Thatcher (3 page)

The subject did offer Margaret Roberts genuine satisfaction. She particularly enjoyed the cutting edge of the discipline, and was excited by the advances in science driven by the war. This genuine interest led her to look for work in the science after 1947. She left Oxford with a Second Class degree in Chemistry, and approached the Oxford University Appointments Committee for a job. She had several unsuccessful interviews, and was finally taken on by BX Plastics, to work in their research and development section just outside Colchester. She had expected to be working as personal assistant to the research director, but that did not materialise. Instead, she donned her white lab coat as an active researcher. The section was new, and settled down around Margaret Roberts. She lived in Colchester, and travelled to work on the employer's bus. But the work was not satisfying, and Colchester, while pleasant, was scarcely less provincial than Grantham.

Side by side with her studies, Margaret Roberts became involved in student politics. For the first two years of her time at Oxford, the Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA) was her club and second refuge. She worked, she took solitary walks round the town and country, and she socialised through the Conservative club. It is possible that at any other time in history a provincial tradesman's daughter would have found herself frozen out by sons and daughters of landowners bound together by public school. In 1943, Churchill's National Government was instrumental rather than -ideological. The drivers of policy were the practical ones of munitions and soldiers, not the traditional ones of values and power. Conduct of the war dominated debate. Members of the Conservative Association were constrained in their social expectations and war work, and a young and civic-minded member could find friends and jobs that used her talents usefully. She could not join the Oxford Union, as membership was still denied to women. She could listen to the debates there, but the brittle and brilliant repartee of Union political debate was not for her. The Conservative Association offered a safer, quieter environment.

She made friends and contacts there that reappeared throughout her life. It was here that she met Edward Boyle, son of a wealthy Liberal MP, and William Rees-Mogg, future editor of
The Times
. The future broadcaster Robin Day was a leading light of the Oxford Union. Tony Benn – then the Honourable Anthony Wedgewood Benn – disagreed with Margaret Roberts on everything political. But she was welcome at the celebration when he became President of the Union, which, true to Methodist principle, was teetotal. Religion featured large in this period of her life. Methodism provided her with an anchor of stability reinforced by comforts brought from home – cakes and groceries to supplement rations and college fare, and a favourite armchair. She attended Sunday evening service at the Wesley Memorial Church, and went to the discussion suppers and social gatherings after that. She would attend the University Church of St Mary the Virgin for particular sermons, or the College Chapel if Helen Darbishire, College principal and Milton and Wordsworth scholar, was speaking. She did not attend Anglican churches, but she did read C S Lewis, the High Anglican and mystical writer. Again, this was a surprising path for a Methodist to take. However, Lewis does show that mix of idealism and practicality so liked by Margaret Roberts: ‘Perfect behaviour may be as unattainable as perfect gear changing when we drive; but it is a necessary ideal prescribed for all men by the very nature of the human machine just as perfect gear changing is an ideal prescribed for all drivers by the very nature of cars.'
³
(This comment made more sense in the days when gear changes in cars required a complicated double use of the clutch.)

This quiet period was leading to the end of the war. Margaret Roberts spent two evenings of her week serving in the forces canteen at Carfax, giving her an awareness of service life. Elsewhere, preparations were beginning for the D-Day landings. In the Conservative Party, MPs who had last stood for election in 1935 were horrified by the extent to which the state now had control of industry. To them, it was vital to return to
laissez-faire
industry and free-market principles as soon as the war was over. On the other hand, young people were being demobilised from the forces, and looking towards a new Britain. Among these, Quintin Hogg was gathering support for reform of the party: ‘If you don't give the people social reform, they are going to give you social revolution.'
⁴
He led a faction of modernists in the Conservative parliamentary party towards a platform of social reform previously unknown. The watershed in Margaret Roberts's quiet Oxford interlude came in 1945. Forced into an election against his wishes, Churchill stood as the victorious war leader against Clement Attlee, who had been part of the War Cabinet and now stood on a platform of welfare reform. Attlee was attractive to Margaret Roberts, who saw him as a careful and hard-working man. But his mandate was socialist and collectivist, and absolutely against her principles and beliefs. This election was a landslide victory for Attlee. For young members of the Conservative Party like Margaret Roberts, this was the first experience of defeat on a national scale, and was a major wake-up call for the future. There had been other unsuccessful by-elections, like the one in Grantham, but the party had not heeded the warning these had given of the change in public opinion.

