Saturday, April 13, 2013

Why everything you think you know about Maggie and Denis is wrong...

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Why everything you think you know about Maggie and Denis is wrong... HE was anything but a hen-pecked buffoon. SHE was a far better mother than she's painted

  • Margaret Roberts won several admirers in 1950 election, including Denis
  • All in all, they were an extraordinarily effective partnership
  • He complemented her strengths and made up for her deficiencies

By Robin Harris

PUBLISHED:17:19 EST, 11 April 2013| UPDATED:05:05 EST, 12 April 2013

When the 24-year-old Margaret Roberts decided to set her sights on a career in politics, it was clearly going to help her if she married a wealthy man.

But that was not her intention. The grocer’s daughter from Grantham, newly down from Oxford and working as a scientist, was no gold-digger. She fully expected to finance herself.

There is, in fact, no evidence that she had considered marrying at all. She’d had no romantic friendships with men, and by nature she was neither obviously wifely nor deeply maternal.

Life partners: Their 1951 wedding. Margaret would change her hair to blonde to please him

Life partners: Their 1951 wedding. Margaret would change her hair to blonde to please him

Celebrations: Margaret and Denis at his birthday party in 1985

Celebrations: Margaret and Denis at his birthday party in 1985

Adopted as the Tory candidate in the safe Labour seat of Dartford — on what we can now see was a proto-Thatcherite platform of good house-keeping of state resources, tax cuts and patriotism — she was repeatedly trumpeted as the youngest woman candidate in the 1950 general election. She was then, as later, adept at exploiting her femininity.

But she was already much more than just the token woman — as she showed by the energy, coolness, pluck and ingenuity she put into her restless, relentless campaigning.

Unusually for a Tory woman, she took her battle on to the factory floor and pulled beer in working men’s clubs, whose rules would ordinarily not have let her in at all.

She didn’t win the seat, but did win admirers of the opposite sex, among them local businessman, Denis Thatcher.

His family paint business, the Atlas Preservative Company, was based in the constituency and he was a leading member of the Conservative Association, with strong no-nonsense views, though without political ambitions himself.

Denis was in his mid-30s and on the rebound from an unhappy wartime marriage with a woman who looked remarkably like Margaret Roberts. He was lonely and she was an attractive, intelligent girl who had always preferred the company of older men.

Together: Denis is said to have complemented her strengths and made up for her deficiencies. The pair are pictured on holiday in Cornwall, in 1987

Together: Denis is said to have complemented her strengths and made up for her deficiencies. The pair are pictured on holiday in Cornwall, in 1987

Happy couple: Denis and Margaret married in December 1951 and their relationship would remain free from the scandals that often surround those at the top of politics

Happy couple: Denis and Margaret married in December 1951 and their relationship would remain free from the scandals that often surround those at the top of politics

Family: Margaret takes a stroll through the grounds of Scotney Castle, in Kent, with Denis and their children Mark and Carol, in March 1979

Family: Margaret takes a stroll through the grounds of Scotney Castle, in Kent, with Denis and their children Mark and Carol, in March 1979

Though he was far from good-looking, he was a ‘catch’. He had a certain dash, drove fast cars and knew the world.

He was also wealthy, and so would be able to support her political ambitions. There is no suggestion that Margaret married him for his money, but she would hardly have been human if this had not affected her decision.

For his part, Denis was none too keen to rush into another marriage after a first that had ended so painfully and so recently. Two years were to pass, during which time friendship slowly became courtship and an unshowy kind of love matured sufficiently to overcome their mutual hesitations.

They married in December 1951 and their relationship would remain free from the scandals that often surround those at the top of politics.

Success: Margaret and Denis, wave to the crowds form the Conservative central office in Smith Square, London, after she was elected to a third successive term of government following the general election

Success: Margaret and Denis, wave to the crowds form the Conservative central office in Smith Square, London, after she was elected to a third successive term of government following the general election

His money was enormously important to his wife’s success. Without it, she would probably have had to wait a good deal longer before entering Parliament, and she would have been strapped for cash when she had done so.

She did not deny the fact; she was not in the slightest bit ashamed of it; and she never ceased to be grateful to him for the opportunity he gave her.

