My last column discussed Lady Thatcher and drink. It is now time to move on to sex. But there is little to say. Hard as it may be for moderns to contemplate, she was uxorious. A million years ago, in her days in opposition, I was in the House having a drink with an elderly Tory MP when she swept past. His already rheumy voice thickened with sentiment. ‘Ishn’t she a lovely little thing,’ he mused (not quite how I would have described the leader of our party). ‘But you should have sheen her when she first arrived. Oh, she was sho beautiful. We all tried to [have our wicked way with] her. None of us got anywhere.’ Back in 1959, when the competition was Bessie Braddock and Dame Irene Ward, she must indeed have looked like a film star.
Properly behaved herself, she was tolerant of others’ lapses, if sometimes a little naive. Once, at a shadow cabinet meeting, a colleague’s behaviour planted a doubt in her mind. Norman St John-Stevas rose, and apologised for leaving early; he was going to the Royal Academy dinner. ‘But Norman, I’m also going to the Academy dinner. And I’ve got two meetings after this shadow cabinet.’ ‘Ah, yes, Margaret; it takes me longer to change than it does you.’ Shortly afterwards, she asked the girls in her office whether Norman really was one of them and was astonished to be told that she must have been the last person in Parliament — in Britain — to notice.
The naiveté extended to language, as is well-documented: every prime minister needs a Willie, et al. Back in the days when Willie Whitelaw was indeed her stalwart in the battle against Jim Callaghan’s Labour party, I once heard her say: ‘I’ve told Willie he must cancel his lunch tomorrow, because I must leave someone in charge. Jim [note of contempt] left Michael Foot [fortissimo of contempt] in charge over Christmas, and Michael Foot couldn’t run pussy.’ In the same breath, she continued: ‘But I’ve been warned that I shouldn’t use that phrase, because it could mean something rather vulgar.’
She was not shocked by the usual round of exasperated male expletives. Once, in the first term of her premiership, at 4 a.m. during a speechwriting session, John Hoskyns grew impatient with Ian Gow: ‘Oh, Ian, don’t be so fucking stupid.’ Then, immediately, ‘I’m terribly sorry, Prime Minister, please forgive me. For a moment, I forgot where I was.’ At that instant, Denis put his head round the door. What he said was: ‘Anyone like another drink?’ What his body language said was: ‘It’s four o’clock. Are you lot trying to rewrite the Bible or something? Do none of you have beds to go to?’ The PM beamed at everybody, especially Denis, and said, ‘Don’t worry, John dear — I’ve heard it all before, you know.’
It is surprising to learn that Denis had a nervous breakdown. I would have thought that in his world, ‘nerves’ were what you feared when trying to hole a ten-foot putt. Denis with nervous trouble: the human personality is infinitely complex. We should all be grateful that he recovered, to be such a superb consort.
Apropos of consorts, Denis always got on well with Prince Philip (tell me that he ever suffered from a nervous disorder and I will give up any attempt to understand the human condition). Neither man was designed to walk three paces behind his wife.
In writing this column’s final tribute to Margaret Thatcher, I realised that there was a so far unrecorded comparison with Churchill. We cannot have enough of him; his most obiter of dicta are to be treasured. The same is true of her, but not, I think, of any other PM, which is instructive. Not as instructive as Nick Garland’s superb valediction, surely the finest cover in the history of this magazine, a secular nunc dimittis: Britannia saluting the bust of Thatcher and saying ‘Well done, my daughter.’
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