Interviewer
Thank you, Prime Minister, for joining us on Radio Marsden today.
Prime Minister
My pleasure. Thank you very much for that wonderful introduction.
Interviewer
I would like to start if I may the ball rolling by asking you if you can possibly recall some of those early years that were spent at the family's greengrocer shop in Grantham, Lincolnshire, and ask you to share with us perhaps some of your happiest childhood memories. [end p1]
Prime Minister
I think the most important thing that I remember about it, apart from the day-to-day things, is that it was a very wholesome atmosphere. In those days we had no television so we relied on talking to one another, so we knew one another, so we had a sense of community.
Our shop, a grocers shop, was a place where people not only came to buy their groceries but Alfred Robertsmy father was interested in everything that went on and they came in, we used to stay open late on a Friday night, a Saturday night—Friday night until 8.00, Saturday night until 9.00—and people would drop in for a talk.
So they always talked about the political things of the day and it was warm. We thought about one another, we felt for one another. If there was someone in need of help we knew about it and you kind of enfolded them into the circle.
I have this enduring memory when we were all one community, each playing our part in it, we all automatically went to help one another, we had one another in for tea or supper, we went out for walks together, we went out to treats together. There would be a Sunday School treat, a treat was a great thing in those days. Sometimes the things that we used to regard as a treat, people regard as a daily occurrence now. It was a treat to go to a film. It was a treat to go out on a Bank Holiday where perhaps you went to see some lovely gardens, to a lovely house. [end p2]
But there was a togetherness, a neighbourliness, a warmth, which somehow you do not always get in the bigger city.
Interviewer
And of course a trip every Sunday to church, you were brought up a Methodist.
Prime Minister
Oh yes indeed, yes. My Alfred Robertsfather was a very great churchman and he was also a very good lay-preacher, he spent a lot of time over his sermons. I came across some of the preparation of sermons after his death and realised how much time he spent.
And he had a gift of language, he was a natural speaker, and this was known locally. He was a founder member of our Rotary Club in Grantham and always, I remember one evening, we went to many Rotary occasions, again they were discussion groups and if ever it was a vote of thanks to the Speaker the then President would say: “Well now Alf, would you like to give the vote of thanks?” , without any notice. And my father would get up and do it and he was a very very well read man.
He had to leave school at the age of thirteen, there were not the opportunities in those days which there were in my generation, so he was self-educated and read more widely than almost any other person I knew. [end p3]
And when you read widely there is always some experience, or it passes into your sort of acquired experience. And so he always had, although he was a local man, he always had the horizons and views of an educated person who looked out on to the world.
And I think, and I expect quite a number of your people will agree, that you always try to give your own children the things which you felt you lacked. And my father, I think today he would have gone to university. But he felt that he lacked the education and so he constantly saw that we read and that if there was any occasion or any well known person, whether it be in the literary world, the political world or the arts world who came to Grantham, we would go to the music concert, we would go to hear the lecture, we would go to the great occasion. And also we read and we discussed things with him.
I just hope you know that one tried to give one's own children as complete a family background as I had. But then by that time we had television and television opens your eyes to many things but it stops certain things, it stops the sort of automatic conversation, the talking across generations, the fact that you also used to talk to aunts, to grandmas, and we must just watch this. People must not live their lives in horizontal layers of age groups. [end p4]
Interviewer
I want to ask you, returning to your time at school, did you shine at a particular subject there and at what age did you become aware that politics would in fact be your chosen career?
Prime Minister
I do not think I shone in a particular subject. I was always very worried that I was not a very good exponent of art. I could do design, I could copy and do a flower and shade it because I had something to look at, I could do the architectural drawings because you were taught you know how to do them, but as for drawing a face or a person or activity, I found that very very difficult indeed. But nevertheless we had a very good art mistress who did teach one how to appreciate other good pictures.
I always wish that I had had a natural gift of languages, I did not, I had to work at them. I think if ever I would have a dream wish you know it would be that one day one could wake up speaking a dozen different languages, it would make it so much easier to converse.