But in the longer term, he turned out not to be an unqualified asset to her materially. He was not a particularly good businessman: he had shares in the family firm, which he managed, and he was lucky enough to sell his interest on terms that gave him a large pay-off and a good salary to boot.

It was one of the few good business decisions he ever made and was to prove a satisfactory basis for his own prosperity and his wife’s career. But it is significant that he left a very modest legacy at his death. This was because, throughout his life, and despite his training as an accountant and his eagle-eyed scrutiny of the Stock Exchange, he was a poor investor.

Once his wife had become Prime Minister, and even after her retirement, it was Denis who lived off her and not vice versa.

He matched her father, Alf Roberts, in his dislike of spending his own money. And while (in contrast to certain of his successors as prime ministerial consorts) he did not raise eyebrows about exploiting his position, he certainly made the best of it. He was a celebrity exclusively because of whom he married.

Denis was caricatured in the media as a crude, inebriated, hen-pecked dimwit, particularly in Private Eye’s ‘Dear Bill’ column. How much did he conform to the image? Only to a very limited extent, is the honest answer.

Certainly his language was occasionally coarse, his prejudices extreme, his directness sometimes an embarrassment. He did drink heavily, with no obvious effect, and in his later years seemed to live almost entirely on a diet of gin and cigarettes.

No threat to Saint Delia

Parents: Margaret and Denis with their children Mark and Carol in 1959

Parents: Margaret and Denis with their children Mark and Carol in 1959

Yet he was by no means subservient to his wife and neither was he a fool. He was well read, shrewd and cunning, while to the end Margaret retained an endearing and sometimes alarming trait of ingenuousness.

He knew what was expected of him and he was socially useful to his wife. He could, for example, exert an (affected) old-world charm with women and adopt a (more genuine) jovial matiness with men that helped break ice that his more serious spouse could not by herself have cracked.

But his main strength lay in his ability to judge character. While she could be dazzled, flattered or charmed, and was capable of making serious misjudgments about people, he was more earthy and distrustful. He was particularly suspicious of those who claimed to be personally loyal while politically opposed, a category that by the end of the Eighties would include a large contingent within her government. In this he was proved right.

Embrace: Margaret is reunited with Denis in 2003, as he returns home after recovering from a six-hour coronary by-pass operation

Embrace: Margaret is reunited with Denis in 2003, as he returns home after recovering from a six-hour coronary by-pass operation

They were, all in all, an extraordinarily effective partnership. He complemented her strengths and also made up for her deficiencies. He was a warm and protective presence just when she most needed it.

Nor was there any truth in the image many people had of him as the long-suffering, self-sacrificing spouse of a difficult harridan of a wife. She did not domineer.

Usually, and often surprisingly meekly, she deferred. She did not begrudge him his friendships or intrude on his hobbies, above all his passionate attachment to sport.

She kept house. She entertained. She was a good wife. And Denis was generally a good husband, though his saintliness has been exaggerated by some hagiographers.

It was to please him — and in imitation of his first wife — that she changed her hair from brunette to the blonde locks that became her trademark look.

In other ways, too, his tastes prevailed. He had a horror of any meat that was not over-cooked and, once married, she duly acquired that taste, too.

He expected his new wife to do everything in the home. He could not mend a fuse and could barely change a light bulb. It was fortunate she was not as impractical.

For a man of his generation, his old-fashioned views on the roles of husband and wife were not unusual. But his unwillingness to help bring up his children was, even then. It smacked of Edwardian or even Victorian assumptions.

It was entirely in character that when Mark and Carol were born in August 1953 by Caesarean section, DT was away watching cricket.

Nor did he intend to have his life disrupted by the twins when they and their mother came home. He acquired the lease of the adjoining flat in Chelsea and the children lived there with a nanny.

By the time Margaret entered the Commons as MP for Finchley — the seat she would hold for more than 30 years — the children were six and the Thatchers were living in a large house in Kent.

Literary launch: The pair are pictured in 1993 at the launch of her book 'The Downing Street Years'

Literary launch: The pair are pictured in 1993 at the launch of her book 'The Downing Street Years'

They moved there because it was convenient for Denis’s work. It was, however, a long way from her constituency and Westminster, and she had to call on all her organisational skills and much of her energy to supervise matters at home while making a mark in Parliament.

