UH
One thing that fascinates me. I have never known you cancel an engagement because of ill health. I can't find anything in cuttings apart from when you had your leg done.
PM
Oh well, that was all done so that I—I did that in the middle of August. Cancel an engagement? When I came back from the Falklands I had to go straight down to Bristol to do the Trade Unionists mass meeting and I had a private thing on with the constituency and because I had Brian Walden next day then I said—look it's better that I concentrate on doing Brian Walden next day. That was merely just a combination of things.
UH
You weren't exhausted?
PM
No, no, no. Good Lord, no. No, I got down I was all on television at Bristol, etc. But you know, I don't know. I have no idea. Don't you think that some people … it's a combination of being constitutionally strong and years and years of training, and years and years of living this way.
UH
Do you find that if, say, you have got a cold and you're feeling a bit, not very well, if you carry on it will go away?
PM
I personally think that if you stay in an airless room when you've got a cold it will take much longer to go away and you need to take your mind off it. But then I am an inveterate taker of Vitamin C. I really am. Inveterate taker of Vitamin C. And however many colds I sometimes get, I never have a fever with them, never.
UH
But you do get the odd cold?
PM
Good Lord, yes. Yes, I got one coming back. … Yes, my immunities didn't extend to the South Atlantic.
UH
Yes, but you do have amazing energy.
PM
Yes, one does. Everyone comments on it. To me it's just perfectly natural. Perfectly natural.
UH
No other vitamins? [end p1]
PM
No, I don't really need any others. Now and then a B. Vitamins B and C. But the C is the one to keep going always, because I think that just helps you. Basically I just have a wonderful philosophy in life, you don't want to take lots of medicines or pills, the only things you want to take are those which help your own body to deal with whatever it has to deal with.
UH
Do you ever take sleeping pills?
PM
Never. Never.
UH
You never need to, or?
PM
Now and then one is very worried and doesn't sleep very well, but, and the worries will pass and then there comes a time when you do sleep well. But no. I remember Doctor—I had a very long air flight to do—giving me some tablets and saying now these really will see that you sleep at least for four hours. I took them—I was wide awake after an hour and a half. So wide awake, you know, much more wide awake than I would ever had been if I hadn't. Yes, they knocked me out for one and a half hours. After that I was wide awake. So I have never taken any since.
UH
Does it have the reverse effect on you do you think?
PM
I have no idea. But I don't like taking pills. Vitamins I don't mind. As I say C—I'm a devotee of Vitamin C in limited numbers and I think that even if you get a cold, it can't always stop you getting a cold, it stops you from getting a fever. It has me.
UH
And how many hours sleep do you get … seven did I hear?
PM
Good Lord, no. Very rarely I admit. It will vary four or five a night. And then I like one decent night's sleep, you know, at weekends. But usually you see I come back very late. Last week I don't think I was in bed before two o'clock because we had rather heavy, we were across at the House quite late, and a lot of evening engagements, and I have to try to do quite a bit when I can. [end p2]
UH
But you must have a lot of stress?
PM
Yes, you know I've come to the conclusion—I saw an article by Tom Stoppard 's wife that said some people, it was about me actually, that some people have learned to deal with stress. It had never occurred to me. But the stress of course was at its greatest during the Falklands. And of course it was of a totally different kind. But she may be right. But again I think the way to deal with it is by having so much to do that things cannot prey on your mind. Because you do something, you do your level best as much as you can. Now you haven't then got to sit down, when you've completed everything you have been doing and search your mind as to whether you can do anything else. You haven't then got time to brood and brood and brood. You have then got to go on to the next problem. Because the next problem is calling for your attention.
UH
As Prime Minister are you basically left with the final decision? Let's say something as dramatic as the sinking of the Belgrano. Would that have been a decision you would have to take?
PM
Well, once you are in war you have other codes and rules of engagement. And things have to be within the rules of engagement. You cannot fight a war—I say nothing about the Belgrano—you cannot, what I am saying is that you cannot fight a war behind the Cabinet table. You can give certain general rules of engagement and general strategies but the actual handling of the thing has to be left to the people on the spot.
