Mrs Thatcher talks to Tish Ziemer about her 30 years as Finchley's MP and her rise to prominence as one of the leading political figures in the world

‘I ENJOY EVERY MINUTE OF IT’

Thirty years have sped past and at 63 ( “I don't feel 63,” she quickly pointed out), Mrs Thatcher is convinced a life without politics would be no life at all and that life without Finchley is unimaginable.

“It is in my blood stream,” she said. “I don't think I could ever cut myself off from it. So much of one would die. It just would.

“I console myself that Winston Churchill was three years older than myself before he took over and Gladstone formed his fourth administration after he was 80!”

Asked if she had ever gone home, kicked off her shoes and said: “Denis I've had enough as an MP,” Mrs Thatcher replied adamantly: “Never” .

“There are times when you're just a little bit down, of course there are, but you spring up again,” she said.

“But the acid test for all of us is how you recover and carry on.

“It doesn't matter what your job is. That's the acid test always—what can you recover from a bad spell. It's your own energy or vitality which does it. Plus the fact you get more stamina with more experience.”

Thirty years has flown by for the woman who now stands centre-stage in the world of international politics.

“When I look back, the times were very different. Time has gone much faster in retrospect than it has in prospect. It has been marvellous. Thirty years is a tremendously long time.

“I remember when I was 10 being in the back of a little car with my father in the front and the driver saying to him: ‘Gosh I think that happened 20 years ago.’

“I thought that seemed really like the time of 1066. You do because when it's longer than you have lived it seems like an age without a name.

“But when you've been through it, each day brings its joys and sorrows. Sometimes the days are rainy, but there is a saying: ‘Into each life a little rain must fall’.

“We're very lucky in this country.

“Unless you've got a really big problem, someone really desperately ill or a real calamity then you know what problems are.

“Then you feel ashamed if you have ever grumbled about little things.

“It has been a wonderful experience and I enjoy every moment of it.” [end p1]

We need more women at Westminster

Having fought two by-elections in Dartford, Mrs Thatcher was then ready to move on to the safer seat of Finchley and become one of a handful of women in the House of Commons.

“I felt on top of the world,” said Mrs Thatcher, remembering the day in July 1958 when she was selected by the Finchley and Friern Barnet Conservative Association to fight the 1959 election.

Women were almost unheard of in Westminster and, once elected, the pressure was on for the 33-year-old wife with active six-year-old twins to look after.

“The fact is, if my husband had a job in Yorkshire, Glasgow or Cardiff and if our home had been there I just wouldn't have felt able to leave the children and come down to London. That is the limiting factor you know.

“But Westminster, and where we lived in Farnborough, Kent, were very close together. We were never far away and it was not far from where my husband worked. It was always quick to get back.”

Mrs Thatcher sympathises with other women who may wish to enter the world of politics and is eager for more women to overcome hurdles and join her.

“They never thought of having women MPs. It was a great mistake,” she complained. “I long for more women MPs. It's not right that of 650 MPs we have far fewer than 50 women and this is years after women were able to come in.

“We may get more young women in the future who are able to carry on a career at the same time as getting married.

“But I'm the first to recognise the constraints.”

Plain talk from schoolchildren

Visits often involve trips to local schools where Mrs Thatcher finds a refreshing and amusing change to the twice-weekly complexities of Prime Minister's question time in the House of Commons.

“Children always ask you questions without any sophistication or artifice,” she laughed. “They ask you questions because they want to know the answers. You can always tell a genuine question rather than one which has been put in their mouth.

“They ask you such wonderful questions in a perfectly natural and straightforward manner, which is wonderful.”

Village feeling remains

Many things have happened in 30 years to change the face of Finchley and Friern Barnet but Mrs Thatcher still sees and loves the area as a collection of small villages with their own identities.

“Whetstone is still very much a village atmosphere,” she commented. “Central Finchley around Hervey Close and the Dollis Park area too. Maybe that's because I know them that way. There is the Hendon Lane area too.

“Friern Barnet was and remains very much a separate entity, very much with its own pride. Although Friern Barnet North goes into Whetstone I still think of them as two separate wards.”

But a great deal of the atmosphere was lost when Finchley and Friern Barnet with their separate councils were absorbed into the large London Borough of Barnet.

“It was quite a change. If anyone had a housing problem I would ring up the housing manager at Finchley Council and by the time I was two thirds of the way through explaining—I've been to see a lady who has paper falling off her walls—he would say: ‘Oh, Mrs so and so’ straight away.

“That's not possible when you've gone to a much larger area.” [end p2]

Pensioners still have a vital role

More and more pensioners are returning to the world of work after retiring in order to offer their experience to the world of commerce and to keep themselves active.

“People are so pleased to have an older person working for them, they are thoroughly reliable and can supervise,” Mrs Thatcher said.

“I've seen so many people and asked them what they are going to do. In the first six months they are putting up shelves in the kitchen and redecorating the whole place and doing the garden.

“But they then come back and say: ‘Have you got a little job I can do?’”

The abolition of the earning rules in the last budget has gone someway to making sure pensioners' lives are not destroyed on retirement, she says.

“It is not only the income which drops on retirement. It is the whole social structure. It is feeling you're no longer wanted or needed. I'm a great believer in people finding a part-time job.”

As a grandmother, Mrs Thatcher recognises the need to have an interest in the future, not locked in one particular age group.

