“Please don't let me preach to your readers …”

Coffee-time talk with the Prime Minister. 9.30 a.m. in her Downing Street study, brought me some arresting moments of surprise.

British men call her “formidable”. Russian men call her the Iron-Lady. I began to feel they were all wrong as she gave me a welcome that would have put anyone at ease. She looked so feminine too, in such a charming dress.

Practically her first words were “Please don't let me preach to your readers, in any way. I see some of the Press people criticise me for preaching. I don't preach.”

It was said with gentleness and she could have been reading my mind. We had asked if we could talk to her about how important she believes values to be in today's society and those which she, personally, holds to be most important.

Now the moment had come, it seemed a bit like asking her if she was Against Sin and For Virtue. Poor woman, I'd thought, what could she say without sounding as though she was sermonising?

Next moment I swallowed “sympathy” in one great mental gulp.

It's a singularly unhingeing experience to hear the First Lord of the Treasury saying to you, very directly, that she lists among her good standards “Paying your tax on time, paying your bills on time, living within your income, having some savings, being honest and conscientious.”

Not that I won't, don't, or am not - I hope. But as she talked on my [end p1] thoughts raced, in delayed shock and natural re-action. Tax on time?! As if PAYE doesn't see to that. Income: after gas, electricity, rates (and try not paying those bills on time) what's left for savings? If you do save, more tax, on interest. To be honest, Prime Minister, I often feel conscientiously broke and ripped-off.

But I lacked a seemly chance to say this though, even if I had reacted in such an outburst of words I don't think it would have offended her, nor ruffled her impregnable composure. It would merely have left me feeling churlish and ill-mannered.

From that point onwards I fully recognised I had come face to face with our most important politician and the most direct woman I had ever met, one who would never flinch from the task of telling us plain home-truths. It simply would not occur to her to evade them.

The day before she had given a lecture on “Women in a Changing World” and still very much on her mind were the consequences of the permissive society, particularly the increases in illegitimate births and divorce, both threats to secure family life.

Her personal values and standards, though she found those words “sort of - artificial - it's more … feelings” are rooted in family life, as a child, as a parent, as Prime Minister.

It was Margaret Thatcher as a child with whom I felt I might be able to identify so I asked for some memories of childhood.

“Warmth, contact, sharing,” she said at once. “I loved walking the mile from school to home in winter, there'd [end p2] be an open fire, we used to make toast. There were always people there … one of the good things of being self-employed and living over the business.” (Her father's grocer's shop in Grantham, Lincolnshire.)

“My parents always said ‘No matter what sort of problems you have, what sort of troubles, you always bring them home because this is the place where you can expect help, loyalty, affection, no matter what you've done.’ And it's always been the same with my children.

“I don't know which part of my background came from my Alfred Robertsfather being a great pillar of the local church, which from education, and which from the values absorbed from the family. My father took me about a great deal and I learnt from that. You don't really learn from books or the Commandments, you learn from people.

“We had a lot of friends and we shared with others and this sharing was very much a part of our duty. Duty was very much a part of our lives.”

A smile of pleasure lit her face at one memory of what this duty to share meant.

“I used to love cooking, with my Phoebe Stephensongrandmother and my Beatrice Robertsmother, both extremely good cooks. We had a batch of cooking twice a week and, always, something was sent out. Someone we knew liked home-made bread, or someone was ill. When things were difficult we all turned-to and helped.

“And then, we talked as a family; my grandmother lived with us so we talked across the generations … there was no television then.

“We were perhaps brought up a little bit in a Puritan way in that you never indulged yourself and therefore there was a slight criticism if you had too much pleasure, because that was not what life was about - then.” (World War II began six weeks before her fourteenth birthday.)

“Of course, with the war, life did change and there were very different views taken in the post-war period. There were in our house too, some of the very strict rules went and I think some of them had been too strict.” There, I felt, lay a key to understanding the woman behind the Prime Minister as I listened to her feelings about:

Children: “I just think that the worst thing you can do is to make a child feel, in any way, unwanted. So I am rather alarmed at the rate by which illegitimate births and divorces have risen.

“Illegitimacy means it's going to be difficult for those children to have the same security as others. so when a young girl is going to have an illegitimate baby it's for the family to rally round her, as well as other sources of help.”

Divorce: “I know many families where, frankly, it was better for the children, so I'm not anti in that sense. I hear people say there should never be any divorce when children are young but, sometimes, incompatibility is so great that there would be no life at all for them to come home to. You can never quite know what goes on behind someone else's front door, and can't set out to judge.”

Motherhood: “However busy we may be with practical duties, inside or outside the home, the most important thing of all is to give enough time and care to young children's needs and problems. There are some things for which only a parent will do.”

Housing: “All those communities in some of the older parts of cities … torn down! … big housing estates put up. Each of those communities had its own values … but what we did! With the best of motives, you know, not realising.

“Somehow people thought if you took a street and put it up - vertically - as a block of flats it would still be the same! A lift shaft is not the same as a street with people walking past your front door, having a word over the fence.

“We do live our lives saying ‘If only’ and if only instead of abolishing some of those communities we'd said, all right they may be back-to-back, have too few facilities, but we'll knock two houses into one to make more facilities - perhaps asked some of the people if they preferred to go elsewhere - that would have been so much better.”