UH
So really a lot of big decisions would finally be yours, would they?
PM
Most of the decisions are finally discussed between groups of Ministers. That is why you have a Cabinet, why you have Cabinet Committees. Why you have War Cabinets. And you come to an agreement between all the big things, all the big things. You have to have more than one. If it's something that has to be done quickly then obviously you call one or two people very very quickly. But always it's a group, always a group. But this is why again you have a—three, four, two minds are better than one, three minds are [end p3] better than two, if you have four or five you will manage to get most of the points which would otherwise be raised. And people see it from different angles and a brief discussion will always help, it doesn't matter what time of the day or night. A brief discussion will always help. You see the thing that you must not forget is that I have no Department. So I have got to get the Departmental news of Ministers. Now when, if there is a division of opinion then yes, it is once … (UH interrupts) But you do it of course by persuading and by putting your view and by arguing your view and by getting your view through. But it is, in democracy, it is a different thing between dictate and democracy. I am working with persuasion. We have no other way than persuasion and a just law.
UH
What do you do for relaxation Mrs. Thatcher. If you ever have time to do anything?
PM
What do we do? Well, I don't get a great deal. What do I do? Well, one has somehow to keep a house going. All right, I have help, I have two of the most marvellous ladies who come in each day. But even then, I mean you have got to do a number of things. You can do them sometimes at the weekends. I have got to get things back in the place where they ought to be. You know your shoes and your clothes. The kitchen when I come back usually looks as if a bomb has hit it and you have got to get things back in their right positions. You don't do it regularly. And you've got to go and have a look at the airing cupboard and put things back in their right positions. You've got to have a look and see if the drawers are reasonably tidy. And I quite enjoy it. Yes, I have run my life in a fairly orderly way and I do like everything in its place. There is a place for everything. You see, it isn't always like that mid-week and so we have got to do quite a bit of tidying up and getting things back so they are ready for the next week. And having a look, have we got enough in the deep freeze? What has got to be ordered? What has got to be done?
UH
Which home, though? I mean where are we?
PM
Where are we? And have I got … . I can't find something now where is it? Its down at the other end. Or did I leave it down [end p4] at Scotney? Goodness me, I haven't been to Scotney for four or five months. I can't remember—is that cardigan down at Scotney?
UH
Do you see much of your own home now? Do you get any chance to?
PM
Not a great deal. I dash around to—the family are there, of course, much more than I. And when it's known that I am going, there is a great rush to get everything tidy. So one has to give a bit of notice, otherwise … . I think that it's really when you have your own home, and you know that when you have your own home you become much more tidy I think. The family still expect things to be picked up for them.
UH
Where is your favourite place to be?
PM
Favourite place. Well, I have lived in London for so long that certainly I think I will always have quite a large part of my life in London. But for me it would not be enough—I have got to get out to the country. I have got to. (interruption from UH) I think you just appreciate it. You don't really appreciate, I think, the full beauties of the countryside and nature until you get away. It really is so very beautiful. You know a woodland in spring, a woodland with bluebells in spring. I think it's one of the most lovely sights.
UH
Do you have many friends outside of politics?
PM
… . I have built two gardens in my life and then left them. Always rhododendron and acid soil gardens. And …
UH
You actually like gardening do you?
PM
I like gardening yes. I like building a garden.
UH
And what about, do you have friends outside of politics?