“I am always very pleased when flats for older people are right in the centre of town or even on the main road because there is life going on around you, you see people of all age groups or you hear the voices of children from school.

“You are also lucky if you have children or grandchildren—this gives you an interest in the future.”

Wrestling with life's problems

Residents may think there is an advantage to having a Prime Minister as their local MP, but Mrs Thatcher is often having to remind people that the laws of the land remain the same for them despite her position. “I can't change the law just because you come to me,” she said. “Our task is to see that problems are properly put to the department and to the Minister. “What we can also see is that what you are entitled to, you will certainly receive.”

As Local MP, Mrs Thatcher has spent many hours in her surgeries dealing constituents' wide-ranging problems. Most recently the nightmare of drugs has reared its ugly head.

“You have people saying: ‘Look, what are we going to do to stop it getting into our schools?’ It is very difficult. People tell you actually what is happening. Their children know where to purchase drugs, where they are sold. I may know nothing about it.

“We don't come into contact with that kind of world.”

Many constituents' concerns are similar today to those 30 years ago, such as planning, housing, education and transport, but others may be distressing and leave Mrs Thatcher feeling helpless.

Over the years she has learnt to deal with these.

“I found when I first came and had surgeries every Friday that they were the most emotionally draining part of my life. People come and you felt, ‘If only I could have got at their problems sooner’. Sometimes you could stop them from going so wrong: They might have got into debt, they might have had problems with their house.

“The only similarity that I can express is that it is being like a nurse who must constantly be attending people who are desperately ill.

“You learn to be professional about it, what to do for each and every person. You do your level best but you have to learn to take the problem in hand and be professional about it without being undermined yourself.”

Mrs Thatcher may often feel helpless with problems, especially those relating to human nature.

“There are some very sad cases. Very bad difficulties, constantly the problems of human nature.

“Why do some youngsters go wrong? Why do some people turn to drugs? Why are there driving accidents? Parents who are really worried with a mentally handicapped child and say: ‘What in the world will the child do when we've gone.’”

Close to old friends

Mountains of paperwork keep Mrs Thatcher away from what she loves best—people. But visits to her constituency ensure her batteries are fully charged for the next load of national and international correspondence.

“I love being with people most of all, that is really when you are stimulated. That's when you begin to live. I much prefer it to a lot of paperwork although I have to do it.”

Time spent in Finchley and Friern Barnet is time spent with old friends.

“I have grown up with the area and they have grown up with me. I've seen it for 30 years. I've seen the changes. I've seen our people—young Conservatives grow up to become our chairmen. You know them. You know their children who are now having weddings and their own children.” [end p3]

My debt to Denis

Denis Thatcher has backed his wife through thick and thin throughout her public life.

“Denis is 74. He is fit, he's active, he's energetic,” she said with pride.

“His support has been absolutely marvellous.

“He has always been interested in sport and having his own business life and therefore his own personality and position.

“He comes out with very forthright things. People love him for this. So do I.”

How to fit in new housing

Mrs Thatcher's clear-cut, no-nonsense style is famous but she sees this as the most honest and direct way for winning trust and respect from the people who have voted for her over the past 30 years. “I am sometimes criticised for the candour with which I do things. It is the only way. I say: ‘I can't do this for you. You've got to do it for yourself. I've always been frank and candid. That way you do command respect.”

Housing needs in the area should be met by redevelopment as opposed to in-filling, with Barnet Council acting as referee between conservationists and developers.

“In-filling is one of the real problems,” accepts Mrs Thatcher.

“We are on the edge of the Green Belt where you can't build because that is how it is designated.

“This means the demand for new housing has to be met by redeveloping or knocking down houses, selling plots of land which are in housing areas and putting on extra houses.

“It's very difficult for young people starting up or teachers coming to the area to buy a reasonably priced house in this area.

“There is a demand for more starter houses and yet there is immense complaint if you are ruining the character of an area. I have a great deal of sympathy for that—you're ruining if you in-fill.

“In some areas you are never going to get planning permission, on Deansway for example and the Hampstead Garden Suburb, nor should you, but in other areas, yes you do.

“These days we have an aging population so there is a tremendous demand for the smaller flats, warden accommodation.

“You will find sometimes Victorian houses being pulled down and whole blocks of flats going up because there is a greater demand. But some people say: ‘Look, we must retain the character’.

“You've got opposite constraints.

“Where you have a beautiful area the character must be retained. But there are some which are very mixed. That's where the development takes place.

“But we've had this problem from the very beginning. We had it when I first came. The only scope for more development is re-development.

“Some are much better than some of those they replaced while some of them are not so good as the buildings they replace.

“The local authority has to make a decision.”

Summit break

Sometimes international events stop Mrs Thatcher being where she wants to.

This year she had to miss the Finchley Carnival for the first time in 30 years because of the Economic Summit in Paris. “It was also the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution. It took all my days,” she said.

“You can't change international meetings. There were seven countries represented and the summit was attended by President Bush, President Mitterrand, Chancellor Kohl, myself and the Japanese Prime Minister.”

Lessons for all

The harmonious mix of nationalities in Finchley and Friern Barnet has provided lessons for everyone.

“They have taught us something about how to look after families,” said Mrs Thatcher referring to the large number of Kenyan and Ugandan Indians who came to the area in the early 1970s.

“They teach their children that it's important to do your best at school and work hard.” She added: “We've learnt to live together in a remarkable way and a very friendly way.”