When did I become aware that I wanted to make politics my career? Not until after I had left school and started university. I had this passionate interest in it because my father was interested in it and they were interesting times, the Thirties. You had enormous home problems and also we had the rise of Hitler which everyone was soon talking about and discussing. [end p5]
But it was never possible you see, even though we knew our local MP and we helped him in local elections, and father was a local Councillor, but it was never possible for me to think in those terms because we all had to earn our own living and work hard at it. We had not any money except that which we earned and MPs were not paid enough to live on.
So it was not possible for me, until the post-war period, when all of a sudden MPs were paid £1,000 a year which made it possible, if you were a single woman or single person, to think in terms of a career.
I was always talking about, if I say current events and international events, and I remember after just an evening party we had in someone else's house, I was staying with a friends, and you always finish up in the kitchen after an evening party, don't you find so? We always used to, you went back and you were still sort of bubbling over and you did not want to go to bed straight away so you always finished up in the kitchen, it would be a cup of tea or a cup of coffee, and you sat down and talked and wound down.
And I remember suddenly someone saying to me, and defining it: “Well, what you really would like is a political career, wouldn't you?” , so I sat and I said “Yes, I suppose so but you know I am a chemist, I am taking a chemistry degree, and I do not think that I will ever be able to afford it” , but it was kind of all of a sudden, it crystallised in that, but it only became possible because MPs were paid. [end p6]
In those days you were not paid for secretarial help at all but it became possible out of that to pay for some secretarial help and to consider it. It was not until years later that the ambition was realised, but nevertheless it enabled me to carry on always with a passionate interest in politics.
Interviewer
Approaching now ten years as Prime Minister, I would like to ask you what you would consider to be the most difficult aspect of that job?
Prime Minister
Do you know, every day has its difficulties and its challenges, but it is the unexpected that really happens that is something that you cannot prepare for except by virtue of years of experience and years of having worked hard.
Now I was born and bred as a hard worker, you know this is part of our religion, you are here to work and to think of other people, and your character matters more than money. Those are the things that I was brought up with, you are here to work, you are here to think of other people and character matters far more than money. [end p7]
So I worked and worked, and every opportunity to learn, or to learn from other people's experience by these great talks I was privileged to hear, it trains you sub-consciously for the unexpected.
The Falklands, when that happened, I remember to this day, it is etched on my mind when suddenly two people dashed into my room at the House and said: “Look, we have information that the Argentine fleet is sailing, we have information that it may be sailing for the Falklands or it may be another exercise” . That was the Wednesday and then we did not know whether it was going to invade or not, and then it did, and all of a sudden you have to deal with a problem.
Now that was 1982, I had had a little bit of experience as Prime Minister by that time but do not forget in this country you do not suddenly come to be a Cabinet Minister, it takes you a long time to climb up the ladder. I had had years of experience as a Member of Parliament, then as a Junior Minister, then I had been a Cabinet Minister, then I had been a Leader of the Opposition, and by that time I had been a Prime Minister. So you do not go from nothing to the top rung of the ladder, you climb each step.
And then the other thing was the thing that came comparatively suddenly and we had to consider very carefully, was the raid on Libya, using the bases here. [end p8]
You will get other things put to you suddenly because there is quite a negotiating tactic when you are negotiating hard with other Ministers from other nations. Of course in Europe there are twelve of us; in the Economic Summit there are seven Heads of Government, including Japan, the United States and Canada and the four of us from Europe. Or you will be doing a negotiation with one other Head of Government.
I learned then what you have to watch for is the sudden unexpected proposition and someone asking you for an instant reaction, and it happens with the press, instant communications demand instant reactions, and that is when you have to be extremely careful because you could say something in the moment which would compromise your capacity to act afterwards or which would give a wrong impression.