PM
Yes, one does have some friends outside politics. Increasingly one doesn't see enough of them. You always have friends in things that you have worked with, in industry or in law. But more and [end p5] more of course you tend to have your friends in political contacts. But you do meet a lot of people in politics, from all walks of life. And I love going to theatre, I love theatre. But very very rarely do I go. But you meet quite a lot of people again in charitable work because we do quite a lot, try to do a lot, raising quite a lot of money here. And the theatrical and film community are very very good. You know we had a Variety Club dinner here and the Lord's Taverners here. We had the NSPCC here and then we do some fund-raising money for the arts. You can't do it too often. But we do quite a lot of things a month. And just on Saturday night I got back from Bournemouth, there was the nicest thing on BBC 2—did you watch it?—oh, it was marvellous. Of course it's just a thing that one can watch now if you have a video, in fact it was on BBC 2 but I thought if only I had taken a video of it and I didn't. I love music, I mean really to just put a cassette on to take you completely out of your problems. It is very emotional. It's absorbing, not emotional, absorbing.
UH
I suppose you don't really get time to go to concerts and things?
PM
Not really.
UH
Can I just ask you which two gardens you left behind?
PM
Which two gardens you left behind? One was in Farnborough when we had a house in Farnborough, and the other, the big garden which we were slowly getting in order in Lamberhurst before we sold our house there and moved back to London. We had our house at Lamberhurst, and we then had to move back to London.
UH
You sound as if you were more upset about leaving the gardens than leaving the houses?
PM
Well, once you start. You start to put rhododendrons in and heather and azaleas and we started to put bluebells in the wood because there weren't bluebells in the wood and we started to clear the wood from brambles and thickets. And they of course you get them all in and you start … and they really don't come to fruition until eleven or twelve years after. (UH: Missing the best of it?) [end p6] But there you are, the one that we have where we have a flat at Scotney is a more breath-taking garden than I could ever have. But, whatever your garden, you like to create it yourself.
UH
Do you ever give private dinner parties which you cook for? Or is that something that you …
PM
Not now. I used to.
UH
Do you miss that?
PM
Yes, one does. One misses what I call pottering in the kitchen. And really I haven't been down, and I certainly haven't pottered in the kitchen at Scotney, but really what I like best is to go down there for about five days in the summer and just potter. And again always you turn everything out so that it's perfect and you turn everything out so that it's absolutely spanking when you leave. And you daren't cook because you are mucking up the saucepans which you have got in absolutely superb condition. And I also do move furniture around. Some women do and I am always prepared to try it in a different place, yes, or move it from room to room.
UH
Do you see a lot of your children?
PM
Well, fortunately they come in and out a great deal. I loved it when Carol ThatcherCarol came back from Australia because we saw very little of her when she was there.
UH
She's doing awfully well, isn't she?
PM
Yes she's very able and very talented.
UH
And she's popular …
PM
Oh yes. It was jolly difficult for her. If you have a mum like me I'm very sorry for them, because they do anything that remotely attracts the attention of the gossip columnists and once you put it in print it looks infinitely worse or more significant than it is in real life, and I think they have a rough time. [end p7]
UH
Yes, it's not easy.
PM
No, and I think they have a rough time. No, they are in and out. Notes left all over the place. I have taken something, I have taken two books, or a pound of apples, or something like that.
UH
How did you manage when they were children, because you always had a very positive career?
PM
Yes, we were fortunate in that we had marvellous help. And again, when you go out to work you can. But always I was fortunate, but we arranged it like this. That I could always dash back if anything went wrong.
UH
Do you remember anything ever going wrong that you had to dash back for?
PM
No, but you know Mark ThatcherMark got an appendix but he got it on a Saturday morning. They … . or they have gone down with chicken pox or measles, it's always been somehow over the weekend. I got mumps from them I remember as, as child, I had not had them.
UH
Let me bring you back. You are very patriotic, aren't you?
PM
Oh yes. We were brought up like that.
UH
Can you remember your first moment of feeling, golly that's lovely, I'm patriotic?
PM
The Silver Jubilee of King George V and Queen Mary in our generation was a great occasion. Are we about the same age? You are a lot younger than I am?
UH
No, actually I am fifty-five, so …
PM
So you're about the same. Well, I remember that vividly. You see all the schools took part and we arranged great displays.