Margaret Roberts did not concede victory easily. In Oxford, she campaigned whole-heartedly for Quintin Hogg, although his belief in social reform was worrying. In Grantham, she was a ‘warm-up' speaker for Conservative candidates in village meetings. She had received lessons in public speaking from Central Office – Mrs Stella Gatehouse emphasised simplicity, clarity of expression and a minimum of jargon. This gave her experience in handling crowds, although a little more long-windedness might have helped when candidates were late. Her views were clear – Germany should be disarmed and brought to justice, Churchill was best placed to continue to manage foreign affairs. There must be co-operation with America and hopefully with the Soviet Union. The British Empire, the
most important community of peoples the world had ever known
must never be dismembered.
⁵
None of this carried enough weight with the electorate. Decisions in this election were held over to enable serving troops to vote. Three weeks after polling day, Margaret Roberts was in Grantham when the results were announced. Conservative after Conservative fell, including the Grantham candidate. Margaret Roberts simply could not understand how the public could do this to Churchill. Only later did she begin to see it as a signal that change was in the air, rather than an act of disloyalty to a great leader.

This did, however, crystallise Margaret Roberts' political interests. In March 1946, she was Treasurer of the Oxford University Conservative Association – by October she was elected President. In the meantime, she attended the Federation of University Conservative and Unionist Associations Conference in London. She spoke for the inclusion of more working-class people in Conservative politics – a speech that was noticed by the national party. She attended her first Conservative Party conference, in Blackpool. Back in Oxford she was organising, and meeting, speakers. Alec Douglas-Home, Anthony Eden, even Lady Davidson, who talked about being the only Conservative woman MP at the time. All of the leading Conservatives who worked the student circuit met Margaret Roberts, and she entertained as her father had entertained the great and the good of Grantham – without frills, and within the Association's means. She was central to the formation of a new manifesto for the Oxford Union Conservative Association – a manifesto committed to reform of the party. As a young Conservative – unusual at Somerville – she was invited to the principal's dinners when eminent guests were expected.

This was the position Margaret Roberts left when she moved to Colchester, and again became a small fish in a big pond. She did not leave her established base in politics, however. She had discovered what she really wanted to do with her life, and it was not chemistry. In her memoirs, she pinpoints a party at Corby Glen, a village some ten miles from Grantham, as the place where she first voiced her ambition. One of the men suggested that what she really wanted to do was to be an MP. Almost without thinking about it, she agreed – yes, that was what she really wanted to do.

She wasted no time in joining the local Conservative Association, and particularly the ‘39–45' discussion group of Conservatives of the war generation. She did not attempt to join the party's list of approved candidates. Alfred Roberts' daughter had no independent means, and could not have afforded to become an MP on the salaries offered at that time. Part of her campaign to increase middle-class representation in the party was to increase parliamentary salaries, and her arguments underpinned changes in the next few years. She kept in touch with friends made at University. She went to the Party Conference at Llandudno in 1948, as a representative of the University Graduate Conservative Association. The conference led to one of those accidents of parliamentary careers. A friend from Oxford was also a friend of the Chair of Dartford Conservative Association, who needed a candidate. The association ‘had a look' at Margaret Roberts and in January 1949 she was selected. This was a mixed blessing – the Labour majority in that constituency was an unassailable 20,000. This may have worked in favour of the unknown female applicant – if there is no chance of winning, than why not give an unknown a chance? It did, however, spell the end of life in Colchester.

