Greg Freeman

Margaret Thatcher: how I missed my moment

Monday 15th April 2013 2:03 pm

My first and only, indirect encounter with Margaret Thatcher was in 1971, at a demo outside a private girls’ school in Leamington. The “milk snatcher, union basher” – the then-education secretary had introduced some legislation about student unions, but I can’t remember the significance of it now - was handing out the prizes at speech day. Protesters gathered outside the school gates. I was near the front; a sudden surge by Bristol Young Trotskyists, and I found myself, much to my surprise and indeed horror, with half a dozen others, on the other side of the police line. One brave, mad fool went running wildly towards the school, chased by coppers. Before I gathered my wits I was grabbed by a burly police sergeant, who tipped me, head-first, back into the crowd. I must have been a little lighter in those days. The throng was such that I didn’t hit the ground. Moments later a student housemate approached me and said: “Don’t worry. I managed to spit in his eye. I saw him wiping it away.” For some reason I wasn’t impressed; from the early days I lacked the necessary commitment.

A few days after the 1979 election, I was with a group of friends at a picnic beside a river in the Peak district, a few miles outside Sheffield, on a beautiful sunny day. I was struck by how seriously they took Labour’s defeat. I didn’t, thinking they’d soon be back in.

Then came the bitter, weary 80s: the riots, Falklands, miners’ strike, Wapping, poll tax. Our son’s first known words while watching the lunchtime news in 1986: “D[J]ack see Mrs Thatcher.” Driving back home after election nights, into another bloody blue dawn. Our two kids coming home from school and singing and dancing, unprompted, outside our gate on the day she resigned: “Ding, dong, the witch is dead.” And now it feels somehow that she’s back, to haunt us all once more, that it’s all happening again. But it can’t last. Not after Wednesday. Can it?

Margaret Thatcher

◄ Jones the Voice

The Eleven-Plus ►

Comments

jan oskar hansen

Sun 2nd Feb 2014 21:54

I used to live in Liverpool during some of the Thatcher years... and now that she is dead, one of my poems appear in a poetry collection about her, published in Liverpool

M.C. Newberry

Tue 16th Apr 2013 13:55

Hi Greg - I equate "You're entitled to your view" with the words "with respect"...not necessarily meaning exactly what they say :-))
My view is based on direct involvement in many instances and the wider state of the countryin the years leading up to the confrontation with the Scargill faction. It seemed that there were those in this country who would (and could) have brought it to its knees given the chance and the "proof of the pudding wasin the eating" in occurrence after occurrence. If there were "two countries", it was because the South, with its settled and substantial population, was increasingly disenchanted with activities and avarice it did not agree with or understand. You rightly admire Churchill as a great war leader, but his own early record confronting industrial unrest (when it was most certainly more justified given the far greater social/material deprivation) was of a hardline no-nonsense variety that earned him the hate of those involved. I recall that he took the "send in troops/police" view at the time. The nature of the times and political precedent tend to set the agenda for action by the government of any era. Thatcher had Heath's experience/downfall to bolster her decisions and actions. The likes of "Red Robbo", Scargill et al represented the crocodiles which Churchill himself believed could not be appeased and, it can be argued, the miners' strike and its residual effects were a direct result of all that had gone before in year after year of demands and disputes that were so damaging to the country and its prospects in the emerging global economy. Even Neil Kinnock had to disassociate himself from the Militant Tendency and the likes of Derek Hatton to retain any chance of popular or even Party support. It was too late for him, but Tony Blair was the ultimate beneficiary.

<Deleted User> (11039)

Tue 16th Apr 2013 10:48

I don't dispute, Greg, that Thatcher was a nasty piece of work, ultimately with an arrogance and self belief that bordered on insanity. Nevertheless, at the time she came to power Britain was an international embarrassment. Even the USSR thought our products were too shoddy to buy. Something drastic had to be done.

Greg Freeman

Mon 15th Apr 2013 17:37

You're entitled to your view, MC. But just so there's no misunderstanding, I was living for most of the 80s in Surrey, albeit working for a leftish newspaper. During that time I felt I was in an occupied country, occupied by the right and their newspapers that demonised and caricatured any opposition. Two tribes? Thatcher greased things so that her son could make money, there's no getting away from that, and insisted that he inherit her husband's baronetcy. Not a shining example, really, of anything except how to make money without really working for it. Which brings us back to the bankers ... I might add that I greatly admire Churchill as a war leader and as an orator whose words still send shivers down the spine, and indeed, bring tears to the eyes. It deeply saddens me as a Briton that the staging of this funeral suggests that Thatcher was his equal. It is a stain on this country.

M.C. Newberry

Mon 15th Apr 2013 16:30

A very readable personal perspective. I saw things from a different one here in London and the South, especially with regard to protest and violence when it seemed that hardly a week went by without someone demanding more - or refusing to accept the word "no" (the latter was never popular after the era of the "swinging/permissive 60s). It seemed that if something couldn't be got on demand then mob force and intimidation came next...whatever the interest or employment..as unions flexed their muscle while prohibitive practices were confronted (print workers working a few hours for a full day's pay was one example). Then there were the dockers (jobs for the boys only!!)...when container traffic was rapidly growing and the old London docks were having to give way to the new container ports down river. It was a time of massive sea-change and it needed a firm, often harsh, hand at the wheel of government, however unpalatable that became to many who were not able to adapt or prepared see their way of life dismantled by the force of unstoppable change and progress in a comparatively brief period of our social history.
The one "constant" at any "demo" were the banners of
the Socialist Workers Party - a double-dip oxymoron,
if ever there was one!

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