UH
Did you get a mug? [end p8]
PM
Yes, we got a mug. Yes, I got a mug and we arranged great displays which people came to and the whole town was decorated—it was a small town—and we lit bonfires and I remember that very very vividly. And we did scrapbooks and it really was a great coming together of the whole nation. And this I think is a tremendous thing you get from the Monarchy more than anything else. It is knitting together loyalty of the whole nation and you get the continuity. It's just marvellous.
UH
What about the war? Do you remember much about that? I know you were only a little girl …
PM
Yes I can remember. … I can remember just waiting. Well, I remember the crisis in Munich in 1938. Oh yes, I do. And then I remember going out with Beatrice Robertsmy mother to buy black-out material to make odd curtains. We didn't actually need it in 1938 but after Munich. But then things got worse. And I can remember just waiting in the living room with the radio. You remember Neville Chamberlain broadcasted at 1115—the ultimatum had expired at 1100 that morning. But whatever the shortcomings or rights and wrongs of Munich, the fact was that by that time the whole nation had no doubt about what we had to do.
UH
(unintelligible)
PM
Yes. I can remember one bad thing happening after another. The ships that were sunk in Scotland. Oh, I can remember … .
UH
Do you remember VE day?
PM
Oh good heavens, yes. I remember the darkest hours. We always used to listen to Winston ChurchillWinston on radio and we always used to listen to the postcript after the nine o'clock news on Sunday nights. And I remember saying to Alfred Robertsmy father, well one thing after another is happening. Well, I remember Dunkirk and I remember vividly one of our great friends coming into the shop and saying it is the greatest miracle that has happened since the crossing of the Red Sea. Oh yes, I can remember that vividly. … Oh, there are so many things etched on my mind, but again war brought out this way what mattered to our country. We were our country. [end p9]
UH
Because you have very strong feelings about the British character.
PM
Tremendously. It's the greatest thing. And again I remember being brought up in the early days that we British could take our own initiative. We didn't have to be told what to do. If everything has got difficult, you know, somehow we would find a way out, or a way through. And we were like this. Whereas with a dictatorship you have to be told what to do.
UH
A slightly political question, but do you not think that nowadays we are being told too much what to do, without taking the initiative?
PM
I think taking the initiative is coming back. You know when we had the last labour survey in 1981—we have only just got the results—we found 700,000 more people were self-employed than we knew about. Wasn't that interesting? But, you see, you found it again in the Falklands. People didn't have to be told they went along there … But they were fantastic. I can't stress that having the right upbringing really is the greatest riches in life you can ever have. Not physical riches.
UH
What were your parents like? What did they look like?
PM
They looked like? You've got photographs of them. My Alfred Robertsfather is about six feet tall and very fair, very very fair. Beatrice RobertsMy mother was darker haired and I should think a bit smaller than me. Everyone in our house worked hard. Hard work was the way to get on. And you did work hard because there was virtue in working hard. And of course people forget, they say I work hard, but so did my mother. She looked after her children, she had her own dress-making business so she made our clothes. And she could do upholstery. She could do all sorts of things and she helped my father run the business, she was a very good cook. We all helped in the church and anything voluntary, any good cause that was going. So we were a doing family, not a spectator family. If something was wrong it was your duty to lend a hand and try to get it right. So that was the way again that my father was in again on every voluntary, every good cause there was, and so was my mother. [end p10]
UH
And you lived above the shop then, and you live above the shop now.
PM
Yes, we live above the shop now. You see, you're never off duty. Very very similar.
UH
Do you find anything hurtful? I mean some of these things they say about you … .
PM
Oh yes, you do find it hurtful. Some of the horrid things which they say about you. I mean the great thing about my children is that they know full well that one isn't at all like that. But in the end you have to build a kind of armour around yourself because I now, I learn not to read some of those things. I read very little about myself, and if I come on television we all make a dive to turn it off.
UH
Some of them are really very cruel aren't they?
PM
I don't think there is anyone in politics, man or woman, who isn't hurt by those things. Because everyone is.
UH
I don't think I could bear that.