Schools: “All sorts of things became unfashionable; grammar schools for example, which were marvellous, though the alternative schools weren't good enough … needed working up. But, if you had the ability you got to a grammar school.

“Then, selection by ability became totally unfashionable - almost wrong. So then there was an exam, (the 11-plus) and then it was thought that some children would fail it - so that was ‘wrong’ - and all of this was ridiculous. They tried to cut out the competition in life, well you can't … life is competitive.”

Welfare State: “… something done in a warm way, to help people who suffered misfortune for one reason or another, but I don't like it when you get sort of ‘claim societies’, as if people say ‘You have a right to this’ without anyone saying, as we were taught ‘If someone else is to have a right to something then we, through duty, have to go to provide it.’

“When we (world leaders) meet to debate international affairs and the economy, all of us tend to look at the Welfare State … get a little bit worried that it can undermine character if it is misused.

“… it should be a two-way bargain. It's the job of those who are fortunate to help provide for those who aren't. But some people would say ‘I only get £2 a week more if I work than if I don't, therefore, does it pay me to work?’

“The way I was brought up is to say ‘If you get £2 more a week it means that you're not, in fact, taking money from someone else but releasing it for someone else who's less fortunate.’

“Your first duty is to look after yourself and your family if you can, not to think ‘It's not worthwhile my working because I only get £2 more.’ Again we were brought up very much on ‘hard work is a virtue’. I remember that, very vividly.” (As Prime Minister her entitlements are £46,650. She chooses to draw only £37,410).

Standards: “We (the British of her generation, she's 56) were brought up to know that Britain's word was its bond, to be very proud of being honest, honourable, law-abiding, to be the sort of people who didn't need to be told what to do but to take the initiative, to learn self-discipline. Certain standards were accepted as right, or wrong.

“Then some of these things became rather de-bunked - the word duty became de-bunked - almost ‘unfashionable’. Now I think they're coming back again … and also, all sorts of things … the patriotism …”

Patriotism: “I was so very impressed with the schoolchildren who had to leave their cruise ship, Uganda, when it was needed for the Falklands. When asked were they upset, disappointed, they said ‘no’. They thought it much more important that Uganda should be a hospital ship. They were marvellous. Suddenly one realised, values and standards are still there …”

Action: “History shows that good things come about through some people feeling ‘I can't stand this any longer. I have to do something about it, influence public opinion,’ like Wilber-force, Shaftesbury (the slave trade and child labour reformers).

“This is very much my childhood in the sense that I was taught, very strongly, to try to follow that example … if something is wrong … don't confine yourself to making a speech about it, do something.”

Falklands: “An experience I hope never to have to go through again … never. I couldn't have managed without my own family at that time, don't think I could have managed through many of the difficult times without them.” Did her husband, or children, wait up for her when her working days stretched into nights?

“Yes, and often,” she said gratefully, “especially when there are bad times, they just know and are around.

“I'm quite a good cook you know. I have no cook at No. 10 so, if we come in late, it's just nice to go into your own kitchen and do something.” Then the meticulous honesty so deeply engraved in childhood made her add, “Of course, when one entertains, all the entertaining facilities are brought in.”

An aide reminded her: “Prime Minister, your 10.30 meeting.” She remained unhurried, kind, and so courteous to the last punctual second of the hour she had promised to give me. As I left eight ministers and officials filed in, each with a respectful “Good Morning, Prime Minister.”

Would her manner change for them, from mild to - formidable? I was sure it wouldn't, she would continue to be herself - something men don't quite say - gently formidable - perhaps the secret of her control over them.

In the ante-room outside her study there was a light fragrance. I traced it to a beautiful table on which stood an even more beautiful bowl … filled with lavender pot-pourri.

I followed the aide down the staircase lined with portraits of previous Prime Ministers. Looking at their craggy or jowled faces it wasn't difficult to recall the whiff of cigar smoke.

Would they have … what was the word … admonished? … in that almost fondly parental manner?

One day the framed portrait of Margaret Thatcher's serene and delicately-shaped face will be placed there too, our first woman Premier and the one who kept a bowl of dried lavender outside her study.

Maybe because of that lavender the word “admonished” was troubling me. It implied a finger-wagging “Now-let-me-tell-you“ attitude. But not for a moment had she been like that, nor had she preached. Indeed, using the plural as she often does, she'd murmured “We're very conscious of our own imperfections too, so don't - er - indicate we're not.”

At home, I went straight to the dictionary. “Admonish” it said “To put in mind of duties … give authoritative counsel.” Yet I was still surprised to find that that did seem to be what we had received.• [end p3]

(2) Thatcher Archive extract MT

Grammar Schools. You got on in those State schools by sheer ability. Never mind your background - if you had the ability you got on and you went to a grammar school. Now the trouble wasn't with the grammar schools; they were marvellous, but the alternative schools weren't good enough. What we had to do was to work up the alternative schools. But those selected by ability too became totally unfashionable, almost wrong. They tried to cut out competition in life, while you cannot cut it out in sports, and life is competitive, and then they just thought that you had an exam and some people would fail and that was wrong, and all of this was ridiculous.