You know that you have to say something, and again all my training has been before you make a judgment first find the facts. Often the story is not as it first seems or you have only got one side of it, or half of it, or it has been misrepresented. And for that it is years again of training. First find the facts.
Many is the time I have said: “You know full well, when you put a sudden thing to me, I do not know whether it is true or not, I do not know whether you have got the whole story, I will go back and look at it and first find the facts.” [end p9]
But if there is a danger of our age it is that television and radio, with five or six news programmes a day, require an instant comment for each new news programme and you must beware that you do not make a half-baked judgment because the best judgments are those that you have time to think about, deliberate, discuss and mature.
It is really rather like someone being faced with something suddenly. You know something that really angers you and you sit down and you dip your pen in acid and you write a letter the like of which you have never written before, and if you are wise you do not send it off, you put it aside overnight and you read it again in the morning and you think: “I just will not send it, I will tear it up” . And then you write one which is more reasoned and more moderate which puts your view, and you may have a legitimate grievance, which puts it in a reasonable, sensible way, and gives the other person a chance.
That is what it is like in politics, only quite a lot of the time.
Interviewer
We were talking about world politics and you of course are much travelled within the job as Prime Minister. I would like to ask you, of all the countries that you have actually visited, which one could you pin-point and say has been the most interesting? [end p10]
Prime Minister
I think the tour to Moscow was, which I did just over two years ago. Mr Gorbachev had been here, I did the visit to Russia, to Moscow and also to Tbilisi which of course in Georgia is so much in the news now. Because it was not just a talk from Head of Government to Head of Government. I really only spark when I meet people and their problems and so I did ask to do all kinds of things.
And also when I went to Poland, the same thing, I asked to do all kinds of things, by which time I was well enough known internationally for them to let me do those things because they did not like to refuse, and they were becoming open enough to do them.
And so when I went to Moscow I did insist on going to a church service because they were just allowing Christianity and Judaism a little bit more freedom, and of course there were masses of people there and masses of people outside and one began to realise the sort of pent-up belief there which they were longing to express.
And I did say “I want to go on to a very big housing estate, because I do not just want to meet all the top people, I want to go and see ordinary folk,” and there were crowds and crowds and I saw, they are not as gentle as we are you know, they were pushing back the people to let me through and I said: “No, no, no, stop that! Do not push them back” , you could see them stumbling, “Stop that, just gently” , and I would go up to talk to them, and it took time. [end p11]
And everywhere I went it was the response of ordinary people and it was the response to a person whom they knew had stood up always for freedom and that we must defend it, and for human rights and the rights of individuals. And they knew that if one stood up to the leaders for that, and went on standing up no matter what, that they could kind of trust you to go on standing up, and say our freedom and rule of law, which our judges developed over the years, will always be safe.
Interviewer
You are very very well respected for that I think around the world.
Prime Minister
Yes, you have to take an awful lot of stick for being firm and sometimes they confuse firmness with hardness. You are firm because you believe in the very best of human nature and know that come what may you must see that the very best, you know the hard work, the voluntary spirit of doing things for other people, gets through. And you never allow a dictatorship to try to oust those fundamental things.
It really was wonderful, absolutely fascinating. [end p12]
Interviewer
Now talking about relaxing, I would like to ask you, being such a busy lady, it must be very hard finding time to actually pursue a hobby. I think a former Prime Minister enjoyed painting very much and we have seen the glorious paintings around here in No 10 Downing Street, but what do you enjoy and find relaxing yourself?
Prime Minister
I most of all would just have a few people in to talk. Some people would perhaps relax to do something on their own. Our greatest joy is just to have a few people in for supper or just in to talk. I am afraid one tends to talk about things you know about, or to go out for an evening's music. Music, and again I was taught the piano from a very early age, the family was musical, my Alfred Robertsfather had a good bass voice, my Beatrice Robertsmother had a contralto voice, and we would gather round the piano and sing.