PM
Another thing which you have to remember is that it doesn't matter to anyone else as much as it matters to you. They will see it in perspective.
UH
Do you think being a woman …
PM
No, I don't think so at all.
UH
No I don't think there should be really, you probably have to try harder …
PM
Yes, but men have to try hard in politics as well. I think they emphasise it differently. I mean everyone is their own personality. Everyone has their own style and you know that in journalism. I think that people often say there are not enough women at the top and there aren't. I think I would have found it much much more difficult had we for example lived in Yorkshire [end p11] or Cornwall or somewhere in the middle of Wales. Because I would have found it very difficult, if not impossible, to leave my children mid-week and come to London. And I think this is the limiting factor and I would have found it extremely difficult if not impossible. Because I would have missed them and they would have missed me and I would have felt that I wasn't having sufficient influence on the way they were brought up. And this I think is aroused very deeply—having a family is I think the thing which affects parents more than anything else—more than anything else. And I was just very lucky. Sometimes fate does turn out the right way. You know I left my home town, I came to work in London, I married someone who had business in London, I got a London seat, I worked in London. I made jolly certain, all right the children went to private schools, they went to schools that were near.
UH
And your husband …
PM
No, Denis Thatcherhe always encouraged me, always encouraged me. He thought it would be a waste if I didn't. And responsibility came to me really. The great thing about English politics is that you are not suddenly thrust in at the top. It's not like American politics—you can suddenly come from the provinces right to the top. We work our way up the ladder, rung by rung by rung. And so by the time I came to be a Cabinet Minister the children were, what seventeen, eighteen, and I hadn't got any younger ones.
UH
Are they proud of you? Do they ever …
PM
Oh well, I am proud of them too. I think when you take life step by step you come to accept it as it goes along, it's part of their lives as well.
UH
Is there anything you regret not having done, having had to make sacrifices to …?
PM
Well I have had to sacrifice private life. You do but there isn't a job in the world more interesting than what I am doing now, more fascinating that I would rather do. And yes, you gladly sacrifice your private life because you are doing this most interesting and fascinating thing. [end p12]
UH
Do you ever get a, what I would describe as, “look Ma, I'm dancing” feeling about what has happened to you?
PM
Never, never. It never seems to me that there is anything strange or unusual about it. No, it doesn't. But that's because it's been a long journey, and I've gone at it a step at a time. It's like life, if you take it a day at a time it goes and when you look back and you see it then it does seem remarkable. But taking it a step at a time.
UH
You don't sort of wake up and think golly I'm …
PM
No. No, because I knew each step as I came here.
UH
That's interesting, it seems quite normal.
PM
And as you take one step then you look around before you take the next one. You take it when you feel that you can do it. It might stretch you a little bit. It's like, it's so very much like a sportsman. A good trainer makes you do each day something more than you could do the previous day, and as you do it you think it's beyond your grasp. But you go on and tell yourself you can do it.
UH
(interruption)
PM
But yes, it is really. That's how you train a person in sport. Or how you deal with a person who is ill. You don't sort of smile and ooze with sympathy you say “come on, you've got to get out of bed, take a couple of steps, that's right, marvellous. Now have a little rest and do it again, in an hour.” Always encourage them to do a little more. Encouragement is an extremely important part of life. You honestly get far more out of people if you give them a good pat on the back. And you do with children. You have got to drive them a little bit if they are lazy, but then a little praise and encouragement goes a long way.
UH
Nothing you regret ever having missed?
PM
Goodness me. I think I've had so much—pleasure, delight satisfaction, that we hardly ever come to anything that I may have [end p13] missed. And never never never think back to things that one may have missed. If I had a fairy godmother, I would ask her to give me the gift of being able to speak about thirty languages fluently. I just regret that we haven't all got a universal language the world over. You know we all have to learn a language—wouldn't it be better if we all had marvellous communication. (UH interrupts) Of course English is a rich language, rich in vocabulary.
UH
Do you speak French or any other language?
PM
I don't speak any other language fluently enough to do political discussions in.