Of the children, Carol has for years been the public favourite. Her down-to-earth, robust and cheerful personality is favourably contrasted with that of her brother.

Mark is widely portrayed as the classic black sheep, a devious and discreditable weakling who causes trouble wherever he goes.

The reality in both cases is more complex. It is not easy to say whether Mrs Thatcher was in later years more affected by her daughter’s remoteness — and finally insensitivity — or her son’s scandals.

In power: Margaret and Denis wave to the crowds outside the Conservative Party headquarters on May 4, 1979, the day she became Britain's first female Prime Minister

In power: Margaret and Denis wave to the crowds outside the Conservative Party headquarters on May 4, 1979, the day she became Britain's first female Prime Minister

The notion that the difficult people they became stemmed from her failings as a mother — though she privately seemed to accept it — should be challenged.

If she spoilt Mark as a child, it was because he was often ill and unhappy. If she seemed to ignore Carol, it was because her daughter was less obviously needy — except, in later life, financially, when her mother’s generosity was enormous.

And what about Denis? It is the role of the father, not the mother, the power of paternal example rather than maternal love, which is usually decisive in how a son matures.

Mark’s problems are commonly attributed to his mother’s guilty over-compensation for her absence; they could arguably be blamed in greater measure on the other parent.

Then again, the assumption that children are always the psychological victims of their parents, rather than vice versa, should not pass unchallenged, either.

Another equally valid way of looking at the tangled web of Thatcher family relationships is that Margaret deserves credit for coping with the real or imagined problems of two difficult children at the same time as pursuing a successful political career and, later, running the country’s affairs. This took strength of character.

In some respects, Denis lacked that strength. Like many physically brave and superficially bluff men, he was also emotionally and psychologically fragile.

In 1964 he had some kind of breakdown and spent a year away from home, apparently travelling in Africa.

Margaret, by contrast, never cracked — whatever the pressure. She was the stoic, he was the tearful one. She was inclined to fight, he wanted to yield. Of course, it is sometimes more painful to experience suffering by proxy than in person, and this is what Denis had to do. He loved her and he felt for her.

To the end: Margaret makes a statement to reporters as Denis listens, as she leaves Downing Street in November 1990

Denis and Margaret after her landslide general election win in 1983

Through thick and thin: Margaret makes a statement to reporters as Denis listens, as she leaves Downing Street in November 1990 (left). The pair are pictured after her landslide general election win in 1983 (right)

Sealed with a kiss: Margaret gets a kiss from Denis in London, February 1975, after she had come out on top with 130 votes in the first round of the election for the Conservative party leadership

Sealed with a kiss: Margaret gets a kiss from Denis in London, February 1975, after she had come out on top with 130 votes in the first round of the election for the Conservative party leadership

Yet, for all that they complemented each other in what they brought to the marriage, the temperamental contrast between the two Thatcher spouses was very real — and very relevant.

It was Denis who suggested she should ‘pack it up’ when she was Education Secretary and reeling from being dubbed ‘the Milk Snatcher’.

He opposed her taking the huge risk involved in challenging Edward Heath for the party leadership.

He was involved in her considering resignation at the height of the Government’s early public expenditure crisis in 1981.

Even the way that he would often intervene to tell her to stop work and go to bed — fondly remembered by her aides — is part of the same picture.

Victory: The couple watch the Gulf Forces Victory Parade, in London, in June, 1991

Victory: The couple watch the Gulf Forces Victory Parade, in London, in June, 1991

On occasions, that was good advice. She worked too hard and for excessively long hours. She underrated the effect tiredness had on the quality of her decisions.

But the subliminal message from her husband was always that she should commit herself less comprehensively to the task in hand, and that was not always in her best interest.

Her consuming drive to master a subject was often all that stood between success and defeat. At crucial moments, everything depended on her, and only her. It was not always a kindness on Denis’s part to urge less effort.

When, in his wife’s difficult final days in office, he pressed her to pull out of the second ballot to retain her leadership, his concern for her arguably did her the greatest disservice of all.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2307709/Margaret-Denis-Thatcher-Why-think-know-wrong.html#ixzz2QMJWOWWq

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