Music is something which lifts you right out of your own spirits and puts you into a different sphere. But it is not very often that we can do that, although we do have you know some of the lovely tapes that we can listen to, and we will turn to BBC 2 and listen to the great orchestras playing, which is marvellous.
We read, both of us, reading enlarges your mind and you know, really I think there is nothing like when you are worried and concerned and want to get things in perspective, nothing like talking to friends, but also there is nothing like going out in our country on a spring day and walking, seeing the beauty of the [end p13] countryside, the wild flowers, the flowering trees, coming out, climbing some of the hills, we do not have mountains here but there is something about climbing a hill.
Life is like climbing a hill. You know there is that poem: “Will the day's journey take the whole long day from morn' to night, my friend, life is like climbing a hill” , oh I know what it is: “Does the road wind uphill all the way? Yes, to the very end. Will the day's journey take the whole long day, from morn' to night my friend” .
That is a story of life, that is its challenge, each day something fresh. But to go out and get things in perspective, and you think, well, God is in his heaven, all is right with the world, and I must just try harder and use the talents and abilities which I have been given and enlarge my ideas as to what can be done.
I love spring, I love it best of all the seasons, with the new life shooting and I love the wild flowers of spring. At Chequers we have the most marvellous display of snowdrops, they come up in February, they push their way through the snow if we have snow. Then their place is taken by wild anenomes and then up come the daffodils and then the bluebells and the primroses and the winter achenites and then the flowering cherry and then the next thing that comes is the flowering chestnut, “Oh, for a walk in spring, oh, to be in England now that April's here” . [end p14]
Interviewer
You were saying about spring and going out and about and seeing the countryside, but do you sometimes perhaps find it that little frustrating and restricting that you are not able just to pop down to the end of the road and buy a pint of milk or go and get your own clothes from wherever?
Prime Minister
You do visit shops now and then, but I think the thing is that you do not do anything in a regular pattern for very obvious reasons, but one does dash out and one does dash into a crowd and one does go out for walks, which is one's great joy.
So one is able to do some of the normal things but never in a pattern, always unexpectedly.
Interviewer
About music again, I was going to ask that last question then, but I will leave it to now because Radio Marsden plays patients their own favourite piece of music, and you were talking about that earlier on, what would be your choice if you had a request on Radio Marsden?
Prime Minister
I think I would like to hear something from one of the great Oratorios. They were again so much a part of my early life, as the great church choirs took part in these Oratorios. [end p15]
And you know the great choral things, the Bach, the great St Matthew Passion. One of the great chorals from the St Matthew Passion, one of the great choruses from it. There is a marvellous one: “In tears of grief dear Lord we leave thee, hearts cry to thee Our Saviour dear” . It is a wonderful piece of music.
Either that or let us take something which everyone knows and loves, “I know that My Redeemer Liveth” which I remember Isobel Bailey, a wonderful soprano used to sing, or this fantastic Hallelujah Chorus which has never been excelled. Any of those.
Interviewer
That is nice, well perhaps we will play some of that for you. Thank you ever so much for joining us on Radio Marsden, Prime Minister, and for answering all those questions so eloquently, thank you.
Prime Minister
Thank you.
Interviewer
I wonder if you would like to send a get well message to all our patients who may be tuned right now to Radio Marsden at both the Royal Marsden Hospitals. [end p16]
Prime Minister
Oh, I would indeed. I have just been so very lucky and have enjoyed enormously good health, as indeed so many people do. And we do not appreciate it until something happens and you have something go wrong or you have something that you feel unwell, and so I know that when you are ill, the one thing that you want to do most of all is to get better and when you are better you just appreciate good health as never before.
I appreciate it enormously and I appreciate tremendously the work done by the doctors and nurses, with their tremendous skill and the research workers. I know that the best way to get well is to do everything they say and I know that all hope of getting better depends upon the faith that you can get better.
So may I send you every good wish and every good hope and faith that you will get better and be restored. And every hope that those diseases which we do not know quite how to overcome will one day be overcome so that we may the better use our lives and talents in greater service.