To fight the Dartford seat, her next job must be London based. She was looking for something that would pay about £500 per year – not an enormous amount, even in the cash-strapped 1950s. She had several refusals, but was eventually taken on by the laboratories of J Lyons as a food research chemist. Here, she was based in Hammersmith and her work was more satisfying and experimental. She was able to live in Dartford, and take a full part in social life there. This proved life-changing in more ways than one. At a supper party after her adoption meeting, she met Denis Thatcher. He was some ten years older than Margaret Roberts, and a successful and well-off man. They were both avid readers, but Denis introduced Margaret Roberts to a wider and more active social life. They went to the theatre, to restaurants, and for drives in his Jaguar. Marriage was on the cards from early on in their relationship, but there were few Saturdays not taken up with either rugby or politics. In the event, the news that he had proposed and she had accepted was released just before the 1950 election.

The 1950 election was hard fought. Deptford was an ‘unwinnable' constituency, linked to Chislehurst, Gravesend, and Bexley Heath. Edward Heath stood in Bexley Heath, and the neighbouring associations were expected to support him in his potentially winnable seat. This was the election where Nye Bevan referred to Conservatives as little better than vermin. His comment gave Margaret Roberts and other young Conservatives ‘open season' to be rats: they wore little blue rat badges, and established a hierarchy where ‘vile vermin' had recruited ten new party members. Thatcher and the Roberts were highly visible. Alfred spoke in the constituency, Muriel worked with the campaign team, and Denis looked after problems and logistics. This is the last time Muriel is mentioned in Margaret Thatcher's memoirs. She married a farmer as he took on the lease of a 300-acre farm. In true Roberts fashion, he bought the farm and increased his holding to 900 acres. The couple farmed succesfully for two decades, staying out of the public eye. When she died, in 2004, they were extremely wealthy. Margaret Roberts herself, at 24, spent her days in a tailored suit from Bourne and Hollingsworth. She used a soapbox in the streets, she attended local markets, she spoke at public meetings almost every night, she replied to every constituency letter, she canvassed inside and outside the factories. She only avoided pubs – Methodism was still against alcohol. This campaign established her as a national figure. As the youngest candidate and as a woman she was always news-worthy. Her public pronouncements were short and sweet – ‘Vote Right to Keep What's Left' or ‘Stop the Rot, Sack the Lot'. She cut the Labour majority by 6,000.

The end of the election campaign left her tired but exhilarated. It was a well-fought campaign, and the young Margaret Roberts had found a way of life that was exciting and satisfying. It was hard to see how it could be continued. But it was clear that there would be another election very soon – the Labour majority was so reduced the party could not continue in government for long. The hiatus gave her time to move to a small flat in Pimlico, and to learn to drive and acquire her first car. She inherited a pre-war Ford Prefect bought for Muriel for £129 by their father. By the time the second election was called, in October 1951, she and her car were well known in Dartford. She had also had more free time with Denis. She shaved a further 1,000 off the Labour majority, and saw a Conservative government re-elected. She met both Anthony Eden and Churchill while on constituency duties, and kept up her contacts with Conservative Central Office.

This second election marked a period of change in Margaret Roberts' life. In December, she married Denis. The marriage took place in City Road, London, but was celebrated by the Methodist Minister from Grantham. The reception was at the magnificent home of Sir Alfred Bossom, MP for Maidstone. The honeymoon was in Madeira. In the 1950s this was no package holiday. For Margaret Roberts, now Thatcher, it was her first trip out of the country and her first flight on a seaplane. On their return, Margaret Thatcher moved into Denis' sixth-floor flat in Flood Street, Chelsea. This period of her life was
very heaven
.
⁶
The neighbours were friendly, and often very distinguished. The young couple entertained regularly. Rationing ended and new fruits appeared in the shops. Fashion recovered from wartime austerity, and new clothes could be bought. Coffee bars and restaurants opened. Television entered most houses, though not the Thatchers. The couple attended cinemas and theatres, although ‘kitchen sink drama' was never as popular with Margaret Thatcher as
South Pacific
. Ascot, the Derby, Henley and Wimbledon once more became the province of gossip writers – a taste Margaret Thatcher was a little ashamed of. The high spot of this period was the coronation of the new Queen in 1953 – Margaret and Denis bought tickets just opposite Westminster Abbey – a good investment, as it poured with rain all the day and the young couple stayed dry.