UH
Anything else for the fairy godmother?
PM
No, no, no. No, only things which enable you to do your job better. Yes, I wish that I had kept on with my music more. I used to be very good at the piano. I wish I really had kept practising. I haven't done. One day I will take it up again.
UH
Were you a good pianist?
PM
Yes quite well. I was as a child but then I had to do a fantastic amount of study and there wasn't always a piano where I was and I didn't keep it going. And then after a time I couldn't bear to hear myself play because I hadn't been practising. One's standards were higher than one's performance.
UH
You are a bit like that all through life though, aren't you?
PM
Yes, I have very high standards.
UH
Well if you hadn't become a politician what do you think you might have done?
PM
I would have stuck with law.
UH
I often think your law training helps you with Question times? [end p14]
PM
Yes, I think it does. Yes. But there again it takes you a long time … You see, I don't know what the question is going to be and it can be anything from a reported hospital closure, the Chairman of the National Coal Board, the Middle East, any subject under the sun, to pensions to orders for ships, what's happening with the Electricity Board, or anything.
UH
And they just fling it to you?
PM
Yes and one after another. So we have to spend quite a long time, a couple of hours each day, you know to try to think now have I got all the facts and figures. It becomes cumulative of course.
UH
Let us hope, says she meaning it, that when we have an Election you get in next time. What do you think you, I mean the day will eventually come when you go out of politics, what would you like to do with your life then?
PM
Well, I think when you do, you have got a duty to back up the things in which you believe. You know, just when you cease to be at the top, you don't cease to have a role to back up those who are at the top. Yes, and you have got to go and help to put the case of the things in which you believe. You must always do that. But then I would, I would revert to doing some things in the house. I'm like, as I say Beatrice Robertsmy mother was practical and I am very practical, and I like doing practical things. I would give much more attention to music. And I think the nicest thing you can do is to have people in for the evening and talk.
UH
Yes which you don't have time for now.
PM
Yes, and one would like to do a hand over, of the experience one has gained, to younger people. You have to learn a lot of experience yourself but there are some pitfalls you can avoid by learning from other people. And I learned a lot from people who were prepared to teach me.
UH
Do you think you can learn politics satisfactorily? [end p15]
PM
You can't learn it any more than you can learn anything without I think wanting to do it. You have to have music in your blood, when I say in your blood, in your talents, in your abilities, in your aptitudes. I think you must have writing in your bones, music, writing, theatre, sometimes things like gardening, artistic things. So you are taught so I think you must have with politics—a feeling, a yen for politics. No matter how good your aptitudes, they won't be good enough unless you are trained, and you deliberately train and try to learn. Otherwise you will be throwing them away. I think you have a duty to do things. (UH interrupts)
My parents thought that I had a musical talent, at the age of five, therefore I was taught the piano. It was strange I was terribly insular. My great uncle made musical instruments, made organs, made pianos and made stringed instruments. He never made an enormous profit out of it but he made beautiful ones. And there are still some in the Midlands and in Northamptonshire now. And when I was taken to my music teacher, little little Miss Taylor—a Victorian lady, and she talked and she taught one well. And my mother took me into the room and the piano was open and then the piano was named John Roberts.
UH
How lovely.
PM
Yes, and that was my great uncle who had made it.
UH
How extraordinary. You come from a practical family.
PM
Yes, practical family. Practical in artistic things and very practical in household things. I would love, one day I must learn to do more do-it-yourself in the home.
UH
Oh well, you don't actually do a lot of decorating …
PM
Oh, I do a lot of decorating but I am not very much good a putting up shelves. Well, these days you can buy so much from the do-it-yourself shops.
UH
Well, I think that's about it. I suppose you wouldn't like to crown my career by telling me when the General Election is? [end p16]
PM
I don't know. I don't know yet. I have got enough to do without thinking of that at the moment.
UH
Well, I have asked the question I was told to ask. So that's all right. Well it's been a great pleasure and I do wish you luck when the election does happen.