron Lady image. To her critics, she remains cold and imperious; to her admirers strong and statesmanlike.
MT
It's going to be a lovely weekend by the looks of things. It'll be marvellous if it is. We can sit and do some work outside. Yes. Right. It might even be good longer.
Reporter
Mrs Thatcher's already won her place in No. 10's gallery of past Prime Ministers and, after eight years living above the shop, she become used to having little time for a private life.
MT
Well, one doesn't take very much time off and therefore the moments you do are very, very precious. But really, the nicest thing is, we come in at the end of the day. Now the end of the day may be eleven, eleven-thirty. Both of us have usually had some kind of evening engagement, but not all the time, and then we just flop down here and talk. “What have you done?” and what have I done. And then, sometimes, I have to get down to work after that.
Reporter
So you work even into the early hours?
MT
Yes, but I've been used to that. It's no difficulty. Except at weekends. I do like a really good night's sleep on Saturday. That really gets one right for the following week.
Reporter
When the job does get her down, she says she leans heavily on her daughter Carol and rest of the family for support.
MT
I think, whatever the job you are doing, you will have some worries, and if you just brood on them alone, they get much worse. You've got to have someone to talk to about them and someone to shake you out of yourself, and I'm just lucky in having it.
Reporter
Your husband, of course, Mr Thatcher, has been a…
MT
[end p2]Oh, he's terrific. Denis ThatcherHe is terrific. If there's any tension in the air, he can always say … take the tension out immediately.
Denis Thatcher
And you can't do all the things in life that you want to do. It is simply not possible, both in time and opportunity. But we manage to do a fair number things.
MT
Quite a few, quite a few.
Denis Thatcher
And together.
MT
Both of us.
Reporter
Mr Thatcher, are you happy with the prospect of another few years' residence in Downing Street, perhaps?
Denis Thatcher
Reasonably [laughs].
MT
Oh, come on! Cheer up! [laughs] That is typical understatement. He'd be just as concerned as I should be if, um…
Denis Thatcher
Obviously. Yes, of course.
Reporter
Photographs of Moscow remind them both of the Prime Minister's role on the world stage.
MT
And this was at the ballet: Mr Gorbachev and Mrs Gorbachev. And I was seeing Swan Lake there, and we had a new production of it here, so I must see that one too. Now that was British Trade, opening the British Trade Centre. We're hoping we can do a lot more trade with them. Yes, I've got my year's programme. I think we ought to think about summer holidays, dear.
Denis Thatcher
Yeah.
MT
When we can go.
Denis Thatcher
[end p3]Some hopes!
MT
Have you got yours?
Denis Thatcher
Some hopes!
MT
Well, if we have an election early, we can go on holiday in August.
Denis Thatcher
Mmm.
MT
If we have an election later…
Denis Thatcher
We won't go at all.
MT
No holiday, that's right. Well…
Denis Thatcher
Well, I'll believe that when I see it.
MT
Well, I thought we'd go to Cornwall this year again, because we love it.
Denis Thatcher
Mmm.
MT
And Cornwall all right? You'll golf in the morning, if not in the afternoon too.
Denis Thatcher
Yes.
Reporter
Mrs Thatcher's now sixty-one
MT
Oh, so much work to do. So much work to do. And the more we have been preparing for the manifesto, the more I have realised there is still to do. Indeed, it will take more than one further term to do it. I think those of us who are doing work which is work of our choice, we're jolly lucky.